The requirement to take the oath and the sanctions for failing to do so are set out in section 5 of the Parliamentary Oaths Act 1866 (it is quite unusual for parliamentary procedure to be prescribed in statute). It states:

“If any … member of the House of Commons votes as such in the said House, or sits during any debate after the Speaker has been chosen, without having made and subscribed the oath hereby appointed, he shall be subject to a [penalty of £500] for every such offence, and in addition to such penalty his seat shall be vacated in the same manner as if he were dead.”

The form of the oath is prescribed by section 2 of the Promissory Oaths Act 1868 (which mainly omitted the words in earlier versions of the oath promising to support the Protestant succession):

“I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to [His Majesty King Charles III, his] heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.”

The requirement to swear allegiance goes back centuries, although during the Commonwealth (or Republic) of 1649-53 it was described as an “Engagement” (Dissenters did not much hold with oaths) and read:

“I do declare and promise, that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England, as the same is now established, without a King, or House of Lords.”

Under the Protectorate of 1654-59 they seemed to manage without any such promises, but after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 the oath came into its own as a shibboleth to exclude those not trusted to pick the right Sovereign from those on offer, and to exclude Catholics, Jews, Quakers (who refused to take oaths at all), Moravians and atheists, amongst others.

Gradually, over the course of the nineteenth century, most of these excluded groups were given workarounds which enabled them to take their seats if elected. But Parliament stuck at allowing atheists in.

This last prohibition was brought to a crisis point by the MP Charles Bradlaugh, an avowed atheist, who was elected to represent Northampton in 1880. His request to affirm rather than swear was refused, and there followed a tremendous brouhaha, lasting six years in all, which involved the courts, two select committees, the Clerk of the House (one Thomas Erskine May), successive Speakers and many others.

Bradlaugh did agree at one point to take the oath but the House ruled this invalid on the grounds he was an atheist – a fine early example of Catch-22. Bradlaugh was expelled from the House twice, re-elected three times and spent a night in the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms – the last MP to be so detained on the Speaker’s orders. Eventually he was quietly allowed to take his seat in 1886, and in 1888 successfully steered the Oaths Act through Parliament with Government support (now incorporated in the Oaths Act 1978). This gave a general right to affirm, outside Parliament as well as within, to atheists and others whose religious beliefs made oath-taking objectionable.

At that point in 1888, reform to expand the ceremony’s inclusivity largely ended.

Although the rules have been relaxed to allow a wider range of holy texts to be used by those wishing to swear rather than affirm, and MPs have been permitted to repeat the words of the oath or affirmation in a language other than English, the last group of refuseniks – republicans – have been granted no relief.

This seemed to be the sticking point this time round for both Clive Lewis (who was advised to take the oath again after having omitted reference to the King the first time) and perhaps also for Jeremy Corbyn, who was recorded on camera in the queue describing the whole business as “a load of nonsense”. Many years ago the Labour MP Tony Banks had got into some hot water for claiming he had taken the oath with his fingers crossed.

This issue of allegiance is also vexed by the Irish Question. Sinn Fein had seven of its candidates elected as MPs this year though, in accordance with their practice (‘abstentionism’) since their first MPs were elected in 1918, they will not take their seats, partly at least because they do not wish to pledge allegiance to a throne they do not recognise as legitimate. A version of the oath was included, controversially, in the Irish Constitution of 1922, although it promised only fidelity to the King in Ireland (as he then was) and allegiance to the Free State. It was dropped in 1933 and since then TDs have been admitted to the Dail after election with no oath or declaration required.

And back in the UK, for the SDLP which like Sinn Fein supports Irish unification, the oath remains a hard thing to say. Their party leader, Colum Eastwood, prefaced his swearing-in by saying that he would subscribe to this “empty formula” in order to represent his constituents “but it is under protest” and added the rider that his true allegiance was “to the people of Derry and the people of Ireland”; and his colleague, Claire Hanna, prefaced her oath by saying in Irish and English that “in friendship and in hope of a reconciled new Ireland” her “allegiance is to the people of South Belfast and Mid Down, and I say these words in order to serve them”.

So, there are a number of objections to the parliamentary oath. It has an excluding quality for republicans and some others. Its purpose is very hard to discern for the public who elect their MPs and is nowhere explained (it is a ‘requirement’, but why?). And it tells MPs nothing about how to discharge their duties as elected representatives.

