No Right to Party

Can a political party be too responsive to its constituents? Yes, according to British and European electoral law.

Your Party, a new British political party launched in February 2004, has no platform beyond that determined by its members via Internet voting. Your Party’s representatives are bound to vote as the online membership dictates. Such direct democracy is illegal, according to Philip Cowley and Richard Whitaker, political scientists at the University of Nottingham who argue Your Party violates European Parliament rules prohibiting members from being contractually obliged to vote a certain way. Further challenges may result from a 1947 British ruling that says parliamentarians must avoid "controlling or limiting the member’s complete independence and freedom of action."

The debate over representative vs. direct democracy isn’t new in Britain. In 1774, British philosopher and politician Edmund Burke explained to electors in Bristol why he sometimes voted against their wishes. "Your representative owes you, not his industry only," Burke argued, "but his judgment."