The true story of what was behind yesterday's debacle in parliament is made clear in an article in The Guardian:
The reality is that Starmer will not condemn Isarael's action in Gaza and wants to perpetuate their right to collectively punish the Palestinian people of Gaza, contrary to international law.
The fact is that the vast majority of people in this country do not like what he is doing. They are protesting.
Labour MPs do not like the right to protest, as the Labour leadership has made very clear by offering its support to the government in crackdowns on the right to protest.
Worse still, the Labour leadership do not like protests aimed at them. They are most definitely, in the opinion, anti-democratic when the exact opposite is true.
So Starmer, rather than listen to the protests and realise that people are rightly angry that he is still supporting the right of Israel to commit genocide, demanded that Lindsay Hoyle break parliamentary procedure to supposedly let his MPs vote on a Labour motion calling for a faux-ceasefire, the conditions for which he knew could not be met.
He claimed his members were at risk. And that was his justification.
So, too, are the people of Gaza at risk. He, however, does not care about them. He only cares about Labour Party discipline when its policy offends all decent people.
And so we got yesterday's debacle. He'd rather undermine democracy than do the right thing for people suffering genocide.
That puts him high in the pantheon of charlatans who have sought high office in this country.
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Though the Guardian, as usual, promotes Starmer’s authoritarianism, deviousness and unconcern for the suffering of the impoverished as the traits needed as a leader of Labour and future Prime minister .
It is as if Machiavelli suggested that politicians wishing to be successful must become a Machiavelli in reverse. That doing bad things is how to appear that you are good.
What puzzles me is how they call for a cease fire in Parliament, yet abstain at the UN. ♀️
I posted the comment below on your “Decent Parliament, Decent Speaker” article. It was reported early on in yesterday’s debacle, by a BBC reporter (can’t immediately find it but it was widely commented on), that Hoyle was actually blackmailed. The reporter went on to say that Labour MPs were openly boasting about Starmer’s actions. The security of MPs story is a smokescreen. The reality appears much, much worse.
“If, as it appears, Starmer threatened Hoyle (with the loss of his job) then that needs investigating by the relevant Committee. Starmer’s actions, and Hoyle’s obvious weakness to pressure, has brought the House into disrepute.
Hoyle is clearly unfit to hold the Speaker’s position since he has clearly demonstrated that he’s susceptible to blackmail. He is no longer a trustworthy official and should resign immediately.
Additionally, Labour ought to give up 1 of its Opposition Days to the SNP to make up for the one Starmer hijacked for his own purpose i.e., to fend off an embarrassing rebellion by dozens of his own MPs who would have voted for the SNP’s unamended Motion on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.”
Starmer, being a prosecutor does know, doesn’t he, that blackmail is a criminal offence.
I totally agree viz a viz Starmer being a charlatan.
Looking back, it’s amazing how the pay rise for MPs has actually resulted in worse performance?
But there are so many self-conflicting issues aren’t there?
We refuse to patrol the internet and curb the big ISPs whose remote comms enables us to behave with less humanity towards each other – and then worry about death threats to MPs.
We have MPs behaving abominably – to each other, interns, women and voting for crippling cuts to needy people – creating more needy people, and selling off public assets, earning extra income for activities they are supposedly over seeing on our behalf – who seem to be above the law and any sense of censure or accountability.
On top of that we are disaggregated and spilt into factions by identity politics and false threats.
Politics is just a centrifuge now.
And that’s really bad.
A lot of science fiction writers have written about days to come like this.
It does not bode well.
To add and to clarify – our MPs moan about feeling threatened via social media.
But this is from the same group who refuse legislate and bring these platforms to heel.
Yet some of them are quite happy to use these platforms to fight identity wars and achieve things like BREXIT for their own needs and objectives.
Our politicians doth complain too much.
They need to sort themselves out. But their big problem is that they lack principles.
It was this chap who reported the blackmail:
Nicholas Watt
@nicholaswatt
Senior Labour figures tell me
@CommonsSpeaker
was left in no doubt that Labour would bring him down after the general election unless he called Labour’s Gaza amendment
Um. That’s extortion *not* blackmail.
Um, it’s blackmail.
What is blackmail?
Blackmail is the term given to acts of attempting to make a gain or encouraging a loss through unwarranted demands accompanied by threats or menacing behaviour. Legislation relating to blackmail is set out in Section 21 of the Theft Act 1968.
If Starmer seeks the safety of his MP’s and genuinely believes in the need to signal there should be an immediate ceasefire he would have instructed his MP’s to vote for the SNP motion plain and simple. You therefore rightly argue Richard that Starmer is an unprincipled charlatan!
Mr Schofiled, saying that “Starmer is an unprincipled charlatan! ” is deeply unfair. Starmer does have principles that he holds deeply, to wit, to gain power by winning an election at all costs. So Starmer unprincipled – no. Starmer a charlatan, every bit as bad as Johnson – absolutely.
