It was absolute chaos trying to figure out what happened here, what the Speaker did wrong, and why so many people were angry, especially the SNP. Can someone explain like I’m five? Thanks in advance.
In: Other
* They were due to vote on asking for a ceasefire in Gaza
* The wording from each party was slightly different
* The SNP had proposed voting for “an immediate ceasefire in Gaza”
* Labour wanted “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza”
* The speaker, who is supposed to be politically impartial, nodded through Labour’s wording instead of allowing a vote.
* The speaker was accused of letting Labour hijack the proceedings.
* A load of people from other parties got upset, got up and walked out
* Things descended into chaos.
* The speaker apologised
* 50 MPs have now said they have no confidence in the speaker.
[removed]
On certain days, Parliament sets aside time for a particular party’s idea to be debated, and there’s a convention (not a rule, but an understanding) that their ideas aren’t able to be amended by other parties.
This is because it would make setting that time to debate those ideas pointless if they just could be amended by the majority.
It also lets them get an “up and down” vote on the idea itself.
The Speaker allowed other Labour and the Conservatives to amend the SNP’s motion on a Gaza ceasefire because he said was an “emotive” topic and was not just an ordinary debate. This was against the understanding.
The Speaker was a Labour MP before becoming Speaker and is supposed to be impartial – and the result is that decision got Labour out of a tricky position: they were looking at some of their own MPs crossing the floor and supporting the SNP‘s original motion, in the absence of a Labour alternative.
But the Conservatives – who had originally also put an amendment up – then withdrew that amendment and abstained from further votes, meaning the Labor amendment to the SNP idea got up.
This means the SNP didn’t even get to vote on their original idea and this upset them.
This also means the Conservatives are upset they didn’t manage to split Labour and the Speaker seemed to be not so independent.
Some from both sides are now calling for the Speaker to resign for breaching the unspoken rule of debate and appearing to play favourites (even if that wasn’t their intention).
ELI5 how a speaker who’s aligned with a specific political party is supposed to be politically impartial.
None of the other descriptions of events are quite right. This is a fairly accurate brief summary:
Yesterday was an SNP ‘Opposition Day’. The SNP proposed a motion on a ceasefire in Gaza
Labour wanted to vote for a ceasefire, but took issue with some of the SNP wording (specifically that they accused Israel of collective punishment (which is a war crime) in their motion)
Normally on Opposition Days there is a vote on the motion and then a vote on the Government’s amendment to that motion
On this occasion Labour’s proposed amendment was accepted for consideration and, by convention, the vote on that amendment would precede the vote on the original motion, and if the amendment was accepted then the vote on the original motion would be ‘as amended’ (ie. they wouldn’t be able to vote on the original wording, only on the wording ‘as amended’). Accepting Labour’s amendment for consideration is highly unusual for Parliament
Because the Labour amendment was expected to pass, the SNP and other sympathetic MPs would have no opportunity to vote on the SNP motion even though it was an SNP Opposition Day. The SNP were upset about this, as were the Tories, because if Labour hadn’t got their amendment accepted the Labour Party would have been split on voting for the SNP motion
EDIT to add some more context on the upset:
The Speaker breaking from the Parliamentary norm (not unprecedented, but very rare) to allow this Labour amendment – which helped the Labour leadership avoid potential embarrassment – is seen by some as evidence that the Speaker was not acting impartially
can someone explain to me why this was a risk to Starmer authority? who cares if they voted for the SNP amendment if the Labour one wasn’t even up for a vote? i don’t get it
The SNP positioned themselves well on the lead up to today to put labour in a difficult situation, vote with the SNP or vote with the conservatives against a ceasefire declaration (both those parties would then be able to vote for a different ceasefire declaration but that’s not the headline the SNP would push, the first vote was objectively whether to adopt the ceasefire or reject it)
In order to get his own party out of the awkward situation, the speaker took a highly unusual but technically legal course of action which was to allow both the government and main opposition to offer amendments (HIGHLY unusual on an opposition day, usually only one amendment is allowed and it’s usually the governments one).
This unusually course of action allowed Labour to replace the SNPs ceasefire statement with their own before having to vote yes or no to passing the resolution. The conservatives smells opportunity and then pulled their own amendment which partially collapsed the speakers plan and meant the labour language went straight to a final vote while the house was still arguing over if the speaker could do this (UK law is very precedent based, so if no speaker had done something before but the law didn’t expressly forbid it there is often a grey area).
End result, labour got what they wanted, SNP got snubbed, conservatives took about as much hurt as they expected to today but managed to throw labour into a controversy so overall good day.
The main cause of the controversy is that the speaker is a labour MP, for any other party it would just look odd but taking an unusual path through an issue which so blatantly helps your own party does stink of bias. As I said it’s all technically legal, the stars aligned (it was an SNP opposition day, labour got their amendment submitted before the conservatives did), but: tabling two amendments on an opposition day is strange, and seeing as tabling the conservative one first wouldn’t have gotten labour out of the situation, the question lingers as to whether the speaker knowingly took an unusual course of action he wouldn’t have if it didn’t save labours bacon.
Here’s a really good writeup of what exactly was going on:
Erskine Matt’s Procedural Primer – The SNP Opposition Day on Gaza
byu/erskinematt inukpolitics
basically it was the turn of the smaller opposition party (SNP) to propose a motion, but the speaker let the bigger opposition party (Labour) push in. the SNP are upset because they dont get many turns anyway.
The whole family gathers for dinner every Saturday. Dad does the cooking. Normally, Grandpa chooses what the family is going to eat. Mom gets to choose for 17 Saturdays every year. But 3 Saturdays a year are Kid Days, where the kids get to decide what the whole family eats.
This Kid Day, the kids went “we want beef burgers!”. But Mom is on a health food kick and is worried that all of her work friends would mock her for breaking her diet, and convinces Dad to cook lean chicken burgers and salad instead. Kids are understandably disappointed and frustrated because that’s not the spirit of Kid Day. Mom tries to spin it as “it’s a compromise! this way everyone is happy!”. Dad only went along with it because Mom would be angry at him otherwise. Grandpa leaves the room entirely because he never wanted to eat burgers in the first place, but lies and says that he’s doing it to protest the decision.
When someone at Mom’s work points out how unfair this seems, Mom argues, “well the kids knew I was on a diet, so they were just being bratty pests by choosing something like burgers. They forced me to change it.” Meanwhile, Dad is apologising because now his kids are angry at him for going along with it, and don’t trust him not to do the same thing at a future Kid Day.
Latest Answers