UK prime minister Liz Truss is said to have “withdrawn the whip” of a cabinet minister named Conor Burns.
A senior Conservative minister, Conor Burns, has been sacked from the government after an allegation of “serious misconduct” relating to his behaviour at this week’s party conference.
Truss asked him to step down from his role as a minister of state in the trade department and he had the Conservative whip withdrawn pending an investigation.
Burns is the sixth Conservative MP to have had the whip withdrawn or quit politics in the past 18 months over allegations of misconduct.
I was curious about the whip language and found this explainer.
An arcane and slightly disturbing expression, in political-speak “withdrawing the whip” from someone effectively means booting them out of the party, without them immediately losing their seat.
An MP who has the whip withdrawn sits as an independent, but can be brought back into the party fold if it decides to restore the whip. Having the whip withdrawn is one of the most serious disciplinary actions that can be taken against an MP by a party. In this case it may mean they are barred from standing for the Tories in the next election.
“Whips” are people who ensure their party members show up and vote along party lines. But the whip also refers to a circular letter sent to MPs and Lords of each party telling them about parliamentary business and how they should vote on it. A particularly important vote is underlined three times, which is why it is referred to as a “three-line whip”.
This article goes into more detail about the various roles and uses of the word ‘whip’.
There used to be (maybe still is) an establishment on the Boston-Cape Cod highway called “The Whips Motel”.
I never dared to stop there.
The party whip famously knows all the MPs’ dirty secrets and doesn’t hesitate to use it to manipulate any who dare stray beyond the party whip (the vote the party expects).
A few years ago, a former whip Gavin Williamson had himself pictured with a whip on his desk — widely believed to be signalling “I still know all your dirty secrets”.
Given the large number of ex-whips, I’m mystified why everyone isn’t blackmailing everyone. Perhaps they are.
I can’t see untying wrong with the expression “remove the whip”. It is certainly preferably to “booted out”, although “expelled from the Party” might be an acceptable alternative.
In the USA, it would be ‘primaried’.
(Not really any less arcane)
Probably a combination of class solidatiry and mutually assured destruction. The upper echelons are famous for sticking together, and everybody has dirty secrets. There are strict (but unspoken) rules about what sort of conduct is or isn’t acceptable, enforeced by potentially pretty steep social penalties (although this may be starting to break down). Basically like the mafia, but with disinvitation from dinner parties instead of murder.
John @4: Being primaried (challenged by another member of your party in the next election) is more of a long-term thing. This is more like being kicked out of caucus. When Liz Cheney joined the Jan 6 commission, some Republicans called for her immediate removal from the Republican caucus. That she would eventually be pimaried was a foregone conclusion.
I am all in favor of applying a whip vigorously to PMs that support the tory government. I remember Thatcher, but she was at least nominally sane, if cruel.
In fact, they are only booted out of the parliamentary party. Burns is still a member of the Conservative Party, but not a Conservative MP. He could be expelled from the party itself, but that’s not somethnig the whips can do -- there will be some disciplinary body of the party itself that can expel members whether or not they are MPs. Whether in theory they could be expelled from the party while still being a Conservative MP I don’t know, but I doubt it would ever happen.