Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

If a party withdraws the whip from an MP, they then sit as an independent, there is no by-election. Therefore, it follows that if someone leaves a particular party and does not join another (pushed or leave), they are free to vote as their conscience dictates, whoever is proposing a piece of legislation.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

Why are some of you Remainers missing the obvious, “elephant in the room”, each of these deflector MPs advocates a People’s Vote because Democracy never ends, apparently. (Their own words!!!).

Yet here they are, refusing to put themselves up for re-election in a by-election. They are total hypocrites.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

there are none so blind as those who will not see.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

Because, unless parliament votes for an extension to A50 there is no time for a new vote on the options facing us. this is the battle for us to fight for right now.

Get past Brexit first, then sort out by-elections, as if we leave regardless, these MPs raison d'etre is gone.

Apart from anything else, May has already held our the olive branch of a return to the fold to the former Tories, it is only Labour Momentum and former kippers who seem so desperate for by-elections.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

There should be By-Elections end of...

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

I tend to think that there should be by-elections, because the party affiliation was a big reason why all of them were elected in 2017.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

What happens with Brexit is immaterial as to what these MP's should do. They could have stayed in their respective parties and rebelled (ie voted against the party line). They chose to leave the respective partys. They should put themselves up for re-election.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

I can't get excited about this until there are something like 40 "Independents".

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

A parliamentary by-election is triggered when there is a vacancy. None of these MP have resigned from parliament.

As far as I am aware, MPs are still representatives and not delegates.

For example, in 2010, it was suggested that “Members should be required to cause a by-election if they defect to a different party from the one on whose manifesto they were elected”. However, the Government said that such a change would be “a major constitutional reform of the role of Members of Parliament and their independence” and that it had “no plans to do that”.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

You’re technically correct, however the letter and the spirit of the rules are not always quite the same thing. It has become commonplace in recent years for an MP to trigger a by election in the event they cross the floor or do anything else that calls their mandate into question.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

Technically MPs are not permitted to resign their seats. They have to "Take the Chiltern Hundreds".

Apart from a spate of UUP resignations over the 1985 Anglo Irish agreement, the majority of MPs resigned for alternative employment purposes, breaking parliamentary rules or ill health.

Of late only Zac Goldsmith and Mark Reckless resigned and stood on alternative platforms.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

And again the crux of the issue, that Angua seems to be conveniently missing is that each of the current 11 defectors have expressed a view that there should be a peoples vote, a 2nd EU Referendum, because there is now apparently new information, well defecting to a new political party, because you no longer support it's manifesto commitments that they were elected on, is a significant change and piece of new information, there should be a peoples vote, in the form of by-elections.

We now have 11 MPs currently not representing their constituencies, that they got elected on.

---------- Post added at 20:14 ---------- Previous post was at 20:06 ----------

Um, which is exactly what the current 11 are doing.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

Not that common though. Jared O'Mara didn't call one when he resigned the party. Fiona Onasanya we're not sure about because she has been convicted but not enough to be forced to resign and at the moment doesn't appear to want to do so. Frank Field didn't. John Woodcock has had the whip withdrawn so probably doesn't count. Stephen Lloyd resigned the Liberal Democrats to vote for May's deal too.

That's all this Parliament. Labour weren't especially concerned until now either.

That said I think they should call one.

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

The irony is if any of these folk had the courage of their convictions months ago we could have had 11 separate by-elections they could have treated as a proxy-Brexit referendum.

It’d have no legal standing of course but could have demonstrated a clear shift in public opinion if they stood on a single issue. If they all won convincingly it’d have some weight. If not however...

Re: 11 MPs leave their Parties to join The Independent Group
 

Only in their relative constituencies. What if the constituency voted remain originally? Clutching at straws again?