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To: UK Parliament
Make political pledges legally binding
Make political pledges legally binding unless the government revisits the electorate in order to amend the pledge
Why is this important?
In the UK a party can make pledges before an election and immediately do the opposite after taking office and the electorate can do nothing about it for 5 years despite the fact the party got elected based on the original pledges.
Examples from the 2010 UK election include the Tories announcing they had no plans to put up VAT and then announcing an increase to 20% 1.5 months after it, pledging no top down reorganisation of the NHS and then publishing a White paper 2 months after the election doing exactly that.
Personally I would consider getting votes on the basis of pledges that you have no intention of keeping as fraud, given how quickly the 2 examples above came after the election it seems unlikely that there was a unexpected change of circumstances to account for the change.
Since we can't deselect MPs that break pledges they made to get elected, any pledges made in the manifesto should be legally binding since it is those pledges that got them elected, it is possible that a change of circumstances may occur which make carrying out a pledge they made less viable, a process should be put in place to give the government an option to revisit the electorate to get authorisation to break the pledge rather than the current carte blanche to ignore the pledges they gave to get elected. A computerised system could be put in place to allow for referendums to do this to be carried out cheaply, this could be via the internet or via public terminals in council buildings for example. The system could also be used by the electorate to block legislation they didn't agree with subject to a minimum percentage of voters taking part.
The current situation encourages parties to make pledges before an election that they know they have no intention of keeping, a change in the law to make them legally enforceable unless they revisit the electorate would force them to be kept whilst still allowing for the pledges to be amended if circumstances should change.
Examples from the 2010 UK election include the Tories announcing they had no plans to put up VAT and then announcing an increase to 20% 1.5 months after it, pledging no top down reorganisation of the NHS and then publishing a White paper 2 months after the election doing exactly that.
Personally I would consider getting votes on the basis of pledges that you have no intention of keeping as fraud, given how quickly the 2 examples above came after the election it seems unlikely that there was a unexpected change of circumstances to account for the change.
Since we can't deselect MPs that break pledges they made to get elected, any pledges made in the manifesto should be legally binding since it is those pledges that got them elected, it is possible that a change of circumstances may occur which make carrying out a pledge they made less viable, a process should be put in place to give the government an option to revisit the electorate to get authorisation to break the pledge rather than the current carte blanche to ignore the pledges they gave to get elected. A computerised system could be put in place to allow for referendums to do this to be carried out cheaply, this could be via the internet or via public terminals in council buildings for example. The system could also be used by the electorate to block legislation they didn't agree with subject to a minimum percentage of voters taking part.
The current situation encourages parties to make pledges before an election that they know they have no intention of keeping, a change in the law to make them legally enforceable unless they revisit the electorate would force them to be kept whilst still allowing for the pledges to be amended if circumstances should change.
