🚨Absolute chaos in the Commons as the government withdraws its Gaza amendment in protest at Lindsay Hoyle allowing Labour’s amendment to be voted on. SNP in uproar as this effectively means their motion will not be voted on, despite it being their opposition day
Absolute chaos in the Commons as the government withdraws its Gaza amendment in protest at Lindsay Hoyle allowing Labour's amendment to be voted on. SNP in uproar as this effectively means their motion will not be voted on, despite it being their opposition day.
— Kevin Schofield (@KevinASchofield) February 21, 2024
by 1DarkStarryNight
27 comments
The SNP have stormed out like petulant children.
Fucking Unionists playing games whilst bairns die. You utterly pathetic Unionist scum.
> The SNP used their Opposition Day to submit a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire and opposing the collective punishment of Gaza.
> This reflected their longstanding position, unlike Labour, whose leader backed war crimes and which has repeatedly either justified or failed to oppose Israel’s mass slaughter.
> Labour then gutted the motion, blackmailed the Speaker into breaking Parliamentary protocol and prevented the SNP’s motion from being heard at all.
> **In sum, the Labour leadership deserve nothing but total contempt.**
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1760371182350520572
disgraceful from labour. this is a new low for them. i’m not for abstentionism but at this point the SNP would do well to boycott the vote altogether, ideally by walking out en-masse.
edit: Welp, they’ve just walked out.
Fairly telling the ludicrous lengths Labour have gone to today, smearing shite all over themselves and the commons, just to screw the SNP out of their opposition day motion, that they should have just supported.
Beth Rigby on Sky:
“This is all party politics forming dividing lines before an election” Couldn’t have said it any better myself. Pretty disgusting they’re using the Gaza crisis for it though. I genuinely can’t believe SNP supporters aren’t put off by them over this. It’s beyond crass
Just shows you how corrupt WM is and Scotland should leave this disaster of a union.
FYI per Martin Docherty-Hughes on Twitter/X, the SNP have left the chamber, but are currently in the Aye lobby waiting to vote in favour of the ceasefire:
https://twitter.com/MartinJDocherty/status/1760373261844520972?t=pUswLAAjQejn5QeqmQiRwQ&s=19
I say, as gently as possible, to those voices very confidently claiming that this is all the SNPs fault, to educate yourself on the purpose and mechanisms of an Opposition Day in the context of the House of Commons; the manner in which The Speaker has entirely disregarded usual precident; the alleged reasons for him doing so; and the fact that the SNP will no longer be able to table a vote on their own unamended motion as would be expected.
The Speaker has overseen an extraordinary abandonment of typical process here, at the SNPs expense and (politically/optically) Labour’s gain. It is a terrifying thought that the Labour Party would gain similar favour as the party of government from a supposedly neutral chair
The utter contempt the Unionists from all sides have displayed to Scotland amd the Scottish Electorate is a fucking disgrace. As the third biggest Party in Westminster, under it’s own archaic rules, the SNP had 3 Opposition Days to table debates and motions. Today was one of them until the Unionists fucked them over in public. What an utter shame.
If you are a Unionist – this is what you think of Scotland.
Genuinely lmao
The SNP being outdone at their own underhanded game, hilarious!
The cunts would all be voting for a pay rise though. Need hanging, the fucking lot of them.
This is just absolutely abhorrent.
The eyes of the world are watching as we discuss one of the most serious issues facing the planet.
And this is what they’re watching. A bunch of children playing petty political games. Frankly, all of them have behaved reprehensibly. A ceasefire motion appears to have now passed, but that has been overshadowed by this shitshow.
Westminster clearly is not a functional parliament.
Yet another example of Westminster being an utterly corrupt cesspit
Update: [Labour amendment for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire passes](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-68349957?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=65d6497b57c60b5283ad3274%26Labour%20amendment%20for%20an%20immediate%20humanitarian%20ceasefire%20passes%262024-02-21T19%3A06%3A22.129Z&ns_fee=0&pinned_post_locator=urn:asset:db40e693-bc2e-44c7-88f6-959c972d5c98&pinned_post_asset_id=65d6497b57c60b5283ad3274&pinned_post_type=share)
There was no need for a vote, as there was no Tory MPs, and hence no division. There were enough Ayes from Labour and the SNP that it passed. But this meant, of course, there would be no vote on the original motion.
And another update, the speaker returned to the House and has apologised and will meet with all key players personally to discuss concerns further.
Are we going to address the fact Labour and their more vocal supporters are back to the exact same attitude to the electorate that swept them out of Scotland?
They’re polling so high on the back of Rishi’s incompetence they have such a great chance to do it right this time but they’re just going back to the same old behaviour. They never learn.
