Party Games Inside the Commons

This is the House of Commons as never seen before.

Lock in!

Over the last year,

we've been filming behind the scenes with unprecedented access.

That's where our laws are set,

these are the people that we're run by.

It's a year that's been one of the most dramatic in its recent history.

This is a travesty of our parliamentary proceedings.

There are people sitting next to me

who have been in the House for, like, decades.

I've never seen anything like it.

Oh!

In this episode, we uncover the hidden secrets of party control.

There's the whip. It's good, isn't it?

SHE LAUGHS

The tactical manoeuvring away from the public eye.

Basically, democracy lost and the Government won.

And the human struggles of toeing the party line.

Good boy! Back in a sec!

All played out in the ancient palace where new political fault lines

threaten the old order.

It's got stuck, I don't believe this.

As many as are of that opinion say, "aye".

-MANY VOICES:

-Aye!

Of the contrary, "no".

-MANY VOICES:

-No!

Division! Clear the lobby!

Clear the lobby!

Division!

BELLS RING

A vote is underway. 500 division bells ring out across the Commons.

Almost every day, MPs hurry to the chamber to vote in person, leaving

meetings and speeches, food and drink abandoned

as the House divides.

I left a nice hot cup of tea in my room to come down and vote.

Forward.

Well, we've got eight minutes so it's pretty tight.

But it's tight for everybody

and I'm fortunate enough that I've got a dog

that moves pretty smartish.

Labour's Steve Rotheram has his office at the far end of the Commons

Estate which gives him one of the longer journeys to the chamber.

I've got no problems getting there.

If I've got my cloak on I can probably do it

in about a Superman time of about three and a half minutes.

Division, clear the lobbies, and off we go.

For the Tory, Jacob Rees-Mogg, from his office

inside the main 19th century palace, it's a cake walk.

If the division bell goes I can be down in the chamber

in under two minutes.

I'm also not very energetic so I don't like running,

I like to walk at a steady pace.

It can be quite busy

and there are loads of different ways to get to where you need

to get to so you try and find the quickest way through.

As the clock runs down, MPs flood into two lobbies,

lining each side of the chamber.

One for no, and one for aye.

In a ritual with its roots in the days of Henry VIII,

MPs vote with their feet.

Lock the doors!

For the most part, MPs vote as their party tells them...

Thomas Docherty.

..especially if they want promotion.

184.

This is where more than one career in the last 180 years

has crashed to a halt.

For the last 70 years, British politics has been

dominated by two parties - Labour and the Conservatives.

Party loyalty has dictated how the central laws of the land

are made and unmade, and political careers determined.

The ayes to the right, 251.

The noes to the left, 242.

GASPS

But recently the old order has come under threat.

This Parliament has already seen a record number of MPs

rebel against their own parties.

One leading member of what's called The Awkward Squad

is the Tory MP Peter Bone.

Cab!

Since the last election,

he has voted against the Government nearly 150 times.

When a division bell rings in the House of Commons,

600 MPs are going to vote.

Most MPs have no idea what's being debated in the House of Commons

and they turn up and the whips tell them which lobby to go through.

The whips are shadowy teams of MPs who enforce party discipline.

They call MPs like Peter Bone a whip's nightmare.

The whips, quite regularly, some of them, swear at me,

but if they swear at you then, hang on a minute,

won't they want me for another vote later on?

The whips' job is to keep their MPs united behind the party leader

and quell rebellions by the independent minded.

Food labelling, this is our policy, so if a vote is called,

we expect that everybody will be able to participate in that,

and if necessary, we'll put tellers in.

The whips' motto is that whipping, like stripping,

should be done in private.

But the Labour Chief Whip Rosie Winterton

has invited us into her lair.

So this is the Opposition Chief Whip's office and there's the whip.

It's good, isn't it?

SHE LAUGHS

I only use it on the members when they're especially well behaved.

I haven't actually murdered anybody yet -

there are no thumb screws in here as you will have probably noticed.

Well, I'll get them out later if you want.

So, you know, the popular image is of rather a sinister operation,

whereas, actually, what we do like to do is...

to convince people

because we think the arguments are right.

Bearing his wand of office,

a senior Tory whip, Desmond Swayne MP, heads into the Commons chamber.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I have a message from Her Majesty the Queen.

He's performing one of the arcane rituals

that litters the world of the whips.

Part of his duty is to act as Her Majesty's mole in the Commons.

I'm reporting to the House a message from Her Majesty the Queen,

and then I retreat, walking backwards.

-Are you good at that?

-You'll have to wait and see.

By ancient tradition,

he reverses out of the chamber as a royal messenger.

The more modern means of influencing their MPs is the fact that

each party's whips decide who gets which room in the House.

I was once accommodation whip,

-it's not a job I'd wish on anyone.

-Why not?

Well, it involves exactly that.

You're a bit of an estate agent to an extent,

you take someone up to this ghastly room and say,

"Well, take some of the furniture out, it'll look bigger", you know.

The whips pride themselves on knowing everything about their

MPs and until recently the Tory whips kept a dirt book.