The other i nteresting thing being the claim that MPs lives were at risk. This will be resurrected every time there is deep public unhappiness with LINO action (or in this case inaction). Doubtless, once in office LINO will develop[ laws that stop the public writing to MPs saying “I’m not going to vote for you” or “what is happening in Gaza is hateful” etc. Politicos have a;ways despised the public, LINO will, probably, move to silence them. Doubtless you are familiar with the court case against a man that was unhappy with the expansion of an airport in the south of the UK. He was just protesting – like the people contacting/writing to MPs. LINO/Starmer will stop this.
The book “A State of Denmark” should be regarded as prophetic.
I’m with Co Smithers
I think it is good for democracy when a people’s representatives live amongst them and are traceable and ‘confrontable’ even.
If you want to know why – then just look at how the gated rich live and operate in our society? Look at how the schemers in the City work?
I’m sorry to say it, but human society was driven forward by being part of it – not assuming your were separate or untouchable.
It is a law of humanity that is being broken here by wealth.
And if it comes back at you, you only have yourself to blame in my view.
Sorry.
Starver seems power-mad and principle-free like Sunak and Johnson before him. He’ll be in the pantheon of “waste of space and time” Prime Masochists soon enough.
Nothing must stop Israel’s punitive expedition and genocide of the people of Gaza.
There were a few MPs who were actually giving speeches at the demonstration outside. Not all of them had been banned from the labour party like Corbyn.
As Schofield says, all the others had to do was vote for the SNP motion.
Starmer will form a Labour Majority Government and no doubt you will complain for the next 5yrs. I think it’s inevitable and needed that a hard left party emerges to cater for the likes of yourself and most people who post on here. Modern Labour will never be the party for the hard left.
I am not hard left.
I am a moderate social democrat firmly in favour of the mixed economy.
Me too!
Is that hard left party the Social Justice Party.
I’ve got the teeshirt. Just hung it out on the line. “Climate Justice is Social Justice.”
It’s actually a Greenpeace one.
Talking about climate justice, the government has just said that we are leaving the ECT.
ECT??
Energy Charter Treaty. It allows the energy companies to take the government of any country to court if that country promotes climate change to the detriment of company profits. It’s using ISDS, investor state disputes.
@ Sue
Looks like a thirty year old Energy Charter Treaty
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-departs-energy-charter-treaty
Thank you.
This sounds like a good thing, but can’t help feeling I must be missing something.
I am not hard left either.
I am ‘what’s left’ when I’ve been lied to and let down by people telling me that they represent me and have my best interests at heart.
I am what’s left because I have had enough of it and I am tired seeing the wrong thing being done fucking over and over and over again.
OOOPS, I pressed a ‘like’ rather than ‘Reply’.
Jason,
no. I’m hard left. Richard is a cuddly Quaker, which is no bad thing. Peace movement is hoachin’ with them.
Either a troll or totally politically ignorant.
Most of those commenting on here are MOR social liberals who have a moral compass. I’m probably the furthest left, being a MOR Labour guy espousing policies that were mainstream in Harold Wilson’s time (not alien to Macmillan or Heath either) and very common in the mainstream of European politics. But then Starmer is being whitewashed across the media when his history is of an authoritarian centre-right power grabber; his PR team uses ‘hard left’ or ‘antisemitic’ to libel his opponents.
Agree with you Mr Griffin & indeed re Wilson etc. Often underated, Wilson was begged by the US to take part in the Vietnam War – hats off that he did not. “hard left” is a label used by the neo-cons/quasi fascists to insult any that believe in fairness or justice for all citizens not just the well off (or rich). If we were in the 1960s, you, me Richard would be discussing nuance, not fundamentals with respect to social justice, a concept as alien to starmer and his claque as fair elections are to Putin.
Agreed
NOT “hard Left”, but simply “mild Left/Socialist/Social Democratic, as was on offer with Corbyn, in both 2017 (when he nearly won – needing fewer than 3,000 votes to have been asked to lead a Coalition Administration) and in 2019 (when he was “politically assassinated” by dark forces and dark money – see
https://monthlyreview.org/2022/02/01/anatomy-of-a-propaganda-campaign-jeremy-corbyns-political-assassination/ – and STILL got 10.3m votes = 2m more than Brown in 2010, and 1m more than Miliband in 2015, and 1m more even than Blair in 2005.
Alas, what he offered was too reasonable, hopeful, sensible, necessary, and so PROFOUNDLY dangerous to the 1% neo-feudal (and neo-Fascist? Alas, yes) oligarchy that is really in charge, so I fear that had he become PM in 2017, he would have lasted a fortnight before being toppled in a CIA-managed “A Very British Coup”, & clapped in the UK’s Guantanamo, HMP Belmarsh, & the country run by a “puppet” appointed by the Crown, under martial law, with no reference to Parliament.
