Between 1780 and 1918 over 1 million public petitions were sent to the House of Commons from across the UK. These petitions contained a staggering 165 million signatures. While was part of a wider growth of mass, collective petitioning to national legislatures across North America and western Europe, the scale of petitions in the nineteenth-century UK was historically exceptional. In this blog, I discuss themes from my recent book A Nation of Petitioners: Petitions and Petitioning in the United Kingdom, 1780-1918 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) relevant to those working on parliamentary studies. 

During the nineteenth century, petitioning was transformed in the UK and other polities, including the USA, into its modern form as a participatory practice linked to representative institutions. Older traditions of petitioning the monarch sought the redress of personal, local, or sectional grievances. By contrast, the new style of petitioning was used by citizens and subjects to raise topics of national importance, make claims for citizenship and political rights, and organise massive popular campaigns in a pre-democratic era, including for the abolition of slavery and women’s suffrage. 

Through examining the monumental scale of petitions in this period, A Nation of Petitioners has a number of themes relevant those interested in parliaments in general and the UK Parliament in particular. 

First, petitions are crucial to understanding the authority and legitimacy of Parliament, particularly the House of Commons, during an era of democratisation but not democracy. Petitions institutionalised regular public engagement with Parliament on a colossal scale. Millions of British people interacted with Parliament and parliamentarians through petitions, and this remained the case even after the franchise was extended by the First and Second Reform Acts passed in 1832 and 1867. Indeed, it was not until the later 1880s, after the passing of the Third Reform Act (1885), that the registered electorate began to exceed the annual total of signatures on petitions to the House of Commons. The position of the aristocratic House of Lords was also strengthened by the tens of thousands of petitions it received. The massive waves of petitioners, even radical critics, submitting their requests to Parliament, confirmed the legislature’s authority and to an extent, legitimated, an assembly elected under limited suffrage.  

At the same time, petitions could challenge the authority and legitimacy of Parliament when they claimed to represent a wider people than that which elected MPs. The three massive Chartist petitions of 1839, 1842, and 1848, calling for democratic reforms and signed by millions of working-class men and women presented just such a challenge. Recent studies of the post-2016 debates over Brexit have noted the tension between parliamentary sovereignty (based on an electoral mandate) and popular sovereignty (based on the majority in the referendum). The example of the nineteenth century suggests that the tension between parliamentary and popular sovereignty is a latent dynamic in parliamentary systems of government, albeit one that has been relatively well-contained in an era of universal suffrage when MPs could usually claim an unmatched democratic mandate. 

Second, petitions were central to the evolving system of parliamentary representation. Like e-petitions today, nineteenth-century petitions provided a form of ‘linkage’ between citizens and Parliament, particularly outside elections. Petitions were an essential tool for making representative claims by both parliamentarians and petitioners. Through presenting petitions and interacting with petitioners, MPs and peers acted as representatives, even when they disagreed with petitioners. Presenting petitions enabled both geographic and issue-based representation. Petitioning also enabled the representation from different nations (Ireland, Scotland, and Wales as well as England) within the UK and also from groups, such as women, who were formally excluded from voting in elections or sitting in Parliament at this time. Petitions were also presented from settlers and colonised peoples from within the British empire who were not formally represented in Parliament. 

MPs typically presented petitions from their constituencies or on issues that they were associated with. Peers usually presented petitions from areas they were associated with through landownership or had formerly represented when in the Commons; bishops, or spiritual peers, were often tasked with presenting petitions on religious or moral questions, including temperance. Presenting petitions allowed Victorian MPs who did not trouble Hansard reporters to represent their constituents. Henry Lowther, who sat as MP for Westmorland for 55 years was known as the ‘silent colonel’ due to his lack of contribution to debates; yet he still presented over 400 petitions. Presenting petitions and corresponding with petitioners was an important part of the hidden, largely unsung practice of representation that MPs like Lowther did, and emphasises the varied ways that parliamentarians represented the public outside elections.