It contained sensitive information on their members

which could be used to persuade them to vote the right way.

The notion that whipping involves torture

and all sorts of sinister dark arts may have been true in the deep

distant past but it certainly isn't true these days.

In the past, the Chief Whip would say,

"I really don't care about the policy,

"just get in and do as you're told."

Now people will come and say,

"Don, why are we voting this way? I have to know why.

I have to have negotiated it in advance to make sure that when they

hear what it is they'll say, "That's fine, I'm happy to go that way".

Jenny Willott is a Liberal Democrat whip,

and one of a new breed of party police.

She's also a mother of two.

-Why do I go to nursery?

-Where?

No, why do I go to nursery?

Why? Because it's boring in my office when I'm working, isn't it?

Does it make you bored?

-SHE LAUGHS

-No.

Sometimes.

There's definitely an overlap

between being a parent and being a whip, I suspect.

Having to persuade someone who doesn't want to do something

of exactly the best way to do it, and generally, with my colleagues,

I have found that I can use much more of the carrot than the stick.

Westminster!

She drops her children in the recently established

Commons nursery...

How are you?

..every day that she goes to her office.

Am I a persuasive person?

Um... I guess I must be.

I'm not sure that I conform to the popular image of an MP either,

let alone the popular image of a whip.

Lib Dem MPs must apply to Jenny Willott

if they want to absent themselves from a major vote.

I do get people sidling up to me if I'm downstairs or in a voting

lobby, I do get people sidling up to me and saying, "Jenny...

"Please..."

I try very, very hard to make sure that I'm completely even-handed,

and I do... There are some things that I will prioritise.

I think if someone has a medical appointment

or if someone wants to go and see their child in a Christmas play,

that's the sort of thing you never get to do twice.

So that's kind of important.

Internal tensions within the coalition are a symptom

of a wider fracturing across the traditional party system.

Many MPs are becoming less fearful of the power of the whips

and more independent minded.

I can't imagine a more difficult time for whips' offices

of both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives

than the next few months as we lead up to the general election

because our job is to keep the show on the road,

the rest of the party are out there trying to defeat each other.

David Cameron and his whips must juggle working

with their Lib Dem partners on the one hand,

and with the awkward squad of Tory Euro-sceptics on the other.

The battle to project an image of party unity

becomes increasingly tricky.

Is it easy? No. Is it getting more difficult? Yes.

Why's that?

Well, I think a lot of members of parliament, quite rightly,

see that their authority comes from the people who elect them

and they want to stand up for that.

You have to try and get this balance that politics is a combination,

it's a team enterprise. I think it's just something

we have to work harder at trying to understand and manage.

It's Spring 2014,

and a year to go until Parliament is dissolved for the general election.

Across Westminster,

clocks are put forward to mark the start of British Summer Time.

The biggest challenge for the Commons' clock makers

is resetting the world's most iconic clock.

We're getting ready to advance the hands to 12 o'clock.

Time is always a key weapon that's used by the Government

and its opponents in Commons' battles.

The coming year will see many of the best laid plans

thwarted by the ticking clock.

For four hours in the middle of the night,

the clock that the Luftwaffe couldn't stop...

is silent.

That's it, stopped.

With time on hold in Westminster, it's a rare chance to carry out

essential maintenance on the 160-year-old mechanism.

Five minutes before Big Ben is restarted, Paul Robeson,

a Commons clock maker,

dials the Speaking Clock to get the right time precisely.

'At the third stroke, it will be 11:55 precisely.'

PIP, PIP, PIP

And the chime is tested to ensure it's within

a second of Greenwich Mean Time.

BELLS CHIME WESTMINSTER QUARTERS

For loyal MPs and rebels alike,

demands on their time are never ending.

You've been invited to What's The Point Of The Human Rights Act?

-with Dinah Rose QC on the 28th October.

-No!

Would you like to celebrate Anglesey,

-the premier county of Wales?

-No!

-The British Retail Consortium Annual Reception?

-No!

-Institute for Government?

-No.

-Energy Security?

-No!

-And then, we are back to...

-Yay, back to the start again.

All your invites.

The first thing you have to learn as an MP,

you come in here and you arrive on the first day

and there's a full pile. 80% of it, you just say no.

Peter Bone has spent nine years in the Commons

where he's seen as a maverick and something of a joker.

His regular gag is that his wife is the yardstick against which

everything must be judged.

Now, I know Mrs Bone is following this very closely today.

LAUGHTER

Mrs Bone was saying...

Mrs Bone and I...

Mrs Bone wanted to know...

MPs JEER

Mrs Bone wants to know what the Prime Minister is going to do about it.

I do feel now that

a very big part of my life is trying to give pleasure to Mrs Bone.

LAUGHTER

It's not MY feelings. It's what the people are telling me.

And when we use a Mrs Bone story to the Prime Minister -

"Mrs Bone is saying, Prime Minister..." -

it isn't actually Mrs Bone,

it's the sum of what my constituents are telling Jennie.

-See you later.

-Bye.