I am not hard left. Labels rarely shed light.
If there is a serious threat to M. P.s, has it been reported to the police?
If not, why not?
Today on radio 4 it was said some MPs have had police protection.
I deplore any threats to MPs regardless of their views but I have no doubt the Daily Mail will highlight any threat from pro-Palestinians ( with hints of racism ).
I also have no doubt that members of the Conservative Friends of Israel have pressure out on them-but of a different sort.
Both threaten democracy.
Lammy and Starmer seem to suggest that people and parliamentarians cannot make a judgement that witholding water, food, medicines, energy from a whole population constitutes collective punishment and is against international law and/or a potential war crime .
This implies we have to wait years for an inquiry /legal judgement – which means that massacres and genocides will never be resisted at the time they are happening.
Such sophistry – but if Biden picked up the phone to Netanyahu and stopped the bombing overnight as apparently Reagan did :
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/21/biden-stop-gaza-bombing-genocide-israel
then Lammy and Starmer would be calling for an instant ceasefire. Pathetic – and possibly an echo of Blair keeping lockstep with the US in Iraq over any independent judgement or policy of our own.
If Lammy/Starmer were just seeking power – it might be asked why not support the SNP motion which would be popular in the country – but presumably they are terrified of Daily Mail etc
Can’t help comparing with the rise of the Nazis on BBC4 . We are all implicated by our leaders in ongoing massacre of the innocents. Presumably another 100 while the Commons panto was in progress.
100% agree people must have the right to protest. However it does appear that a rather unpleasant level of protest outside of MPs homes is beginning to happen. In the interest of democracy and the need to have decent people willing to stand as MPs I do think that targeting MPs with threats of violence and inside their own homes is not acceptable.
As ever we appear to be following the American path and social media / conspiracy websites etc are encouraging violence as against peaceful protest.
Not helped by the level of lying and actions of the rightwing of this Conservative Government. Much to be concerned about.
I have always been troubled by protest at MPs’ homes. They families have a right to privacy, as do the communities around them. I would be happy with this being banned.
Thank you, both.
I don’t disagree, but am not surprised, either, as matters get desperate.
Richard and readers may not be away of how, for a dozen years now, farmers, yellow vests* etc. have protested outside the homes of French ministers and even cut off their electricity supply. It’s hard to argue against making bubble resident ministers feel what others have to put up with.
*Mum and I got tear gassed when well away from Fouquet’s in Paris when riot police decided to disperse the protestors, who seemed peaceful until then and were often gathered as families, and others.
I can’t remember the politicians and their friends in the MSM complaining about Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler being attacked. It’s always about the likes of Jess Philips.
Protests outside MPs homes? As Colonel Smithers points out, it would seem good enough for the French (I had a 22 hr drive to escape France & farmer protests @ end Jan this year).
Why such protests?
because politicos are not listening.
becuase in many cases (and in this case – the Israeli lobby) they are compromised – they don’t “represent” their constituents/their interests.
Because the party they are a member of is run on stalinist grounds = Starmer/LINO.
Because what exists as discussed ad nauseum on this blog is that the UK is no longer a democracy (witness the emasculation of local democracy).
Protests outside MPs houses? bring it on. If they don’t like the heat – resign and get a real job.
Politicians should be frightened by citizens – the current crew despise us, all of us, all of the time.
Thank you, Richard.
An hour ago, I received an e-mail from a (Tory leaning) lobbyist: This was Blair’s idea. He’s doing the foreign policy thinking for Labour as the shadow cabinet has neither experience nor interest in foreign affairs and Blair sees himself as elder statesman and mentor. Blair is also in touch with his Gulf state donors who, unofficially, back Israel and see what’s going on in Palestine and Yemen as popular revolts and one that could spread to the monarchies.
You know, it’s quite telling when the financial sector seems to know more about what is going off behind the scenes than the public?
Thank you, PSR.
Mervyn King has said the same.
Here’s the Labour amendment watering down of the SNP motion:-
“The Labour motion notes ‘that Israel cannot be expected to cease fighting if Hamas continues with violence and that Israelis have the right to the assurance that the horror of 7 October 2023 cannot happen again.’ ”
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-the-lindsay-hoyle-gaza-ceasefire-vote-row-between-snp-conservatives-and-labour-explained
Now you can all see why, in a previous post on this blog, I said Starmer was untrustworthy, authoritarian, a potential dictator, and should NOT be allowed anywhere near power, and CERTAINLY not No. 10, and that all progressives, progressive organisations, should do all they can to block him.
Not just a charlatan, but a sociopathic, flat-earther economist, charlatan, with blood on his hands!
The very LAST person to be PM. Or LOTO. