” … The tendency – reinforced no doubt by the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal – has been to overlook the fact that MPs have long been, and should be now, the primary components of the unwritten British constitution.
It’s not just that the best of them perform a stupendously unrecognised social and public service, as Jo Cox was doing at the very time she was killed. It’s that while they are inevitably – and rightly – influenced by the party members and activists in their own constituencies, they are uniquely answerable beyond them to the wider electorate in those constituencies.
This is the absolute cornerstone of Britain’s system of representative democracy, including when it comes to deciding the country’s future or who should lead a party. MPs have to stand for election; they have to argue their case in front of the unconvinced – rather than merely the already converted – and they make their mistakes in public. …”
Though some MPs regrettably do not think of their wider electorate and some barely think of their narrower electorate – preferring the trappings of higher office which render them mute in Parliament about their constituencies.
East Devon Watch 