Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Why You Can’t Resign From the British Parliament (Encore)

Episode Date: December 19, 2021

The British House of Commons has been called the Best Club in Town due to the fact that there is a 1,000-gallon vat of Scotch whiskey located in the cellar. However, I prefer to think of it as a roach motel. Because technically, once you are elected to Parliament, you can’t leave. It is actually illegal to resign from the House of Commons.  Yet, people seemingly do all the time. Learn more about the convoluted way you can quit the House of Commons on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. The British House of Commons has been called the best club in town due to the fact that there's a 1,000-gallon vat of Scotch whiskey located in the cellar. However, I prefer to think of it more as a Roach Motel, because technically, once you're elected to Parliament, you can't leave. Actually, it's illegal to resign from the House of Commons. Yet, seemingly, people do it all the time. Learn more about the convoluted way you can quit the House of Commons on this episode of Everything Everywhere, daily. So to start, yeah, it is technically true you can't resign from the House of Commons. This dates back almost 400 years when serving in Parliament was a very different experience than

it is today. Members of Parliament, or MPs, didn't even get paid until 1911. Up until then, it was a completely unpaid position. Traveling to London back then was a time-consuming affair, especially for MPs who lived in distant districts. Even though Parliament only met for a few weeks a year. The time of the session, plus travel time, was time you couldn't spend attending to your personal affairs, which meant that many MPs lost money. Most MPs considered serving in Parliament an arduous task and not an honor. So when the session of Parliament came around every year, many members would just resign rather than make the trip, especially considering that many were elected against their will. It became such a problem that Parliament passed a law in

1624, which prevented members from resigning. The law specified that, quote, that a man after he is duly chosen cannot relinquish his position. That law from 1624 is still on the books, and it is still against a law for anyone to resign from the House of Commons. The thing is, MPs seemingly resign from Parliament every session. While it doesn't happen every week, it also isn't a totally unheard of event. In fact, when prime ministers have to step down, they will often vacate their seat in Parliament as well rather than stay on in disgrace. So how do they do it? How can you resolve MP resigning when it's against the law to resign? Well, Parliament had other concerns as well beyond making sure its members showed up. One of those concerns was being an

independent check on the monarchy. The House of Commons is the House of Commons. If one of its members was in the pocket of the king, it would put them in a conflict of interest. So in 1680, Parliament passed a law which stated that any MP who, quote, shall accept any office or place of profit from the crown without leave of this house, shall be expelled from this house. So basically, if the king or queen appoints an MP to an office, the MP would automatically be expelled from Parliament. It turns out that this law made for an exceptionally nice loophole to get around the previous law stating that MPs can't resign from Parliament. They might not be able to resign, but they can get kicked out.

In 1740, one sitting member of Parliament, Sir Watkins Williams-Win, was appointed as the steward of the lordship and manner of Bromfield and Yale. Parliament determined that this position fell under the 1680 law and that Sir William's win was expelled from Parliament. The person who then put two and two together was an MP called John Pitt. In 1750, he wanted to vacate his seat in Parliament so he could run for another seat. The problem was he wasn't allowed to run so long as he was sitting in Parliament and representing another district. He wrote to the Prime Minister, Henry Pelham, and told him of his predicament.

He wanted a position from the King so he could get removed from Parliament to allow him to run for the new seat. Technically, the law only said that sitting members of Parliament would get removed if they accepted a position. If you already had the position before you were in Parliament, it was fine. The Prime Minister then talked to King George II and got pit up. pointed as the crowned, Stuart, and bailiff of the three children hundreds of Stoke, Desborough, and Burnham. For those of us who aren't up on English geography, a hundred is a division of a county, and the Chiltern Hills is an area northwest of London. In the Middle Ages, this was a real position that had real responsibility. However, by the mid-18th century, the position was nothing more than a title.

There was no responsibility, and there was no pay. So even though the position had no responsibility or income, because it was a crown position, it technically allowed a sitting member of Parliament to be removed. This appointment became the legal fiction upon which it's possible for members of Parliament to resign. They weren't resigning so much as they were getting kicked out. This process of resigning without resigning became known as Taking the Chiltern Hundreds. Today, when someone wants to leave Parliament, the Chancellor of the Exchequer simply appoints them to the position. In 1844, a second empty title was also used to get people kicked out of Parliament.

The Crown Steward and bailiff of the Manor of Northsted was first used in April 1842 for MP Patrick Chalmers to leave Parliament. These two positions, the Children Hundreds and the Manor of Northsted, are used today for removing sitting members of Parliament. They are alternated in the event that two MPs should resign at the same time. The MP who is assigned the title holds it until the next member of Parliament resign. In theory, the Chancellor of the Exchequer could refuse an MP's request to be appointed to one of the positions, but that hasn't happened since 1842. There are a few other empty titles that have been used in the past to remove MPs from Parliament. Some of them include the steward of the Manor of Hemphholm, the steward and bailiff of the manner of East Hendred, and the S-cheater of Munster. There have been times where the system has been put to the test.

15 pro-union MPs from Northern Ireland resigned en masse on December 17, 1985. The way they handled it is that they were all assigned the two titles over the course of a single day, with most of the MPs only holding the position for a few hours. In 2011, Sinn Féin MP Gary Adams, who was a staunch Irish Unionist, resigned from Parliament but didn't apply for a Crown Office. When questioned about it, then Prime Minister David Cameron claimed that Adams had been appointed to a Crown Office, but Adams denied it. They sort of just did a lot of hand-waving and in effect he resigned, but it was never really officially resolved. The crown lists him as having held the office,

but he denies ever having accepted it. So resigning from Parliament is one of those weird historical quirks. You can't do it except for the fact that you really can do it. The next time you want to quit your job, but you don't want to quit, just tell your boss that you'd like to be appointed to the children hundreds and see how they react. The associate producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Thor Thompson. Today's five-star review comes from listener Jorge McCormick from Apple Podcasts. They write, Best Podcasts for History Buffs.

When I first discovered this podcast a few weeks ago, I was immediately hooked. I binge listen to over 250 plus episodes at the time in about a week. Listening to this podcast has become a part of my morning routine, arguably the best part of it. I've yet to come across a single episode whose topic I wasn't completely fascinated. with. Even the episode on Tarar, as disgusting and graphic as it was, was completely fascinating. It's a daily version of 99% invisible, but for history nerds. I am unable to decide who has the better-sounding voice, Roman Mars or Gary Arndt. Thank you for making my mornings better. Well, thank you, Jorge. I will take on Roman Mars anytime, anywhere. In fact, Roman, if you're

listening, I challenge you to the main event of next year's podcast mania. Me versus you, mono-a-mano, no show topics barred. Remember, if you leave a five-star review, you too can have your review read on the show.