Finally, petitions to the House of Commons declined in the early twentieth century. This was part of a trend also evident in other countries such as the USA or France. Petitioning did not decline as a form of political participation, but was rather displaced from national legislatures to a wider range of national and international authorities, including in the British case, Number 10 Downing Street. Unlike petitions to Parliament, these other types of petitions were rarely formally recorded which explains their invisibility in studies of twentieth-century British politics and history. The executive’s increasing control of the legislature in the twentieth century encouraged British citizens to appeal to other authorities, although Parliament did still receive large mass petitions on occasion, such as the three petitions about pensions during the Second World War. MPs and officials missed an opportunity to rethink petitioning tool for public engagement with Parliament in the 1970s; the unimaginative conventional wisdom of the time preferred to abolish the Petitions committee instead.

Given this historical context, the recent emergence of legislative e-petitions systems in the UK and in many other democracies is significant for reasserting parliaments as the primary institution for receiving petitions from citizens. There are some important differences of course. In an era of universal suffrage, petitioners do not perhaps pose the same challenge to representatives. In terms of representation, because citizens can usually upload their petitions to a parliamentary web platform rather than through the medium of an MP, they do not provide the same interaction between citizen and representative, although they do provide a form of public engagement with Parliament as an institution. Today, the UK Parliament’s Petitions Committee offers a wide range of actions that go far beyond the limited or ‘descriptive’ petitions system of the nineteenth century, where petitions were presented but no further action was taken. E-petitions then provide an opportunity for the UK Parliament and other legislatures to re-engage citizens, albeit in very different ways from the nineteenth century. 

Henry Miller is Associate Professor (Research) at Durham University. This blog draws on his book A Nation of Petitioners: Petitions and Petitioning in the United Kingdom, 1780-1918 published by Cambridge University Press in February 2023. 

Our new book, The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit, was published on 23 March. It focuses on the disputed role of parliament in the Brexit process, exploring how this most central UK democratic institution became embroiled in such controversy, and what the Brexit period demonstrates about the wider state of politics. 

The first and most basic question answered by the book is what actually happened in these troubled years. This is a long and complex story. Different narratives developed, often fed by competing players, which were frequently partial and sometimes downright misleading. The book seeks to provide an objective account, based on the public record and interviews with insiders. What follows is only a very brief summary (adapted from part of the closing chapter), drawing out some important themes.

The need to restore sovereignty to parliament was a long-time argument of Eurosceptics. While the institution’s own role in Brexit rose to prominence after the referendum, it also served (as discussed in Chapter 2) as a key forum for helping to bring this vote about. Backbench MPs—assisted on occasion by Speaker John Bercow’s unconventional interpretation of the rules—generated significant pressure for a referendum. Notably, not all of them favoured exiting the EU. Some, in a similar way to Prime Minister David Cameron, saw the referendum as a way to make an awkward question go away. Based on polling, there was little expectation of a Leave victory, and this prospect was not taken particularly seriously. Parliament held no major debate on the merits of Brexit to air the arguments; the Leave campaign set out no detailed prospectus to voters; and the civil service was forbidden from preparing. Consequently, the dilemmas and trade-offs that dominated subsequent debates were barely mentioned before the referendum. As an interviewee from the strongly pro-Brexit European Research Group of MPs (ERG) acknowledged, ‘it was only [after the referendum] that different types of Brexit started coming to the fore. Soft Brexit and hard Brexit had never been canvassed before the referendum; the expressions were coined afterwards.’ This lack of definition greatly stoked the bitterness of the following years.

The unexpected Leave result triggered the Prime Minister’s resignation, and Conservative MPs elected Theresa May in his place (Chapter 3). She was, in the words of one interviewee, ‘blood and bone a party woman’, with her deep commitment to public service if anything surpassed by her commitment to the Conservative Party. But that party was severely divided over Brexit. Labour, too, was now internally split, with some party heartlands having voted strongly for Remain and others for Leave. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was already unpopular in his parliamentary party, and it tried but failed to remove him after his lacklustre performance in the referendum campaign. This left both party leaders significantly compromised.

