De plicht van een politicus

Zoals in veel domeinen gaat het ook in de politiek om het vinden van het juiste evenwicht. Het mordicus vasthouden aan principes zonder enige flexibiliteit of onbereikbare utopieën heeft geen plaats in de politiek. Het andere extreem is de particratie waarbij het uitsluitend zou gaan om partijtrouw. Zonder politici die de onafhankelijke koers van hun geweten durven volgen, kan de bevolking ook alleen maar haar vertrouwen in de integriteit van de democratie verliezen. Dergelijke onafhankelijke politici zullen zeldzaam zijn want ze verliezen typisch de steun van collega’s en gemakkelijke toegang tot financiering noodzakelijk voor hun herverkiezing. 

Dat de opvattingen van de meeste politici samenvallen met de clichés in de maatschappij is ook niet erg. Een politicus die geïsoleerd is zonder enige steun kan ook weinig impact hebben. Hij of zij is verkozen om het volk te vertegenwoordigen. Als hij of zij het dan niet doet: wie dan wel? Toch is het zo dat er altijd momenten moeten zijn waarbij een politicus niet meegaat met wat de meerderheid denkt, wat economische machtshebbers willen... Sowieso is het vaak moeilijk te weten wat de meeste kiezers denken, waarom ze dat denken en of hun opvattingen intern wel consistent zijn. Bovendien vertegenwoordigt een parlementslid in ons land niet alleen zijn partij, zijn achterban, zijn kieskring maar het gehele land. Hij moet dan ook verantwoording afleggen aan het belang van het algemeen. Uiteindelijk verkiezen mensen ook hun vertegenwoordigers opdat die hun eigen oordeelsvermogen zouden benutten. Of zoals Edmund Burke schreef in zijn brief aan de kiezers van Bristol: “Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?
To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,--these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect. I beg pardon for saying so much on this subject. I have been unwillingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted servant, I shall be to the end of my life: a flatterer you do not wish for.”