They seem to have decided they can just say whatever they want about events involving the SNP, and their supporters will all claim to believe this is true, and if they repeat it long enough it will become true. Ofcourse they can pull a stunt like they did today and just have an entirely alternative narrative of events that they will all to a man claim to believe is what actually happened, and they’ll keep saying it to everyone who knows otherwise no matter how blatantly absurd it is. Like we’re morons.
It’s the exact same as that campaign line they threw themselves out on their arsed on the back of. The one about how not voting Labour in Scotland could keep the tories in power? They would repeat it over and over in the face of common sense and treat anyone who objected like they were the morons. You could literally say to a Labour campaigner ‘I’m voting Labour but that’s not true btw, just like mathematically’ and they would give you the lead paint stare and continue to insist it’s the case until you did t want to vote for them anymore.
*How as we doing this again.* also, why is this a tactic they seem to reserve exclusively for the SNP and Scottish politics in general? It’s not even the party it’s their supporters, including Scottish ones, are far more comfortable just departing from reality and treating people like morons with reference to Scottish issues. In fact despite so many of their attack lines being an attempt to connect the SNP to the tories they clearly get far angrier about the SNP than they do about the tories.
There is a whole string of perfectly reasonable motivations Labour could have for what they done today. Are the right or wrong? You could have a good debate about that. Unacceptable, because any reality that doesn’t implicitly justify their most vitriolic hatred about the SNP just be rejected for that reason alone. A version of the story where Labour is the good guy and the SNP is the bad guy is not enough, they must be supervillains even if it means lying for no good god damn reason to people who have fucking eyes to see what actually happened.
Daft bastard Hoyle played himself today.
Threatened by starmer that he would be removed in next parliament and he acquiesced.
Now gonna lose a vote of no confidence in disgrace😂
Ed Davey thinks it’s the SNP’s fault. Yeah right.
On GBNEWS they suggested that the SNP will be given another Opposition Day Motion to compensate.
I feel sickened by all of these goings on.
SNP holding these votes to try and create a point to use during GE campaign in Scotland over Labour. Mad because they got outmanoeuvred. It’s a shame but all Gaza is right now is a political football as – let’s face it – Israel don’t give a shit what our parliament says.
What an utter, utter Westminster shit-show.
If I’m reading the vibes correctly we may well yet see Speaker Hoyle resign over this – his teary-eyed apology over the mess his procedural decisions he made may not cut it. That will likely get thrashed out in what Harold Wilson used to call ‘smoke-filled rooms’ (should that now be called vape-filled rooms? 🙂 )
That said, the archaic, arcane and ludicrous Commons ‘procedures’ need updating to at least the early 20th Century – they are certainly not fit for the 21st.
I’m pretty sure this gets us no nearer a ceasefire and nor would the original motion. And most people will have switched off from these shenanigans already. All this means nothing except to politics geeks.
Good god if the tories stay in power because of this mess this island deserves to sink into the fucking sea
If the SNP put pressure on the Presiding Officer at Holyrood – Unionists would blow an absolute gasket.
If the Presiding Officer chucked our rules and precedent, and amended business to make life easier for the SNP – Unionists would be baying for blood. I really think Holyrood will be shut down.
This happens in Westminster – and it is somehow it is the fault of the SNP for complying with the rules!
Problem for the SNP is that they are the opposition to the main opposition party, so target Labour over the Tories in Westminster.
Using Gaza as a political weapon against Labour is repulsive behaviour from the nationalists.
Got to give a gold medal to all the usual Starmerite posters for the incredible mental gymnastics they are currently performing in order to blame the SNP for this massive fuck off mess created by the Labour Party threatening the Speaker of the House.
Labour have had every day from October 7th til now to present their own Ceasefire motion. This entire debacle is the result of Labour’s cowardice, duplicity and intent to shield Israel from being held to account for collective punishment.
The position of the people of Gaza and the need for an immediate ceasefire should have been put first, then voted on as presented by the SNP – this is how Opposition Day is supposed to work. The people of Scotland elected MPs to speak for them but Westminster says they don’t matter – again.
Now, the amended motion is weak, watered down, gives Israel the right to “safety” and to “defend itself” without affording Palestine that same right – meaning that the next time a kid throws a rock at an IDF vehicle, Israel will use that to justify **more** atrocities and we will be back to square one.
There is a reason why human rights groups and trade unions are backing the SNP motion over Labour’s amendment. And there’s a reason why Labour would go as far as threats and breaking the rules of the house to protect Israel.
Why are the votes people cast for their SNP MPs seen to have less value in the eyes of the UK Parliament?
Will the parties with little popular support in Scotland always get a veto even over the motions that the SNP are allowed to bring forward?
So from what I’ve gathered from everything going on is Labour basically skipped the queue to beat SNP to punch and in doing so broke a taboo which speaker is now or soon will be paying for?