The uncertain question of how to implement Brexit now passed over to parliament. Many feared that a Remainer-dominated House of Commons would seek to undermine the referendum result, and May’s instinct was to rely as far as possible on pursuing Brexit using prerogative powers. But the enormity of the question understandably led parliamentarians to seek oversight of the next steps (Chapter 4). This provoked an institutional conflict between government and parliament. The courts were also drawn in, via Gina Miller’s first legal case arguing for parliament’s role in the triggering of Article 50. This resulted in defeat for the government and the infamous Daily Mail headline labelling the judges ‘enemies of the people’. Rather than cooling down the conflict, May’s government sought to exploit it, in order to appear the people’s defender.

Shortly afterwards, the Prime Minister justified her calling of a snap election in 2017 (Chapter 5), by arguing—on shaky empirical grounds—that parliament was standing in the way of Brexit. But the election weakened her position, resulting in a minority government, dependent on a confidence-and-supply agreement with the Northern Ireland DUP. The closeness of the result raised hopes among former Remainers that Brexit might be blocked, which further fuelled polarization and discouraged the spirit of compromise required to navigate the subsequent stages.

May’s early positioning (her initial ‘red lines’) incorporated the demands of her party’s hardliners—including that the UK should leave the Single Market and Customs Union. But when formal negotiations with the EU began (Chapter 6), her team came to recognize the trade-offs, particularly concerning the protection of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Avoidance of a hard border on the island of Ireland would require continued close alignment with the EU, which was unacceptable to hardline Brexiteers, while a ‘border down the Irish Sea’ between Great Britain and Northern Ireland was unacceptable to unionists, and in particular the DUP.

These difficulties, and May’s rhetoric that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’, raised concerns about failure to reach an agreement with the EU, and a possible no-deal Brexit. That would imply a hard border for Northern Ireland, and likely severe economic consequences. Partly to avoid it, a small number of moderate Conservative rebel MPs backed demands for a ‘meaningful vote’ in parliament on the final Brexit plan (Chapter 7). The extent of Conservative splits became very apparent when David Davis and Boris Johnson resigned from May’s Cabinet over her ‘Chequers’ proposals in July 2018, and further ministers departed in November over her final Brexit deal. The primary sticking point was the ‘backstop’—a compromise arrangement to avoid the border problem, demanding significant future all-UK alignment with EU rules (plus some special arrangements for Northern Ireland). When MPs voted on this deal in January 2019 it was overwhelmingly defeated, by 432 votes to 202. More than a third of the parliamentary Conservative Party—118 MPs—opposed it, 90 of whom were former Leave supporters. Most former Conservative Remain supporters, in contrast, voted for the deal.

There followed months of parliamentary wrangling, during which May’s deal was defeated twice more (Chapter 8). Crucially, hardline Conservative Brexiteers (dubbed the ‘Spartans’) repeatedly refused to accept it. May expressed strong frustrations with parliament, but never explicitly criticized her backbench opponents. Boris Johnson)—who had voted against the deal on the first two occasions—responded by arguing that it was ‘wrong in every sense to blame MPs for blocking Brexit’.

At this point, Conservative backbench moderates took further action to avoid a no-deal Brexit, including through backing temporary suspension of ministers’ control of the Commons agenda to facilitate ‘indicative’ votes on alternative Brexit options. But with near-universal Conservative opposition to every option, they were all defeated. Meanwhile, other parties continued to reject the deal. All that MPs could agree on was instructing Theresa May to negotiate extensions to the Article 50 period. The polarization and failure to compromise which characterized this period was painfully summed up by senior Conservative Brexiteer Charles Walker, who commented that ‘the losers do not know how to lose and the winners do not know how to win’.

