Yesterday, MPs voted on whether to give voters the power to sack misbehaving MPs. [2] The majority voted no, choosing to stick with the government’s recall law that takes this power out of our hands.

Days like these can be pretty disheartening. They remind us there’s a huge gap between the political system we want and the political system we have.

This won’t be the last opportunity MPs have to vote on this. It could technically be possible to get the changes we want. But, to be honest, it’s pretty unlikely. Not enough MPs are convinced that voters should decide when and why an MP gets sacked.

If you’d like to email your MP, Hugo Swire, and ask him why he voted against giving voters more power, please click here:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/real-recall-wrong-way

If you email your MP, you’ll notice that the candidates standing against them at the next election (if they have any yet!) will be copied in. This is important because it’ll show them the sort of things that voters in your area care about.

There are several options for next steps on our campaign. But for today, it feels right to pause and take stock of how far we’ve come. Together, we’ve convinced a huge chunk of MPs that voters should have the power over whether to sack MPs. Sadly, this time it wasn’t enough.