Iain Duncan Smith: Take the Advice of a British MP ... Don't Cut Off Filibusters

[Iain Duncan Smith is themember of Parliament for Chingford and Woodford Green.]

AS Republicans in the United States decide whether to do away with filibusters by changing Senate rules - the so-called nuclear option - they would do well to cast their eyes at their Conservative cousins across the Atlantic. Britain's backbench members of Parliament, whom I led as head of the Conservative Party from 2001 to 2003, are virtually powerless before a determined government majority. Indeed, if it were not for the House of Lords, the second and appointed chamber, which has retained limited powers of delay, British government would be an elected dictatorship.

How did this come to pass? In 1887 a group of Irish Nationalist and Liberal members of Parliament brought the House of Commons to a standstill. Outraged by the Irish Crimes Bill, which imposed draconian sanctions on campaigners for Irish home rule, the rebel M.P.'s filibustered discussion for more than a month, forcing numerous all-night sittings and making government business impossible. But they failed to stop the bill, and in the process they stretched parliamentary procedures beyond the breaking point. The Conservative government then in power accused the Irish M.P.'s of unreasonable obstructionism and, by a substantial majority, it introduced the modern parliamentary "guillotine," which allows government ministers to set a cutoff for parliamentary debates.

The guillotine was sold to Parliament as an exceptional device to counter exceptional behavior by minorities. Today, however, British governments use guillotining and similar powers to curtail debate as a matter of course. The guillotine no longer applies merely to unreasonable behavior but is used routinely to gag parliamentarians....