It was in these circumstances that Boris Johnson—who had adopted a mantle as the authentic voice of Brexit, denouncing May and voting against her deal—was elected in her place (Chapter 9). Parliament entered its 2019 summer recess immediately afterwards, without any formal test of confidence in Johnson. Before its return, he requested a five-week prorogation, potentially to help facilitate a no-deal Brexit. This led to the second government defeat in the Supreme Court on a Brexit-related matter. Before the court case, Johnson had stripped the whip from 21 Conservative MPs (17 of whom had consistently voted for May’s deal), for facilitating what he dubbed the ‘Surrender Act’—a non-government bill requiring pursuit of a further Article 50 extension unless parliament voted for a Brexit plan.

This parliamentary blocking of a no-deal Brexit drove Johnson to agree an alternative deal with the EU, which was put to the House of Commons in October (Chapter 10). It was essentially a package previously rejected by Theresa May, which included close EU alignment for Northern Ireland only, thus requiring a ‘border down the Irish Sea’. Rather than subjecting the deal to parliamentary scrutiny, Johnson demanded a new general election, which was eventually conceded by MPs. He fought this on a slogan to ‘get Brexit done’, and a manifesto which—in direct contradiction to his own earlier comments—accused MPs of ‘refus[ing] to deliver Brexit’, and of ‘thwarting the democratic decision of the British people’. The Conservatives won an 80-seat majority, and the UK’s exit from the EU followed on 31 January 2020.

This story clearly contains many contradictions. In particular, Johnson’s rhetoric that parliament had failed to ‘get Brexit done’ was fundamentally inaccurate. He himself had voted with the hardliners against May’s deal on the basis that it wasn’t an authentic Brexit. They dismissed it instead as ‘BRINO’—Brexit in name only. But this group never had a detailed plan of its own. A ‘pure’ Brexit, eschewing all EU regulatory alignment, would have required a hard border on the island of Ireland, and presented major obstacles to an ambitious trade deal with the EU. May’s negotiated compromise sought to avoid these risks, while delivering on the Leave result. Johnson only ‘got Brexit done’ by returning to a version of the deal that May had rejected, due to the problems that it threatened for Northern Ireland. This central disagreement about what Brexit should mean was facilitated by the original lack of clarity in the referendum. But it took place between May’s government and Johnson’s supporters—not between the institution of government and the institution of parliament. The Conservative MPs who blocked May’s deal, including Johnson himself, believed that they were defending Brexit, rather than undermining it. This made it wholly misleading to blame parliament for ‘thwarting’ Brexit, when those involved had in fact used parliament to pursue an argument with May’s government. Yet this was the story that Johnson’s manifesto told, profiting from a growing anti-parliamentary rhetoric that had developed under her premiership.

Summing up, a saga that began with demands to enhance the sovereignty of parliament gradually developed into one where parliament was vilified. The central arguments over Brexit were always—and indeed remain—those inside the Conservative Party. However, it suited most of these internal protagonists for parliament to get the blame.

Meg Russell is Professor of British and Comparative Politics and Director of the Constitution Unit at UCL.

Lisa James is a Research Fellow in the Constitution Unit. 

© Meg Russell and Lisa James

Adapted extract from The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit published by Oxford University Press in March 2023, available in paperback and eBook formats, £25.00 

Legislators are not often thought of as romantics, yet time and again a representative Romeo has popped the question from the floor of the legislature. The path of Cupid’s arrow through capitals has crisscrossed parliaments and assemblies around the world, and is likely to strike again this Valentine’s Day as legislators hope to go from working across the aisle to walking down it.

