How Does Your MP Vote

How Does Your MP Vote?

This morning saw the election of Donald Trump as President-Elect of the United States.

Brexit and Trump.  Whether you like these two results or not, the masses of UK and US have apparently voted against so-called “social elites” and want change.  Whichever way you voted, we believe most will accept that there is both good and bad in both these results.  Our simple view though is that democracy must prevail.

In the UK, MP’s took the gamble by a 6 to 1 margin to vote to allow an EU referendum, despite the majority of MP’s actually suggesting they would vote personally to remain.  The gamble failed and even now, with the High Court ruling that Parliament must have a say, which we agree with to preserve justice, but with devisive headlines of “Judges v The People”.

It is right that MP’s debate terms for Brexit, but we also believe it is wrong to “show your hand” pre-negotiations with the EU. 

We suggest that an MP's duty is to carry out the will of the people they represent and not to vote based upon what they think is best for their constituents.   How do MPs know what is best?  How does anyone know what is best?

What does your MP do?

With these seismic events occurring both in the UK and the US, we thought it the right time to actually start taking notice of what our MP actually does and how they vote.  After all, we have elected them to do our will. 

• When are they in Parliament? 
• How active are they? 
• How do they vote? 
• Are they carrying out the wishes of their constituents or are they following “the party wips?”

Do you ever question your MP?

Has your MP ever personally asked you what you think about local and national issues?  Like many, we have never been asked and we believe we need to start questioning them.

Do you question them if they did not vote how would like them too? Do you question if they voted against what the people want or what is right and for the public good?  For example, this week many MP’s voted against standard UK wide sentences for criminals that attack police officers.  Do you have an opinion on this? When MPs vote themselves higher than inflation pay rises, do you question it?

Simple ways to question MPs

With this in mind, we decided to pay attention, get involved and to find the easiest pathways to find out more information and ask questions of the people that we elected.  We came up with the following:

“CommonVotes” App. - A new free, mobile phone and tablet application (app) was launched by Government last week showing you how your MP votes in parliamentary debates.  Search your phone apps now.

http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/ - Find your MP and their contact details.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/ - Details of all past and future scheduled debates in the House of Commons, the House of Lords and voting history for past motions, debates and bills.

https://www.writetothem.com/   - What has your MP done?  How many times where they in parliament, an easy route to write to them.

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/ - Profile of your MP, their voting trends and how do they normally vote, are they that active in Parliament?