Party Members expect Tory MPs to "normally support" the Government in Commons votes and call on regular rebels to be disciplined

By Jonathan Isaby

Last October I began writing regular dispatches about the rebelliousness of Conservative backbenchers, not least because it was not being recorded anywhere else (although Philip Cowley's excellent Revolts website has since got up and running again).

Some have interpreted my recording of the data as an endorsement of rebellious behaviour, as if to say that the more an MP defies the party whip, the better. This is not the case - as far as I am concerned I am merely analysing division lists and providing information which I know many find of interest. (I readily admit that there are occasionally issues on which I might find myself privately taking a minority "rebel" view, but I'm sure that is the case for virtually all readers too).

Earlier in the month, we recorded how 89% of Party members felt that Conservative MPs should "nearly always vote for legislation that was included in the Tory manifesto" (whereas only 51% agreed that they should "nearly always vote for legislation that was included in the Coalition Agreement").

In that most recent ConHome survey of 1,270 Conservative Party members, we also asked several other questions related to the voting behaviour of Tory MPs.

Only 8% agreed that Conservative backbenchers "should never rebel against the whip" (88% disagreed), with a huge majority - 91% in fact - taking the view that Conservative backbenchers "should normally support the Government and vote with the whip, but be prepared to rebel occasionally on issues that have a negative impact on their constituencies or on which they have a strong personal view" (just 8% disagreed).

However, 52% went on to agree that "Conservative MPs who regularly rebel should be disciplined by the Whips' Office" (with 39% disagreeing).

All of which begs the question, how exactly can MPs be disciplined by the whips?

There is no published manual as to how whips go about their work and the whips' code sees them take a vow of silence about their methods.

Much of their work is of course done in advance of votes, persuading and cajoling their flock to vote a particular way: if an MP is wavering about which lobby to enter on an issue, the whip will arrange for them to see the relevant minister or Secretary of State, or even haul them in for a chat with the Prime Minister if they feel it may persuade them to vote the right way.

Then there are the intimations about their future prospects: none-too-subtle hints are dropped that promotion could be on the cards, but that blotting the copybook with a rebellious vote could delay such preferment...

Yet the effectiveness of all of that depends on how ambitious the backbencher is. There are those who openly have no interest in a government job or who conclude that their chances of promotion are so low that they feel a whip cannot have a hold over them in that way. So the less ambitious and susceptible to pressure an MP is, the less power a whip can have over him or her.

It should be noted that the one thing that really riles whips is when an MP doesn't inform them in advance of their intention not to vote with the Government; even some of the most serial rebels earn a grudging respect from the whips as long as they are entirely straight about their intentions, but springing a rebellion on them by surprise is guaranteed to make you very unpopular, to put it mildly.

But even for those that do obstinately defy the whip, there is not a great deal that can be done immediately in terms of disciplining them.

The ultimate sanction, of course, is the withdrawal of the Tory whip, which amounts to temporary or permanent ex-communication from the party, and happens extremely rarely.

Something that a number of MPs tell me has happened after they have been rebellious is to find themselves being put onto a tedious public bill committee or Statutory Instrument, where they are expected to turn up, sit tight and say nothing for hours at a time, but to to be present in case of a division - the equivalent of a parliamentary detention, if you like.

Historically, whips could have denied a prized select committee seat to a rebel they wanted to punish. But they no longer have power over who sits on select committees, now that those places are allocated by election, so that option is no longer open to them.

In fact it may be rather further down the line that the whips get the better of MPs who have crossed them. Among the potential ways in which MPs I have spoken to reckon they could be "disciplined" over time are:

• being briefed against in conversations with journalists;
• being allocated a smaller, less plush or more inconveniently located office;
• seeing requests to be "slipped" from Commons votes refused;
• the party machine failing to come to their defence if unhelpful boundary changes are proposed;
• the party centrally not coming to their aid if their local association has a problem with them, or even trying to encourage a local association to consider deselecting them; 
• being allocated fewer resources from the party centrally come election time in terms of money and/or ministerial visits.