'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 … 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.'
And the fact Churchill and the Tory party were previously incredibly comitted to the above.
'The first duty of a member of Parliament is to do what he thinks in his faithful and disinterested judgement is right and necessary for the honour and safety of Great Britain. His second duty is to his constituents, of whom he is the representative but not the delegate. Burke's famous declaration on this subject is well known. It is only in the third place that his duty to party organization or programme takes rank. All these three loyalties should be observed, but there in no doubt of the order in which they stand under any healthy manifestation of democracy.'
^ Winston Churchill on the Duties of a Member of Parliament.
Yes the Tory Grandees, aristocrats and land owners are now reaping the result of the entryism of spivs, charlatans and chancers that started with the local association selection processes under Thatcher.
Overt corruption and a tidal wave of Russian money funding the 'natural party of government'.
The current situation is her legacy, for sure, but the thing she brought into the party's mainstream was ideological fanaticism; the corruption is nothing new. The ERG are her legacy. Successi very Tory leaders tried and failed to keep them in check, then Johnson did a faustian deal with them.
Kind of amazing considering Edmund Burke:
And the fact Churchill and the Tory party were previously incredibly comitted to the above.
^ Winston Churchill on the Duties of a Member of Parliament.