-Cheers, bye.

-Au revoir!

Jennie Bone is her husband's executive secretary

in the Commons, and now focuses on his work in the constituency.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer in erm...

March of this year.

It's probably the first time in our married life that I can remember

his jaw dropped, and he was speechless, he could not say anything. Erm...

So chemotherapy is the cause of my hairstyle at the minute -

but it will grow back.

Peter Bone believes passionately that Britain should leave the EU.

And Europe, as ever, is the toxic issue that splits the Conservatives.

A surge in support for Ukip in the recent European elections

heightens the threat to Tory unity.

The serial rebel Peter Bone

will go to almost any length to rattle his party's cage.

With the coalition unable to agree over a referendum on Britain's EU membership,

he's decided to take action.

He's holding a referendum of his own

in his Midlands constituency.

-PHOTOGRAPHER:

-Lovely.

-Thank you.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm sorry to interrupt Friday afternoon.

Everyone will get a ballot paper over the next few days

asking you whether you want to

stay in or come out of the European Union.

We want Middle England to vote.

150 miles further north,

Labour's Steve Rotheram is another independent-minded MP.

But he couldn't be further in outlook from Peter Bone.

A pro-European and former bricklayer,

he joined the Commons as part of the new intake in 2010.

It's still a very strange place

to go on a daily basis to work, Westminster.

I mean, you see people... When I first went down there,

I was bumping into people who are now colleagues of mine

who I'd only ever seen on the telly -

like, "Oh, my God, that's such and such a one, isn't it?"

"Isn't that Harriet Harman, isn't that...?"

Steve Rotheram wants to use Europe

to improve the wellbeing of his fellow Liverpudlians.

I think on building sites

there'll be a huge range of different views on Europe.

I'm pretty much a pro-European, I've seen the huge benefits

that Europe can bring to a city like Liverpool.

Doing the job that we do sometimes, you can go all week

and not really see any particular progress

even though you've worked your little cotton socks off all week.

I quite like building, and it's very cathartic when you're

doing something physical with your hands and then

at the end of the day you can see something that you've done, some progress.

HE GRUNTS

That was the danger. The crown.

Agh! Saved it!

Back in Westminster, another crown lies uneasy.

A group of Tory Euro-sceptic rebels

are planning to challenge David Cameron's policy on Europe.

Among them is the proudly traditional Jacob Rees-Mogg -

sometimes known as "the member for the 18th century".

He's an expert on Commons procedure,

and he's a details obsessive.

Every time he speaks in the chamber he checks with Hansard,

the Commons' official reporters,

to ensure that the written record is correct.

Thank you. As always you have made my mutterings much better than they were.

It's just this bit.

-"..May have had...

-"..had SOME truth in it"?

-"Some truth."

-And that makes sense.

-Fine. I can do that for you.

-Brilliant.

It is great fun going up there because you see your words

written out in a way that flows

mellifluously, without all the "ums" and "ahs" and bits and pieces.

And they turn fairly ordinary speeches

into elegant English.

There is an enormous amount of bluff

when people tell us what our constitution is,

and the more authoritatively people say they know what the constitution is

the more they get away with it. And I know, because it's...

LAUGHTER

It's a bluff.

It's a bluff I'm not ashamed to use myself from time to time.

His self-deprecating style

disguises his genuine concern about what he believes

is happening to Britain's unwritten constitution.

I'm against the ability of Europe to pass laws

that my electors and the electors in the country at large do not want.

That's fundamentally what it is about,

the rest of it, erm... is essentially flim-flam.

He's greatly concerned about the Government's plan

to accept the European Arrest Warrant.

And from what we know of the contents,

some of it will mean it will have to be agreed by the EU itself

including the European Parliament...

It's intended to catch serious criminals,

but he fears British citizens

could be extradited to EU countries for minor offences.

The dispute will lead to one of the most bitterly contested nights

the House has seen for years.

For his part, Steve Rotheram is about to try to use Brussels,

so often accused of bureaucratic meddling in British affairs,

to aid his new campaign.

Hello, darling. How are you?

He's meeting Frances Molloy,

the mother of a young man

who was the victim of a coach accident

caused by 20-year-old tyres.

He wants to get a new law passed in Parliament on tyre safety,

so he's organised a meeting with leading figures in the tyre industry.

I think it's important that whilst we all have

an understanding of what happens when something goes wrong,

nobody has a greater understanding

than somebody who's had first-hand experience if you like of the devastating effects.

Michael should have returned home to me,

with muddy boots, dirty clothes

and the exhaustion that goes along with an amazing weekend at a music festival.

He was on the cusp of being signed for a music deal,

and he was heading home excited at the prospect of this.

He never made it.

To lose him is life-changing -

to find out it was because of a second-hand tyre

is excruciating to live with, and it'll be my torture for ever.

Thank you.

Frances, that's really

why MPs should get involved in these sort of things.

Looking back over the last few years,

there's been some tragic road accidents involving tyres,

and to pick up Frances' point,

they were ALL avoidable.

