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The Three Meaningful Votes: Voting on Brexit in the British House of Commons

Author

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  • Aidt, T. S
  • Grey, F.
  • Savu, A.

Abstract

Why do politicians rebel and vote against the party line when high stakes bills come to the floor of the legislature? To address this question, we leverage the three so-called Meaningful Votes that took place in the British House of Commons between January and March 2019 on the Withdrawal Agreement that the Conservative government had reached with the European Union. The bill was decisively defeated three times due to a major revolt amongst Conservative backbench Members of Parliament (MPs). We find that three factors influenced their rebellion calculus: the MP’s own ideological views, constituency preferences and career concerns. Somewhat paradoxically, the rebellion within the Conservative Party came from MPs who had supported Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum and from MPs elected in Leave leaning constituencies.

Suggested Citation

  • Aidt, T. S & Grey, F. & Savu, A., 2019. "The Three Meaningful Votes: Voting on Brexit in the British House of Commons," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1979, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    • Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:1979
    Note: tsa23, fg313, ams269
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    2. Björn Kauder & Niklas Potrafke, 2022. "Rewarding conservative politicians? Evidence from voting on same-sex marriage," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(1), pages 161-172, April.
    3. Stephen Drinkwater & Colin Jennings, 2022. "The Brexit referendum and three types of regret," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 193(3), pages 275-291, December.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    BREXIT; roll call votes; rebellions; party discipline; party coherence; House of Commons;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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