Brown faces revolt over embryo bill

[afleitch]

Personally I support the bill as it stands in the Commons. The issue here is whether or not the vote over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill should be a free vote; a conscience vote and on an issue like this, to me this should be a cross party free vote. Brown was against offering his party a free vote on the bill.

According to the BBC this has now progressed to;

'The prime minister is prepared to allow Labour MPs who oppose a controversial embryo bill to vote against pieces of the legislation, the BBC has learned.  The votes would be permitted only if they did not threaten the passage of the bill, a government official said.'

Which in short is still not a free vote. It's a conscience vote for some, or for everyone but only based upon whether or not the bill will pass.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is more a case of his inexperience as a legislative leader showing up than it is anything else. This will learn him not to mess with the Catholic Labour bloc.

Which in short is still not a free vote. It's a conscience vote for some, or for everyone but only based upon whether or not the bill will pass.

It isn't really a free vote but he can't offer that without being accused of caving in to a powerful faction in the PLP (and Leaders don't like to be seen to be doing that). It's probably a workable compromise.

(fwiw I'm actually opposed to the bill)

[Iosif is a COTHO]

Comments like these irritate me:

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And so most of your votes in Parliament are not about morality and ethics, you just follow whatever the Party line is? (Obviously, the answer is yes)

This is the worst thing about the parliamentary MP system, particularly here in Australia. 99% of the time, you don't really need MP's, you just need cyphers to make the numbers up. Every vote should be a free vote if you want a vaguely representative democracy.



That's regardless of the fact that I would support the bill. Any sense of a 'Catholic morality' is entirely alien to me.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Every vote should be a free vote if you want a vaguely representative democracy.

It's possible to argue the other way actually (you know; should the personal concerns of individual MP's be allowed to block the will of the people? Personally I think a compromise between those two extremes is best).

[Iosif is a COTHO]

I think the U.S congress has the best compromise. It's expected you'll vote with the party line most of the time, but you can still express yours and your constituents opinions.

In Australia, the ALP will expel you for crossing the floor. The Liberals won't, but it's only been done on their side a few times in the past decade, mostly on anti-asylum seeker and immigration bills.