And every one, alas,

was a human tragedy like Frances'.

The first thing that we're doing is a visit to Brussels,

and we've got literally the great and the good

in regard to the European Union

who are attending a series of meetings over there

to see whether we can look at this from a European dimension as well.

But that won't stop us in parallel

doing what we need to do and pushing this Government.

-Thanks a lot.

-ATTENDEES: Thank you.

Downing Street, July the 14th.

Ministers are summoned to Number 10

for the biggest cabinet reshuffle

since David Cameron became Prime Minister.

The aim is to give the cabinet a face-lift,

and respond to the threat of Ukip.

William Hague, who's retiring at the next election,

is moved from the Foreign Office to the job of Leader of the Commons.

For those who are waiting to hear what's going to happen to them

in a reshuffle, pretty tense.

But not at all tense for

people like me who, in this case, are on the inside of, erm...

what's going on, and actually asked for the change.

The Leader of the House of Commons' office.

But erm...

nobody said this was anything other than a rather...cruel profession.

Pro-European ministers like Ken Clarke and others,

characterised as "pale, male and stale", are given the chop.

The controversial Michael Gove

is shifted from Education to become Chief Whip -

so a passionate Euro-sceptic is now in charge of party discipline.

And the strongly Euro-sceptic defence minister Philip Hammond

is given the plum job of Foreign Secretary.

This is officially the Foreign Secretary's office -

it's very beautiful, and we are hugely privileged

to be able to camp in here at least for the next nine months

until the election, and we may be moving off again somewhere else!

It's not bad, is it? I wouldn't mind it as my porter's room.

Somewhere to relax. But, yeah - someone's done all right for theirselves.

Another of the Euro-sceptics promoted is Desmond Swayne.

After years working in the Tory Whip's Office,

he's been made a minister in the Department for International Development.

They say once a whip, always a whip.

I know there'll be a lot of people depressed today with the reshuffle.

Within a week,

it'll all be forgotten - the new ministers and the ministers

and everybody will move on.

I see my role in Parliament - I'm not here

representing the Government, I'm here to scrutinise the Government.

And it doesn't matter who's in power -

the new Chief Whip has been in for about two hours

and I've already rebelled against him.

The most eye-catching feature of the reshuffle

are the new women ministers.

David Cameron has been stung by criticism

that he has a problem with female voters,

and too few women on his front bench.

People might not believe this,

but have no idea what you're going to be offered

before you're offered it.

He formally asks you to join the Government

so it's a very formal meeting,

and I thought about it for about three seconds

and said, "Thank you very much."

You don't think there's any tokenism going on, do you?

No, I don't.

The new ministers have risen up the greasy pole

in a House of Commons that's still regarded by many

as resembling a Victorian gentlemen's club.

The reality for many female MPs,

especially those juggling family and a career,

is a long way from the glamour of the Downing Street catwalk.

I don't want to go in the broken one...

Oh, it's not a broken... Goodness me, this is weird.

I have to take lots of unusual routes - I didn't know half of these places existed until I had kids.

So there are all sorts of random

service lifts and things that you end up using.

Come on, then.

Come on, in you go.

A crowded schedule means her Commons office

becomes the family dining room.

Right, sit yourself down.

Going to eat some peas?

If I was doing a normal job

that meant that I did normal working hours,

then we'd be home in the evening and we'd all have supper together.

And it's quite difficult in this job to have a routine of sorts

for children, so actually this is kind of our routine really.

Was that nice? Have you finished?

If there's a division in the evening when we're all having supper, then the boys stay here with my husband.

If I'm here on my own with the children that's much more challenging -

that's the point at which we all just drop everything and run.

-Sometimes we have to go and run for votes, don't we?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-You're very good at running through the corridors now, aren't you?

-I run faster than any boy.

You do run faster than anyone!

My choice of job and what I do

has a huge impact on what...

on what my children and my husband can do, and

affects their lives immeasurably, and sometimes

I do get worried about that.

24 hours after the reshuffle,

and Steve Rotheram's campaign on tyre safety is gaining ground.

He's secured ten minutes on the floor of the House

to make his case for a change in the law.

-Right, let's just do it. See what works, see what doesn't work.

-OK.

The purpose of this bill therefore is threefold -

to raise awareness of...

With ten minutes to speak, he wants every word to count.

-LIVERPUDLIAN ACCENT:

-"Work",

things like that, "work" - it's a very Scouse word.

And even "word", I say W-I-R-D, "wird".

And I try to say "word" in there.

"Word".

And "work".

If it is rubbish, it was Gavin's fault -

if it's great, of course, then I take the credit.

He's not making that up, either.

-That's politics!

-THEY LAUGH

It is. It's my job to make you look good.

Steve Rotheram must seek the advice of the Commons clerks

on the protocol for introducing what's called

a Ten Minute Rule Bill in the chamber.

We're up another floor.

Like many new MPs who came in at the last election,

he still struggles to find his way round the Commons labyrinth.

Let's have a look.

Oh, no, it definitely bends round.

That's not it.

Where would I get the Public Bills Office please?

