United Future stuggling for membership

United Future is in trouble. The party is bleeding members and it currently has fewer than 500 members. The party has an extension until August to do its return to the Electoral Commission and is on a frantic recruitment drive for members so as to stay registered.

If the party doesnt get the required members by August it`ll be deregistered. It will still have to do a return, but be an unregistered party. If UF don't get 500 members before the next election, the party will be the first party in Parliament unable to contest list seats due to lack of members.

And Judy Turner will be wise to transfer to Copeland's party on his list for 2008 as she`ll have no chance of being a United Future MP. Peter Dunne could have avoided all this by voting against the smacking bill. If United Future members were aware that Dunne's allegiance is more towards the Government rather than the party he leads, more would leave.

Copeland to leave United Future

NB:post has been updated
Gordon Copeland is to have a media conference soon to announce he is leaving United Future. Apparently it is over the Bradford anti-smacking bill, more specifically, the fact that he doesn't agree with his leader, Peter Dunne, voting for it. Peter Dunne was responsible for getting Copeland into Parliament, and it now appears the catalyst for him leaving the party.

I find a decision to leave the party now, for the reasons given, a little strange for several reasons. United Future had a conscience vote on the Bradford Bill, Copeland and Dunne are free to use this vote. Does Copeland expect United Future to vote like Labour and be whipped for doing so? After all, Copeland is (or was) the United Future whip.

Copeland will be an independent MP, meaning he is the only MP in Parliament who is neither elected nor represented on a party list. He plans to form a party with Larry Baldock, who is organising a CIR against the bill.

But what this means is that Labour will find it even more difficult to pass legislation in the House, although thanks to the Greens abstentions, confidence and supply is safe. In any case Copeland is continuing to support the Govt on confidence and supply for the budget. The Government will be relying on the Greens and the Maori Party to pass legislation, when they have stronger agreements with NZ First and United Future.

It also means that Copeland may well be finding another job after the election, which will be a shame as he was a measured MP who had a good grasp of a great deal of issues and portfolios. Then again, he was probably not going to be back in 2008 anyway unless more people were to vote for United Future than current polls indicate.

However, United Future is no longer united, and its future is looking a bit shaky as well. Copeland is out, Turner is really pissed off and Dunne will be on his own after the next election - primarily because he voted for a contentious bill that his party and his supporters disapproved of. Serves him right.

I guess that's what happens when minor parties try to support the Government of the day when its conscience and the majority of its dwindling number of supporters, and constituents tell them otherwise.

Dunne could have kept his party together had he voted with his electorate preferences and against the anti smacking bill. It would not have made a scrap of difference to the passage of the bill, but a big difference to everything else.

United Future is split right open. Its three MPs voted three different ways in the smacking bill -Dunne for, Turner against and Copeland as a new Independent MP didn't vote at all. (update: he voted against the bill and had his vote recorded two hours late

Smacking bill to get another suggested amendment

United Future is going to use one of their policies to suggest an amendment to Sue Bradford's smacking bill which, as the policy incorrectly implies, would mean that if both the amendment and the bill passed, the bill would only be enacted if it got more than 60 percent of the Parliamentary vote. If the bill passes by less than a 60% majority, it will automatically go to a public referendum if the United Future amendment is accepted by Parliament. The idea is that a Parliamentary vote reflects the will of the people and it makes referendums of this nature binding on Parliament.

But it is not the way to do it. United Future's amendment is impossible to pass.

MPs may not think that a 60 percent vote to enact certain bills only is democratic, particularly MPs who conscience voted for the bill and the bill passed with fewer than 60 percent of the Parliamentary vote. United Future appears to think that their votes would effectively be vetoed by the United Future amendment until a subsequent referendum is passed. That will not be the case.

But all votes for the United Future amendment will be effectively vetoed. And that's the thing. If the super majority clause passes and then the bill passes with less than that super majority, then that super majority clause is not enacted until a referendum either.

Meaning the amended bill can still pass with 50 percent plus one vote and the amendment wont mean a damn thing until after the election.

Of course the amendment won't concern Labour MPs, they don't conscience vote on issues like the Bradford bill. So like their attitude to conscience votes, they'll thumb their collective noses at this amendment too, as will the Greens and all other thinking MPs.

update Well, I have been emailed the SOP by a United Future MP who read my blog post. They have found a nifty way around the problem of self-contradiction with a recommendation that the first couple of sections of the bill pass on one day and the guts of it if upon the passage of a referendum at the next election, f there is no supermajority. So, lets hope there is no supermajority and MPs consider this SOP cerefully. However, I suspect they won't vote for it.

Now, if only the UF staffer who initially spoke to me about this SOP was up with the play.