Although the oath is required in the Parliaments of Scotland and Wales, it has never been so in the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 made it unlawful to require any person to make an oath or affirmation as a condition of being appointed to or acting as a member of any public body. Following the 2014 Stormont House Agreement, a new section 40A of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 introduced a requirement for MLAs to make a very site-specific ‘Undertaking’:

“I undertake: to support the rule of law unequivocally in word and deed and to support all efforts to uphold it; to work collectively with the other members of the Assembly to achieve a society free of paramilitarism; to challenge all paramilitary activity and associated criminality; to call for, and to work together with the other members of the Assembly to achieve, the disbandment of all paramilitary organisations and their structures; to challenge paramilitary attempts to control communities; to support those who are determined to make the transition away from paramilitarism; to accept no authority, direction or control on my political activities other than my democratic mandate alongside my own personal and party judgment.”

Many other office-holders in the UK are required to make some form of declaration. Police Constables, for example—

“… do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve the King in the office of constable, with fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality, upholding fundamental human rights and according equal respect to all people; and that I will, to the best of my power, cause the peace to be kept and preserved and prevent all offences against people and property; and that while I continue to hold the said office I will to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all the duties thereof faithfully according to law.”

And under section 17 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, on taking office the Lord Chancellor swears:

“that in the office of Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain I will respect the rule of law, defend the independence of the judiciary and discharge my duty to ensure the provision of resources for the efficient and effective support of the courts for which I am responsible”.

The Clerk of the House of Commons, on taking office, makes a declaration before that very Lord Chancellor that amongst other duties they will “make true entries, remembrances, and journals of the things done and passed in the House of Commons”, and generally “well and truly do and execute all things belonging to me to be done appertaining to the Office”, amongst other curious undertakings. The Clerk of the Parliaments makes the same declaration before the whole House of Lords.

What these examples (and there must be many more) illustrate is that the business of making declarations, pledges and promises on assuming some office of the state can be used to articulate some key values and duties expected of the office-holder. The parliamentary oath or affirmation of allegiance, however, tells us the electorate nothing about what to expect from our elected representatives and equally does nothing to help them understand their role.

The oath of allegiance is a relic of a constitutional settlement between the Crown and Parliament which has scant discernible connection with the current way we want to be governed.

It requires many of our MPs to be dishonest, or at least uncomfortable, and to say what they do not mean. For some it is a barrier to their participation in our democracy. For some citizens it may deprive them of representation. It is, in a word, a shibboleth.

We could just dispense with it, as they have done in Ireland and no doubt elsewhere. Some, though, feel it serves a valuable purpose as a rite of passage (though not a very awe-inspiring or solemn one).

Others may be chary of offending the Sovereign, though since the Commons waits for his permission to elect a Speaker, attends upon him in the House of Lords at the beginning of every Session, asks him to assent to the laws it makes, seeks his permission to spend money and frequently addresses him in the most humble terms it seems unlikely that this small diminution in deference would cause great offence.

Some may feel its very absence of clear meaning may be useful – a blank signifier onto which we can project pretty much what we want. But there is little evidence that this is how the people who elect MPs see this odd piece of theatre.

This shibboleth is undoubtedly a thing to which few have paid any attention in the last 145 years, but a fresh look at it might serve as a jumping off point for some clear thinking about the role of our elected representatives. A reformulation of the whole ritual, reshaped as a way for MPs to pledge to do their jobs properly, to resist corruption, to serve their constituents, to uphold the law and honour the rules of Parliament (including, perhaps, its various Codes of Conduct and requirements to declare financial and other interests) could perhaps be restorative of trust, and help Parliament connect with the electorate at a level which the oath of allegiance probably fails to do.

The House of Commons Committee on Standards published a report at the end of the last Parliament which recommended that in addition to the oath of allegiance, Members should make a public declaration of commitment to the ‘Seven Principles of Public Life’ each time they are elected or re-elected. Members of the House of Lords are already required to sign an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct as part of the oath-taking ceremony.

The first and last clauses of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Undertaking could be a good place to start in devising a new and meaningful ritual to mark the entry of MPs into their role as our representatives.

One could hope that this might be a topic in which the new Modernisation Committee could interest itself. It could formulate by consensus a convincing declaration about the expectations of MPs in discharging their duties. Such an inquiry would tie-in with the Committee’s remit to “drive up standards” and the promise in the Labour manifesto for it to address “arcane procedures and outdated working practices”.

Alternatively, or additionally, renewal of the ritual of swearing-in would be the perfect subject for a Private Member’s Bill (the Charles Bradlaugh Memorial Bill?) Clive Lewis has just been drawn fourth in the Private Member's Ballot so the Bill he chooses to promote will be debated and have a reasonable chance of making it onto the statute book. It would be a small thing to hazard his moment in the limelight on, but it's an issue he clearly cares about and it might at least have a chance of becoming law.

Either way, such a rethink could provide a rare opportunity for MPs to reflect, in public and collectively, on their place in the world, on how they are perceived and on how they perceive themselves.

Evans, P. (5 September 2024), MPs and the parliamentary oath of allegiance: A shibboleth under scrutiny? (Hansard Society blog)