Oh, yeah, you'll have to go up to the third floor,

-I think the easiest way is to...

-You've got to get in a lift?

The lift from the back of the Speaker's chair.

It's like a rabbit warren this place,

there's corridors everywhere.

You would have thought with two lifts, would have...

ended up in the same place.

I've found it.

Finally in the right office, he asks the clerk about the process

when the Speaker calls him to introduce his bill.

So he will say "Steve Rotheram,"

and then you will walk down next to the bar and bow first time.

-Five small steps, bow.

-Bow.

-Five small steps, bow.

-And then...

-And then round the left.

-Then you're at the mace, yeah.

Yep, marvellous. OK, I'm sure even I can't screw that one up.

Order. Ten Minute Rule motion, Mr Steve Rotheram.

Mr Speaker, I beg to move that leave be given to bring in a bill

to make it an offence to operate a public service vehicle with tyres

that are ten or more years old.

Mr Speaker, there are plenty of other rubber related products

that people would be rightly cautious about trusting

if they were decades old.

So why would anybody trust their safety to a 20-year-old tyre?

He's passed the first stage

as he formally presents his draft bill to the House.

Though it's still a long way from becoming law,

he hopes the issue will now get media attention.

You know, if this gets reported, as hopefully it will do,

people will be aware that when they get onto a coach or a bus,

potentially they could be on tyres that are 20 years of age.

So, if anything,

if the campaign gathers pace,

the Government might act anyway outside of what I've proposed.

In late July, MPs leave the Commons

for the summer recess.

And it's not just the old political order that's facing upheaval.

Carpets are uprooted...

..walls re-papered,

and the mock Gothic Palace of Westminster is to be given

a major face-lift.

Strangers' Dining Room, where MPs can take visitors is

one of the most ornate of Parliament's numerous eating places.

Through painstaking historical research,

it's being restored to its Victorian heyday.

But the most formidable challenge is the building's cast iron roof,

one of the biggest in the world.

Basically it's a cast iron roof,

and some of the roofs were in a shocking condition.

But, er, yeah, it's been leaking a long time.

A long time.

The roof is being renovated for the first time

since Hitler's war planes bombed Parliament no fewer than 14 times.

So this tower in particular is very bad,

mainly because it got hit during the war.

So there's a lot of historical repairs on it,

a lot of the nodes aren't the original nodes.

They had these repair plates which should sit flushed together.

But as water gets in, and it jacks and it rusts, they pull apart.

And that's when you get something like this

which you can literally fit your hand in.

The last thing you want to see is a Government building fall apart

cos that means your Government's falling apart.

We're standing on top of one of the towers of Westminster.

And this view won't be seen again for another 150 years

until another scaffold's built here.

Probably the most unique view in all of London.

As construction workers dismantle the roof,

60 miles away there's a small earthquake in Clacton.

On August 28th, Douglas Carswell, a Tory Euro-sceptic MP,

resigns his seat.

He says he'll fight the resulting by-election

in his Essex seaside constituency...

-Thanks for your time.

-..as a Ukip candidate.

He cites as his reason

David Cameron's refusal to get serious on Europe.

Four weeks later, as the leaf falls at Westminster,

there's further bad news for David Cameron.

Another Tory MP, Mark Reckless,

has an announcement to make at the Ukip annual conference,

in a voice rather like John Major's.

Today, I am leaving the Conservative party...

CROWD CHEERS AND APPLAUDS

First one Tory defector, now another

on the eve of the Conservative conference,

he poses the question, how many more could go?

One of the bookies' favourites to go is Peter Bone,

once the joker in the Tory pack,

but now seen as a major threat.

How long have we been married?

Too long, far too long.

Jennie Bone has come for breakfast in the Commons as her husband has

agreed to appear on the satirical quiz show Have I Got News For You?

I think you're daft going on it.

-Well, that is one thing we do agree on.

-My advice is not to say anything!

Now, this is an important decision, do I need my hair cut?

No, don't, no. It looks fine, Peter.

Do you really think the hair's all right?

I think you should be more concerned about what you're going to say.

I'm going to iron his shirt

for the Have I Got News For You programme this evening.

-And how much did that shirt cost?

-Cos Peter wouldn't...

certainly wouldn't know how to iron. £10.

-Down from?

-Reduced from £45.

There you go, what a good girl she is.

Let's go and see if we can find somewhere to iron.

-Is it in the bowels?

-It is in the bowels.

-Is there an iron in there, Peter?

-There is, that's right.

-Are you going to stand guard in case any male naked bodies come in?

-No, come on! Don't be daft.

This is probably against... Oh, God, there is an iron!

Seriously. Look, somebody's shoes there, though,

they're probably out running.

This room is used by members to get changed in and iron,

and it does say "Gentlemen Members Only" on the door

but, erm, I'm sure that's from olden days.

Are there showers here, Peter,

cos I certainly don't want to see a naked body.

Come on, then - we've broken enough rules, let's get out of here.

Thank goodness nobody came in.

