Does Westminster parlimentary system ever have an opposition member as a cabinent member?

November 11, 2008 1:47 PM

Does Westminster parlimentary system ever have an opposition member as a cabinent member?

In the Westminster parlimentary system in UK, Australia etc , has any opposition member ever been appointed a cabinet member in the ruling government?

My impression is Never. All cabinet members in the Westminster system seem to come from the governing party , or the governing coalition parties.

But in a country like USA, where the president is supposedly above party politics, he or she can draw cabinet members from all walks of life and even the opposition parties.

Please share your wisdom.

Thanks a million.

posted by cluelessguru to education (15 comments total)

Sure, it happens all the time. During WWII Churchill brought members of the opposition into the cabinet.

Generally speaking, they're called "governments of national unity" and they usually appear during existential crises (e.g. Britain during WWII).
posted by Class Goat at 1:57 PM on November 11, 2008

Anyone at all can be in the UK cabinet, technically speaking, in my understanding. It's definitely been the case that there have been people in the cabinet (eg Wilson's) who weren't in parliament at all, on either side.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 2:09 PM on November 11, 2008

It doesn't happen "all the time" (sorry Class Goat) but only in times of crisis. I'm not aware of it ever happening in Australia.
posted by goo at 2:25 PM on November 11, 2008

The real issue with this approach is the concept of Cabinet solidarity. Under the Westminster system, decisions of the Cabinet, once taken, must be honoured by all members of the Cabinet, regardless of their personal views. As Cabinet members are also members of the Parliament, they must vote in Parliament in accordance with all Cabinet decisions. This potentially places a member of an opposition party who is also a member of the Cabinet in an invidious position, namely voting against their party. This is not a problem under the executive model adopted in the US, as Cabinet members are not members of Congress.

In Fiji, which operates under a modified Westminster system, the 1997 Constitution requires the Prime Minister to offer seats in Cabinet to all parties who secure more than 10% of the popular vote at the general election. It is seen as a way of entrenching the 'Government of National Unity' approach mentioned by the Goat. It is widely considered to be a flawed experiment and will probably be ditched in whatever post-coup Constitutional amendments the current military regime put in place before a return to democracy.
posted by Tawita at 2:34 PM on November 11, 2008

Current British premier and Labour party leader Gordon Brown reportedly offered former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown a position in his cabinet when he was assembling it, in June 2007.

Still, as those articles say, it's an unusual and controversial decision to bring in people from other political parties.
posted by Mike1024 at 2:55 PM on November 11, 2008

It does happen all the time, and in fact, it has sort of happened in Western Australia right now.

At the recent WA election, the Liberal Party defeated the governing Labor Party. In most states and territories the Liberal Party is in coalition with another party, the National Party, but in WA this is not the case which makes the WA Nationals an opposition party. The Liberals did not win enough seats to govern in their own right, however, so with the Nationals support they formed Government. The trade off was that some Nationals would get to be Ministers. The Nationals are making it clear to all and sundry that they are independent Ministers, not Government Ministers, reinforcing their status as an Opposition, rather than co-governors.

It's a recipie for disaster, mostly for reasons of Cabinet solidaity (as Tawita mentioned up-thread), but that's democracy at work for ya.
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:08 PM on November 11, 2008

The South Australian Parliament has had a nationals MP serving in the Labor government's cabinet for some years.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 3:10 PM on November 11, 2008

Canada has had unelected people (well, at least one person) serve in Cabinet - Chretien nominated Stephane Dion as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs in '96 although Dion had no seat in parliament at the time. Dion won a seat in '97 but for a while he was a cabinet minister who didn't actually vote at all.

In Canada, some MPs have switched parties specifically to take a Cabinet seat. In 2005 Belinda Stronach crossed the floor from the Conservatives to join Paul Martin's Liberal cabinet as the "Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and Minister responsible for Democratic Renewal" (from Wikipedia).

And, also according to Wkipedia, one Frank Broadstreet Carvell was offered a cabinet post while he was in opposition in 1917. He crossed the floor to take the post I believe but Wikipedia is a bit unclear on the subject - he left the Liberal party and in the next election ran under a Liberal-Unionist label, where the two major parties at the time were the Liberals and the Unionists. So he may qualify as a non-party member serving in cabinet.
posted by GuyZero at 3:43 PM on November 11, 2008

In coalition governments members from parties other than the largest party will get appointed to cabinet, but those parties are not opposition parties, they are part of the governing coalition.

In times of war members of the opposing parties will sometimes be included in cabinet, but then you're in what's called a national unity government, and they are no longer acting as opposition parties.

So I would say that, no, properly speaking opposition members are not appointed to government. In a parliamentary system, the job of the opposition to oppose the government and be ready to assume its role after an election or if called upon by the head of state (in a minority government situation). Almost always, if a member of an opposition party accepts an appointment to the government it means he or she has decided to switch parties.
posted by Dasein at 3:48 PM on November 11, 2008

Well I stand corrected! Sorry again, Class Goat.
posted by goo at 3:48 PM on November 11, 2008

But in a country like USA, where the president is supposedly above party politics, he or she can draw cabinet members from all walks of life and even the opposition parties.

Just to note that within a given political party there can be a wide variety of actual beliefs. Again, take Paul Martin as Finance Minister (an extremely fiscal conservative) versus someone like John Turner who served as Finance Minister under Trudeau and had a hand in doing things like creating a nationalized oil company. So it's not like everyone in the Liberal party all thinks the same way.
posted by GuyZero at 4:05 PM on November 11, 2008

Strictly speaking, cabinet ministers don't even have to be MPs. (These days they always are though)
As late as 1963 Alec Douglas-Hume became prime minister despite not being an MP (he was in the house of lords). He considered it untenable to govern from the Lords, so he disclaimed his peerage and sought election as an MP, but before the by-election he was PM despite not being a member of either house of parliament.
posted by atrazine at 11:53 PM on November 11, 2008

In the UK, cabinet ministers are almost always either MPs (the usual case) or Lords. Peter Mandelson is the most recent example of a cabinet minister not being an MP.
posted by salmacis at 12:55 AM on November 12, 2008

While we are on the subject of Westminster parlimentary system and, by extension , the merits of Western democracy, see this post about the failure of capitalism:




Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Eastern bloc is leery of capitalism
Hungary's national flag waves over Budapest

Hungary has been feeling bitter about free market capitalism based on the way the West is handling the economic downturn. And other Eastern European countries share the sentiment. Stephen Beard reports........
posted by cluelessguru at 5:16 PM on December 22, 2008

Oops, here is the link

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/12/16/hungarian_capitalism/
posted by cluelessguru at 5:17 PM on December 22, 2008