Reply To: Labour Party Splits
There is in fact a provision in UK law to recall an MP. Under the Recall of MPs Act 2015, if an MP has committed a series breach of parliamentary rules or is given a prison sentence of less than a year (more than a year then you are out automatically), a petition signed by 10% of the registered electorate and drawn up within six weeks can provoke a by-election. This has only been attempted once, in the case of the Reverend Inane Paisley’s son who had done something wrong (taken bribes, I think, without declaring them). It nearly succeeded but didn’t reach the 10% in the six weeks. Another attempt may be made to provoke such a by-election, in Peterborough, whose Labour MP is in prison for a few months for lying about a motoring offence.
There is nothing in our Rulebook about recall (but there doesn’t need to be specifically as a minimum number of branches can call a Party Poll to do this).
Re elections, our Rulebook says that a Socialist MP or councillors would be answerable to the EC or the local branch which could, presumably, deselect them. I am not sure this is perfect from a democratic point of view since, more logically, this ought to be in the hands of those who elected them, i.e. including non-members who had voted for socialism, but how? Nor is it clear how it could be enforced if the offending MP refused to resign, though my union at work used to insist that its candidates for the staff committee sign and undated letter of resignation. I don’t think that would work either. Leaving deselection as the only way.