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Unit 8: Constitutional Structure: Legislature

‘alternative’ as it remains ready to form an alternative government if the Cabinet falls. Last, it is Notes
‘participant’ as it takes part in the deliberations of the House and remains prepared to co-operate
with the government chiefly during times of grave national crisis.
The Opposition has a well-recognised and respected place in the British parliamentary system of
government. Since Britain is a two-party state, one party wins absolute majority and forms the
government, the other forms the Opposition. Political power alternates between the Conservative
and the Labour parties according to the verdict of the electorate. The most notable characteristic of
the Opposition is that it is well-organised. It has its leader and also a ‘shadow cabinet’. The Leader of
the Opposition draws salary from the exchequer and has his office inside the building of Parliament.
He has his own whips and holds separate party meetings. He is rightly taken as the ’obverse of the
leader of the House’.
The Opposition performs certain important functions. In the firs place, as its name indicates, it oppose
the government. Lord Randolph Churchill observes that the business of the Opposition is to oppose.
This is, however, an advance on the earlier formula of Tierney that the duty of the Opposition is to
propose nothing, to oppose everything, and to turn out the government. It is due to this reason that
the Opposition criticises the government with the intention of exposing its weaknesses ultimately
amounting to its downfall. The Leader of the Opposition and his team (called shadow cabinet) ask
searching questions from the ministers, demand debate on adjournment motions, and sometimes try
to carry through their cut motions in order to effect the ‘defeat’ of the government.
However, the real business of the Opposition is not to place obstructions in the way of the government
by making unnecessary opposition at every step. It is required that the opposition must be constructive.
The Opposition must oppose objectionable policies and try to force the government to modify them.
The views of men like Sir Randolph Churchill and Tierney are out-of-date and they fail to depict the
constructive side of the argument. Irrelevant arguments do not pay, rather they recoil and the
opposition has to suffer. What is really needed is that the opposition must support the government
where it is indispensable, it must oppose where it can put forward a better and more useful course.
Herman Finer says: “The tight organisation of the Opposition confronts the Government with a
planned, continuous and inescapable set of critics, who have assumed the responsibility for Opposition.
The Opposition has status.”
This constructive aspect of the opposition has to be scrupulously kept in mind by the leaders of the
Opposition for the simple reason that while it “puts the Government on trial, it too is simultaneously
on trial. The character and ability of the leaders of the Opposition and the Prime Minister are being
rigorously assessed in public contest every minute.” Since the final authority is in the hands of the
people, the Opposition has to see that its line of attack on the Government must be appreciated by the
people in order to have a favourable wind for elections to come. It is aptly said: “The most it can hope
for is to shame so many of the Government’s supporters into abstention that the Government’s stand
is morally condemned in the eyes of the nation; and it may well have to wait till the next election to
reap the fruits.”
Then, the function of the Opposition is not to oppose the Government, even in a constructive manner,
at all times. It should co-operate with the Government in times of national crisis. There may be a
national government consisting of the leaders of the Opposition to save the country from disaster.
Hence, the leaders of the Opposition, in addition to keeping the Government under searching criticism,
place an alternative programme before the people and express their willingness and capability to
form the government if the chance is provided. Says Herman Finer: “Indeed, its responsibility is so
‘governmental’, as it were, that rebellions sometimes occur within the Opposition among individuals
who want to be more pugnacious. On every question, the Government presents a clear policy for all
the nation to see; and the Opposition presents a searching alternative so that the pre-occupied masses
are invited to compare and choose.”
As a word of conclusion, it is safe to say that without a concerted opposition, the collectively responsible
Cabinet would not be spurred on its highest merits. Around the Opposition, there “is a nucleus of a
dozen or so men who sit on the front Opposition bench with the leader. They are virtually the
alternative Government. So Samuel H. Finer argues that the attacks of the Opposition “can create a

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