Spectre of a ceasefire vote inquiry returns to haunt Starmer & Hoyle!

Right, so if you thought we’d moved on from that mess of an SNP ceasefire motion, where on their opposition day, they ended up having their own motion hijacked by Labour, with help from the weakling Speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle, to push through a Labour amendment instead, something which in the case of an opposition day debate, was against the standing orders, the established rules of the House of Commons.
With attempts to get Starmer referred to the Privileges Committee for investigation having been blocked, conveniently for Hoyle by his deputy speakers, it has very much looked like Starmer had got away with whatever he said to Hoyle to get him to set aside the standing orders blocking a Labour amendment on this SNP motion, a motion which looked likely to cause a massive rebellion amongst Labour backbenchers, and likely more resignations from the frontbench. Well it seems the story isn’t over yet, as another attempt to bring Starmer and Hoyle to book for what happened here is in the offing and in the interests of democracy, we really do need to know what Starmer did and why Hoyle capitulated to break the rules here, because nobody was buying his Islamophobic excuse to get himself off the hook here either.
Right, so CeasefireGate, it’s not over yet folks, as allegations of intimidation in parliament simply cannot be allowed to be gotten away with.
Now I’m sure the bit you all remember, that stuck in the mind is the SNP and the Tories marching out of the Commons chamber on SNP Opposition Day back on the 21st of February, after Labour were allowed to bring an amendment to the SNP ceasefire motion, on SNP Opposition Day. Now convention on opposition days. Is that where typically amendments to any motion are heard and voted on first, that isn’t the case here. The opposition party in question bringing the motion, brings it first, it can then be amended after, if the amendment selected passes. The government if they lay down an amendment, this supercedes all others and this was the case here, which meant Labour’s amendment should never have been heard. Since the standing order only allows for one amendment to come after the main motion, by Hoyle allowing Labour’s amendment as well, it therefore had to be heard before the SNP motion, which effectively hijacks their opposition day – the whole point of the standing order being in place - and the only reason Starmer had to do this, was because he faced a massive rebellion on his backbenches, plus likely more frontbench resignations, and an SNP ceasefire amendment from back in November saw Starmer lose 10 frontbenchers. Fundamentally if Starmer’s obeisance to Israel wasn’t so hardened and nailed on and he was capable of holding them to account for their genocidal actions, he wouldn’t have ever been in this mess, but rather than accept he’s in the wrong there, because he seems incapable of acknowledging fault personally, instead the allegation is that Starmer coerced the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, apparently threatening him with Labour support being taken away from advocating Hoyle to return as Speaker after the next election. Obviously with Labour looking at a ridiculously massive majority on paper right now, Hoyle would be screwed if he wanted his precious speaker role back. It appears to have worked. Hoyle allowed the motion to absolute uproar, Starmer was seen to say thank you to him as he left chamber, job done it seemed, Hoyle claiming to want the widest possible debate, before scuttling off himself. He later made a statement claiming that there had been credible threats against MPs and he didn’t want to see another MP murdered, implying there was some Islamic terrorist plot behind this, which he hadn’t brought up before and for which no evidence has been publicly produced. Again, there was uproar, as on the face of it, the Speaker has resorted to racism, to cover his own backside.
Starmer was referred to the Privileges Committee by Alba party MP Neale Hanvey over these allegations of coercion, but this fell apart when ultimately it fell to the speaker to decide if such a vote on this would take place. Hoyle recused himself, being involved as he was and left it to his loyal deputies, who by deciding against an investigation, protected their boss. They were hardly the impartial group needed to decide upon this.
That we thought was the end of the story, Starmer had got away with it again, Hoyle, continues to squat in the Speakers role, despite it being clear to everyone in the Commons and publicly who have paid attention to this story, that he is far too weak to fulfil the role and command the respect of the House of Commons, a no confidence motion in Hoyle did the rounds and attracted many signatures to back that up. Both Starmer and Hoyle positions, appeared to be untenable, yet they seemingly got away with it.
Until now. Ultimately where moves to investigate Starmer and Hoyle failed, were because the deputy speakers blocked a debate and vote on referral to the Privileges Committee in the House of Commons. But now there could be a vote anyway.
You see the Deputy Speakers collective decision on this can be overridden with a fresh motion which could be about to be brought to parliament, a motion which is seeing the SNP, who got completely shafted, prepared to work with Tory backbenchers, including the executive of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, who have a lot of influence and most importantly arguably, they have the support of the Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt, who controls parliamentary time, so if she wants this heard, and she regularly attacks Starmer as unfit to lead and weak, certainly sentiments I’ve carried on this channel and I’m certainly no Tory, very much the opposite, but when it comes to what Starmer and Hoyle have done here, this is simply right versus wrong. We do not know what was said by Starmer to Hoyle – and we know he said something because he admitted as much – and it has some bearing on Hoyle doing what he did after, which screwed up a ceasefire vote, which the people of this country wanted to see happen, wanted to see an end to UK support for a genocidal state as Israel is widely seen to be and already was seen to be at the time.
So Mordaunt can make time for this vote, and with the SNP and Tories both in support of this vote happening, it’s likely to pass if it does, Labour certainly don’t have the numbers to stop it.
Sunak could get himself off any hook here by allowing this to be a free vote, but it wouldn’t any difference to the result. That’d leave Starmer facing an investigation into his own conduct, his honesty and integrity, with all the lies that can be attributed to him already, going into an election campaign. Now from a purely self serving Tory standpoint, you can imagine this is an opportunity to try and save some of their own backsides, giving them another target to throw at Labour and this will be something that will give Starmer grief through the election campaign. To what extent it will make a difference we would have to wait and see, but it wouldn’t be a positive for Labour.
Tory self interests aside, from the SNP’s standpoint, this would be about upholding democracy and that every constituent across the UK is equally represented, because SNP voters, those with an SNP MP got treated as secondary to Labour’s concerns on this matter of a ceasefire in Gaza. This is an issue that matters hugely to ordinary people around the UK, that is not being reflected in parliament. The SNP and the Tories absolutely hate each other, even if historically at times they’ve been politically a lot closer, the old tartan Tories mantra doing the rounds again now, but they haven’t been that for a long time. They’re prepared to work with the Tories, though both parties likely have very different reasons for doing so, to ensure this investigation happens, and regardless of their motivations, it is important that it does. If Starmer is capable of subverting the House by having the Speaker essentially in his pocket that could be catastrophic for the country, especially if he gets into power with Hoyle still in place. We need to know what happened, we need to know if there really was coercion and misconduct here and if that is proven by the privileges committee once given the nod to investigate, the parties involved must be held to account and censured for it appropriately. It needs to be instigated before the election, because with Labour looking at a massive majority, which will affect the make up of all parliamentary committees, putting more Labour faces on them, the harder it will be to do this should Starmer become PM and we then face the prospect of arguably one of the most antidemocratic authoritarian Prime Ministers ever, almost certainly being beyond reproach. If Starmer and Hoyle thought they’d got away with this, they need to be proven wrong, they need to be subjected to an investigation here and as much as I’ve fixed on Starmer for most of this, Hoyle is no less deserving of investigation either, especially since he did the most gut wrenching thing of all which was to resort to Islamophobia to save himself as this video recommendation will perhaps refresh you memory or inform if this aspect of this parliamentary mess passed you by and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.