‘Partisanship is a bigger issue affecting the legislative branch of the US than the UK.’ Evaluate this statement. [25 marks]

Partisanship in the legislature can be considered as an issue for the both the US and the UK as it can be argued that it is detrimental to the representative democracy which is practiced in both countries. However, it is more of an issue for democracy in the US as representatives are elected as individuals, only belonging to a party for the basic beliefs, whereas in the UK MPs are elected under the promises of a party manifesto with more specific and focalised beliefs, leaving little room for personal manoeuvre. For example, the existence of factions in the US means that Democrats in the House of Representatives can range from conservative members such as Anthony Brindisi (New York) to progressive members such as Pramila Jayapal (Washington). Despite the stark differences in the political beliefs of the different faction members, the Democrats have control of the House. Conversely, in the UK, splits such as these within parties have led to inelectability, such as for Labour in 1983 with opposing opinions over unilateralisation and in 2017 between the more left-wing Corbynites and the more centrist Blairites. With members elected on such wide-ranging issues, partisanship in Congress must therefore mean that some are betraying the trust of their electors and voting against the policies on which they were elected in order to vote with the party. This is a larger issue in the US than the UK as partisanship is expected and accepted under the existence of party manifestos which gives a party an electoral mandate when they have a majority in the House of Commons. Therefore, due to the formalised and accepted structure of parties in the UK which cater to a smaller range of views, partisanship is a larger issue in the US legislature as it leads to more misrepresentation of the electorate.
However, partisanship can be considered as a bigger issue in the UK due to the higher levels of influence held by the party whips. The job of the party whips are to gain support for the party in each parliamentary vote. Whips are not above the use of blackmail and bribery of higher office in order to try and persuade MPs to vote their way. For example, during the revelations about misconduct including paedophilia in 2014 it came to light that this was the sort of information held by the whips in order to convince MPs the vote the correct way. Additionally, the fact that the prime minister is a member of the legislature means that the UK whips have more influence as they are able to confer with the prime minister and offer ministerial positions to those who decide to vote with the party, effectively trading votes for better jobs and making a mockery of the democratic system, meaning that some partisanship in the UK is not undertaken of an MP’s free will, destroying the democratic principles of freedom and therefore acting as a significant issue in the corruption of the parliamentary party system which operates in the UK. Although the whip is also a formalised power in the US, they have much less real power to coerce a member of Congress to vote in accordance with the party as they have little influence over promotions, due in part to the separation of powers where the president is not a member of the legislature, which is perhaps an example of how this is effective in stopping corruption. Therefore, due to the larger power of the whips in the UK, partisanship can be considered a larger issue in the UK than the US but in reality scandal around representatives is rife in both political systems, which lessens the discrepancy between the two, with partisanship remaining a larger issue in the US due to the fact it is not so much an accepted part of the functioning of government.