Peter Bone will use the show to fuel speculation about his intentions

and exasperate the Tory leadership.

I do media all the time because

it's a good way of communicating with my constituents.

Colleagues who won't go on the media, I think, miss a trick.

Not that ones won't put themselves out for the media,

cos if you put themselves out for the media,

they'll remember you next time and come and ask you again.

'As we've got you here, any other Tories going to defect to Ukip?'

No, cos they've all given me cast iron guarantees

that they're not going to.

If I made a list, and we get a close up,

can we get a close up on, erm, Peter, to see...

LAUGHTER

..how you react when I read a list of names.

Peter Bone MP, what's your reaction?

Slight nostril flare, I think, there.

LAUGHTER

Peter Bone remains a Tory...

for now.

But October 13th marks an historic day for the Commons.

Douglas Carswell has swept to victory in Clacton

as Ukip's first elected MP.

Or as Nigel Farage puts it,

"The Ukip fox has entered the Westminster hen house."

It's good to be back.

Even the corridors seem brighter.

I really do feel invigorated

and I'm more than happy to stand out as...in a minority of one.

Escorted by the Father of the House, Sir Peter Tapsell,

and the young Tory Euro-sceptic MP, Zach Goldsmith,

a new member prepares to be sworn in.

Don't forget to bow right at the beginning before you move.

-Congratulations on your election, Mr Carswell.

-Thank you.

I think we can go forward now.

Shall we? Go through?

Yes, let's go forth.

I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful

and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth,

her heirs and successors, according to the law,

so help me God.

Douglas Carswell's first challenge as a new MP in a new party is

securing an office in the Commons.

He sees himself as a lone wolf.

But he hasn't entirely escaped the clutches of the party whips.

I didn't realise this,

but there are all sorts of weird things about Westminster,

and one of the oddities I've just discovered is that Government whips,

in other words Conservative party whips,

decide where MPs get offices.

I had to go into the Whips' Office and drag a whip out

a couple of evenings ago to get this office,

but I've got it and I'm delighted.

When I was a member of the Conservative party, I would get

a constant stream of e-mails, many of which I just deleted, telling me

how to vote on certain things and what the line to take was on things.

And now I have to think for myself.

Yeah, it's a slightly strange feeling

because, erm, I guess this is Ukip's...

..Whips' HQ.

HE CHUCKLES

Douglas Carswell's new office is a modern extension

to the 19th century palace.

A few metres above his head,

a battle far removed from the political fray is playing out.

Angel, the Harris' hawk, is fighting to keep Parliament

free from pigeons and their droppings.

I wouldn't say I'm protecting the Members of Parliament here,

I think this is more of a protecting the fabric of the building

than protecting the members.

They might get some benefit because they wouldn't get pooed on.

I think that was a bit of liver.

Narrowly missed my mouth,

which is always nice for the missus.

Across London, Steve Rotheram is about to set off for Brussels.

Unlike Ukip and the Euro-sceptics, he thinks the EU can work for MPs.

Today, he's going on a fact finding mission

to help inform his Commons campaign on tyre safety.

What are we? We're eight, aren't we?

Seven.

-Seven?

-Coach Eight.

'Well, we're off to Brussels to the European Parliament.'

Believe it or not, a lot of our legislation

around tyres is European, so it comes from the European Parliament,

and laws are obviously, as part...

Our own Parliament, the UK Parliament,

enacts the regulations passed down.

So we want to find out what the plans are in regard to them

looking to specifically develop some legislation

and some policies around the age of tyres.

Once in Brussels Steve Rotheram will discover there are no plans

to legislate against old tyres.

So he'll have to try and get it through the Commons.

It's October 29th,

three weeks before the Tory defector Mark Reckless is to fight

a by-election as the new Ukip candidate in the Kent seat of

Rochester and Strood.

The Government has promised a vote on the controversial European

arrest warrant which allows for the rapid extradition of

criminal suspects between EU member states.

Ed Miliband supports the Government on the measure

but he seeks to exploit Tory divisions over Europe.

Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker,

a vital tool that has helped to bring murderers,

rapists and paedophiles to justice is the European Arrest Warrant.

Why is he delaying having a vote on it?

It's the by-election in Rochester and Strood!

He's paralysed by fear of another back bench rebellion on Europe!

MEMBERS ROAR

Mr Speaker, there's only one problem with his question, which is

we are going to have a vote, we're going to have it

before the Rochester by-election, his questions have just collapsed.

MEMBERS ROAR

It's November 10th,

the day of the planned vote on the European Arrest Warrant.

The first signs of trouble arrive

when it's not specifically included in the list of measures

on European law enforcement coming before the Commons.

The whips prepared us a brief on the sort of technical details

of the motion before the House today

and, erm, the name of the motion

was trailed as being all about the European Arrest Warrant.

It doesn't even appear in the wording of the motion.

The Government has summoned its MPs with a three line whip,

which means they must come and vote.

But as the European Arrest Warrant has been excluded from the motion,

Tory Euro-sceptics are planning to rebel.

Only a handful of people have paid any attention

to the details of the motion until today.

