 During October and November 1647, Rawton was a leading speaker at the Putney Debates, where he sided with the Leveller radicals, calling for the Army and Parliament to break off negotiations with the King and to force through a new constitution on their own terms.The Grandees Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton were opposed to this, but within three months the King's intransigence had forced Parliament to adopt Rawton's proposal in the Vote of No Addresses.Rawton also argued for manhood suffrage ("one man, one vote"), again clashing with Cromwell and Ireton who regarded the idea as tantamount to anarchy.