Perhaps most famously, a congressman proposed to a congresswoman on the floor of the US House of Representatives in August 1993. As told by Rep. Susan Molinari, when Rep. William L. Paxon dropped to one knee to propose to her mid-sitting, “I said, ‘Yes—but get up’” (available here). While the proposal itself was not on the record, another member later rose to the House to tell the story as follows:

Mr. MCNULTY: Mr. Speaker, while I was acting as Speaker pro tempore yesterday, I was approached on the podium, first by our colleague, the gentleman from New York [Mr. PAXON], who notified me that during the course of the debate which was ongoing at the time, he had proposed marriage to our colleague, the gentlewoman from New York, [SUSAN MOLINARI], who then came to the podium and told me she accepted. (Congressional Record – August 5, 1993 at page 19301)

Other Members also offered their good wishes, including one who offered wishes for “many, many healthy and happy children, and may they all grow up to be good Democrats” (ibid at 19305). Reps. Molinari and Paxon were both Republicans. 

Those hoping to hear “Aye Do” can be found in the annals of many US state legislatures. In 1947, the lone woman legislator in Arkansas (Rep. Alene Word) was interrupted mid-speech by Rep. Dan Stephens who asked “Mr. Speaker, is a proposal of matrimony from the floor in order?” The press reported that both the Speaker and Rep. Word responded “Yes”, but that it was unclear whether Ms. Word’s affirmative response was to the proposal being in order or accepting the proposal itself.

Of course, it is not always legislators proposing to one another in the legislature. At the end of its 2015 sitting, Missouri legislators watched as Rep. Shelley Keeney, who was presiding at the time, was proposed to by her boyfriend. Another legislator had gotten the chair’s attention and directed her gaze to the gallery for the “special introduction of a special guest”. As Rep. Keeney was distracted and looking to the gallery, Mr. Taylor appeared on the dais on one knee, ring in hand, and the video (available here) clearly shows Rep. Keeney’s surprise. Rep. Keeney informed the House that her answer was “definitely yes” to applause and cheers, though she added she was “pretty sure there are a lot of people who have some explaining to do”, presumably in reference to Mr. Taylor accessing the House floor and coordinating with other members. 

In a most unique case, in 1994 a TV reporter in Alaska who covers the legislature coordinated with a member of the House to propose to his girlfriend, a newspaper reporter also covering the Alaska State Legislature. The legislator read the first reporter’s proposal aloud on the House floor as the second reporter sat stunned at the press table. The ring was happily accepted and the Speaker announced that the answer was yes. The House erupted in cheers and applause.

Most often, the proposal is one from a representative on the floor to someone in the gallery. Examples include Oklahoma State Rep. Clay Pope proposing to his girlfriend in the gallery in 1990, Washington State Senator Jim West doing the same in 1995, and Georgia State Rep. Rep. Jeff Williams following suit in 2002. A twist, however, can be found in Florida’s House, where a guest from the gallery was escorted to the well of the House whereupon the engagement took place much to her surprise. The presiding officer, Marco Rubio (now US Senator), noted that there was a process to be followed and accordingly asked whether the House supported a resolution affirming of the marriage. While the voice vote was conclusive, the electronic vote tally was announced as 105-0 (video available here, beginning at 42:35, vote result at 47:28).

Legislators hoping for cloture of their courtship within the assembly can be found across the globe. In 2017, a member of Australia’s House of Representatives proposed to his same-sex partner as the legislature debated gay marriage. The Speaker clarified for the Hansard record of debate that there was a resounding yes from the gallery, adding “Congratulations; well done mate” (available here). 

While the debate around love may have inspired the legislative proposal down under, less romantic debates have also cued Cupid’s arrow. In 2013, a member of the Congress of the Philippines popped the question during a heated budget debate (available here). Perhaps this was wise: It’s often said that couples should discuss finances before heading down the aisle! 

At least two Canadian legislators rose during proceedings with rings in hand. In May 2022, Rick Glumac proposed mid-speech in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia to his girlfriend, Haven Lurbiecki, who was seated in the gallery. He asked the question but, given the ensuing applause and cheers of collogues, indicated to the Assembly that he was unable to hear the answer and left to verify it. The happily-engaged couple gave many interviews later (available here). 