Normally people don't look at parliamentary agenda

until the day of the agenda.

I normally don't, I come in and I have a look at it

and I see what's happening,

and so I think people will be astonished to discover

that after the Prime Minister promised a debate

on the arrest warrant, that is not what is listed on the order paper.

My guess is it's deliberate,

that I think the Government wants to minimise the rebellion

on the Tory benches.

The Government points out that the European Arrest Warrant

is already part of UK law, but the home secretary Theresa May

pledges the Government will treat tonight's vote

on the other required changes

as if it included a specific vote on the warrant.

And her Labour opposite number

claims she's just playing with words and smells blood.

But why not let Parliament have the vote that they were promised?

but the Home Secretary has gone one step further -

it's a disappearing magic trick.

One minute the European Arrest Warrant is there,

the next minute it's gone.

One minute you see it, the next minute it disappears -

it's her Paul Daniels act!

The right honourable lady really doth protest too much

on this matter.

The vote on the next motion will be a vote on the regulations.

The Government is clear that we will be bound by that vote.

And if this House votes against the regulation,

then it will be voting against the Government opting in

to all of the measures,

including the European Arrest Warrant.

Tory rebels join the scorn being poured on the Government's position.

This is a travesty of our parliamentary proceedings,

and I'm sorry that the Home Secretary is shaking her head

when I say this, because she knows perfectly well that this is a trick.

The motion that we have got before us to allocate time

was allocated on the basis either of error or of falsehood.

As I look down from here at the Treasury Bench,

I want to see something that is solid,

but I am worried that it is made of increasingly crooked wood.

We want to have it re-solidified, and we want this motion withdrawn.

I didn't expect everybody to agree with me -

particularly not those on the Treasury Bench,

but they've been playing fast and loose with procedures,

and that is something the Government simply can't be allowed

to get away with.

It undermines democracy if they cheat the system.

So, my over-long time in this House of Commons

has led me to understand

that the growth of executive arrogance

is unsupportable.

And this is what so angers one,

this is what brings this chamber into disrepair -

we are not able to discuss the substance of what we stand for here.

And that is wrong.

Amid the Tory rage, the Labour frontbencher Thomas Docherty

walks across to the Government side

to confer with the Tory rebel Jacob Rees-Mogg.

It looks an unlikely alliance,

but behind the scenes the Labour whips are marshalling their MPs

for a surprise attack.

There's an e-mail that we got from the whips -

they're saying that there might be an early vote today.

They want bodies in the chamber.

Labour support the European Arrest Warrant,

but they've spotted an opportunity to defeat the Government

on one of the issues where it's most vulnerable.

We had a message off our party whips saying that a vote is imminent,

so I'm going to make my way over to the chamber now

and hopefully we might catch the Tories on the hop.

At one minute to seven,

Labour call for a vote not on the issue itself,

but for the whole debate to be abandoned.

Government ministers aren't expecting a challenge

from the opposition -

they're scattered all over London,

believing there'll be a routine vote at 10 o'clock.

Plans are hurriedly changed to get back to the Commons.

At the Guildhall in the City of London,

the Prime Minister is at the Lord Mayor's banquet

when he is brought news

of Labour and the Tory rebels' surprise attack.

CLOCK STRIKES

I say to the right honourable lady, we had time for debate...

Theresa May keeps on talking

so that the Tories have time to get more boots on the ground.

..have been put in place,

because there is no requirement in legislation

for any measure to be put in place for the European Arrest Warrant

for us to remain in the European Arrest Warrant.

The Government's completely caught by surprise,

and what Government MPs are now trying to do is filibuster

till they get all their MPs back from dinner all over Central London

so they can vote that down.

So Theresa May did a very long speech

with lots of helpful interventions from her own backbenchers

to try and keep the debate going.

Government whips scuttle back and forth

as they seek to stave off the rebellion.

The knives have just come out!

Well, I thought there was going to be a vote,

and now it seems that it's being delayed

to make sure there are enough people back,

because it was coming much earlier than expected,

and it seems to be taking a while,

so I'm going to go and take my son to go and get him into his pyjamas

so that he's ready for bed when the vote does eventually come.

It's getting a bit late for him, otherwise.

The Liberal Democrat Jenny Willott

will be voting against the Labour motion,

that the question be not now put.

So it's a debate on whether the question should not now be put.

And I will be voting no,

so that the question should NOT not now be put.

You can see why people don't really understand the way

that Parliament works!

When it's quite as archaic as that.

In the chamber,

accusations of parliamentary chicanery fly on both sides.

This is an example of game-playing on a crucial...

by the party opposite... HOUSE JEERS

..on a crucial matter of law...

At five past eight, the Tories can stall no longer,

and the Labour motion to abandon the vote

is finally put before the House.

-'The question is...'

-Yeah.

'..that the question be not now put.'

Right, come on! BELL RINGS

You can bring your car. HE SQUEALS

Look, there's a vote, Joshy, we've got to go!

OK?

BELL RINGS

I honestly don't know which way it's going to go today.

