Whip (politics)

Whip (politics)

A whip is an official in a political party whose primary purpose is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. Whips are a party's "enforcers", who typically offer inducements and threaten punishments for party members to ensure that they vote according to the official party policy. A whip's role is also to ensure that the elected representatives of their party are in attendance when important votes are taken. The usage comes from the hunting term "whipping in", i.e. preventing hounds from wandering away from the pack.

The term "whip" is also used to mean:

• the voting instructions issued to members by the whip, or
• in the UK and Ireland, a party's endorsement of a Member of Parliament (MP); to "withdraw the whip" is to expel an MP from his or her political party. (The elected member in question would retain his or her parliamentary seat, as an independent.)