While some media reports suggested this was a Canadian first, on Valentine’s Day 2018, a member of Quebec’s National Assembly, Éric Lefebvre, proposed to his girlfriend, Geneviève Laliberté, then seated in the gallery. Before proposing, Lefebvre spoke of the role played by politicians’ partners in supporting them and then apologized to the Speaker that he would break protocol by addressing his remarks to the gallery (the video in French is available here). Once the question was popped and the applause died down, the presiding officer – speaking to the gallery – indicated that he did not wish to intrude upon the woman’s personal life but felt that the record should reflect an answer. Indeed, she said “oui” (Québec’s proceedings occur primarily in French). 

A close Canadian call is worth noting. According to a press report, MP Guy Lauzon had hoped to propose in the House itself in 2004 (whether from the floor is unclear) but it was thwarted by an emergency debate. He proposed in the parliamentary restaurant instead. While on the subject of food, a Queensland representative proposed after a members’ swearing-in breakfast 2009, confessing to hiding the ring in a Parliament House fridge. MP Rob Messinger hid the ring alongside some cheese slices and told the press “I was just really happy she wasn’t hungry for cheese this morning!”

Not every marriage proposal in a legislature might be what it first seems. A member of the Italian Parliament took to the floor during a debate on earthquake relief in 2019 to propose, jewelry box in hand (the video in Italian is available here). This grand gesture garnered the support of colleagues, met the scolding of the Speaker (for the breach of protocol) and made headlines across the globe; however, Italian press reports it was actually a stunt: The couple was already engaged with a venue for the wedding already booked (the video in Italian is available here). 

As romantic as some these examples might be, one of the earliest examples of a legislator popping the question mid-session is decidedly the opposite. In 1949, Idaho State Rep. E.A. Snow asked whether the Lady from Ada (Ms. Miller) would take a question. He asked whether or not she would marry him and, according to most press reports, she turned red and sat down leaving the query unanswered. The Speaker ruled the question “leading” and that she did not need to answer, though a short time later she came to the floor to accept the unexpected proposal. Several months later indeed she got married – albeit it to a different man, reporter Sandor S. Klein. In an interesting twist, it was Klein’s reporting on the engagement in the legislature that brought him to Ms. Miller’s attention – reportedly, she called him to a meeting to complain of his reporting only for romance between them to blossom. 

Both for legislators and legislative staff, legislatures can be romantic places. Indeed, engagements involving staffers have happened from the floor of the UK House of Commons (available here) to the floor of the Massachusetts House of Representatives (available here). In 1965, the Associated Press ran a story under the headline “Legislator Wins 1-0 Marriage Proposal Vote” about freshman Congressman Andrew Jacobs Jr. arranging for floor access after an adjournment to pop the question. In a line that would perhaps raise more eyebrows now than it did then, the AP reported that “Ms. Welsh, 22, and her congressman-boss plan to marry sometime in May”.

Legislators planning their nuptials face many of the same struggles as any other couple: ensuring sufficient appropriations for the big day and finding someone who will understand that a toast is not an occasion to filibuster. Planning a wedding and honeymoon around the legislative calendar is no easy feat, nor is figuring out a seating chart that works across party lines. 

Of course, there’s always the possibility of just getting married on the floor of the legislature itself, as one Florida representative did in 2002 (available here). However, it may be that a legislative record of proceedings is less than desirable – as reported in that case “The wedding was approved by an 83 to 9 vote, and [Speaker] Feeney correctly ruled that the nine objections were out of order.” Similarly in 1997, a California rep married in the legislature – reportedly both caucuses wanted to meet privately with the couple beforehand. For the occasion, the aisle that separates Republicans and Democrats was covered in rose petals. Here comes the bipartisan bride indeed. 

Charlie Feldman is President of the Canadian Study of Parliament Group and a hopeless legislative romantic.