House of Commons manoeuvres - Honourable but pointless?

It is natural that we view events through the prism of our beliefs. The 52% of Britons who voted to quit the EU will regard the resignation of seven MPs from the Labour party earlier this week, and yesterday’s decision by three Tory MPs to follow them, as good riddance.

The “betrayers” trying to delay Brexit, or at least trying to reach agreement on the least damaging divorce, have been the target of odious criticism.

However, the 48% who voted to remain at the centre of Europe will hope that these resignations are the opening salvoes in a struggle to restore some sanity to an issue that has become as much about personalities as it is about principles. They hope moderation may prevail.

Whether the Independent Group can, or even could, win the kind of House of Commons leverage needed to make a difference is an open question — one that is coloured by Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system.

It seems fair to say that those British politicians, maybe not all of them, quitting their parties put their political careers in jeopardy in a way that, say, those Irish politicians who might join Peadar Tóibín’s Aontú do not. They are taking real risks.

In that context, proportional representation is again seen as the system that best reflects the spirit of democracy even if it can be cumbersome and complex. In a world where the incumbent of the White House got 2.87m fewer votes than his rival, this seems ever more important.