During votes, Jenny Willott must leave her son

in the Lib Dem Whip's Office.

Can you show Jack your car?

Show Jack your car?

-Good boy. Back in a sec!

-Oh, hello!

-HE CRIES

-Ahh.

What's the matter?

What's the matter? Do you want to come inside?

Tory MPs arrive in full evening dress

having been summoned back before they could even start their starter.

The Prime Minister is in tails in there,

he's come straight from the banquet at The Mansion House.

That photograph, he doesn't like.

He does look like he's been transported out of the 1800s!

MPs stream back to the Commons, right up to the voting deadline.

Order!

The ayes to the right, 229,

the noes to the left, 272.

JEERING

The Government manages to win by 43 votes

after one of the biggest Commons fiascos in recent history.

There were people sitting next to me who've been in the House

for, like, decades just saying, "I've never seen anything like it."

It was an absolute shambles, and it was really badly mismanaged -

but very exciting, actually!

-See you all later, see you tomorrow.

-See you later.

-Bye.

The Government's victory comes at the cost

of widespread anger on the back benches.

And it's the Tory Awkward Squad who feel most aggrieved.

Of course, outside in The Dog And Duck

nobody will understand what's happened,

but basically democracy lost and the Government won.

We were supposed to have a debate on the European Arrest Warrant,

and a vote on it.

The Government have promised it, and they...

Well, they just didn't do what they promised.

Amidst the political point-scoring,

the crucial question of how Britain's criminal justice and policing system

should interact with Europe has scarcely been debated.

I think, sort of, party politics has got in the way a little bit,

and I think it means that we haven't had...

we haven't really had a debate on the merits of the actual motion.

Which I think is a shame, really.

THUNDER RUMBLES

Ten days after the debacle over the European Arrest Warrant,

Mark Reckless becomes Ukip's second MP.

HECKLING

You want me to swear, I understand?

HECKLING

On the day of Prime Minister's Questions,

Mark Reckless arrives early to reserve his seat

on what is traditionally a Labour bench.

Douglas and I have sought to sit on this front bench down here

and make at least part of it the new Ukip bench,

and it looks like I've got in just in time.

You've nicked my spot!

It's always a privilege,

I hope there'll be more Ukip MPs nicking my spot in future.

Fearful that someone may take his seat,

Mark Reckless takes a photograph of his prayer card.

Sir!

No photographs in the chamber.

I don't want Carswell or Reckless sitting in close proximity to me.

I've got absolutely nothing in common with them two.

I just wonder what their motives are

for them two, in particular, to have chosen this particular place

within the whole side of the House of Commons to sit in.

With the Liberal Democrats trailing badly in the polls,

Jenny Willott has decided to return to the back benches.

She's resigned from the Whip's Office

to enable her to take a more public role

as she fights to retain her seat in Wales.

I'm now going to the chamber to go - for the first time -

to speak, since I've been a whip.

As a whip, you're not allowed to speak in the chamber,

you're not allowed to speak at all.

So this is going to be the first time that I've spoken

from the back benches for a few years now.

I'm going to go and talk in a debate on Wales.

It's February 2nd, 2015.

Steve Rotheram is meeting with Frances Molloy,

who's returned to Parliament

to receive a printed and bound copy of the bill

inspired by the death of her son.

-There are a couple of copies for you, Mr Rotheram.

-Thank you so much.

That looks really good, doesn't it?

Yeah.

-It's only taken you 18 months hasn't it?

-Yeah.

I didn't expect to get this emotional.

SHE SNIFFS

Perhaps you'll prevent other people going through

-what you're going through.

-Absolutely.

Thanks.

Thank you.

-Aw, thanks for your support and work.

-Thank you.

-It's a pleasure.

-Thanks.

-Thanks a lot, cheers, Kate.

-Not at all.

Ta-ra.

We still haven't given up hope that we'll get it through

on second reading,

but if for some reason that we're not able to do it then,

this doesn't go to waste.

This is there, it's on the shelf, and ready for us to push -

whatever might happen after the 7th of May.

-I won't give up.

-No.

-I'll wear the Government down before they wear me down.

-Mm.

And your lot, if they get in.

I'll be there supporting you, I'll be there fighting your corner.

It's now almost impossible for Steve Rotheram's bill

to be passed into law before the general election.

But it may be included in his party's manifesto,

and could yet be passed in the next Parliament.

The last year has seen a fracturing of our party system,

and the loosening of the grip of the whips,

so voters in the coming election will have to decide

whether they want as their MPs

those who play the Commons game by its old rules, or the new ones.

Next time, in the final instalment of Inside The Commons...

Speaker!

HOUSE CHEERS

..the House is rocked by a battle over its future...

..the palace seeks new ways to earn its keep.

As you can see, it's the slightly more, er...bling effect.

..and the whole Westminster system is challenged.

Parliament has not been doing its job for a very long time.

Are you interested in finding out more

about the topics raised in this series?

Then go to...

..and follow the links to the Open University

where you can watch topical round table discussions

and get an insight into the making of the series.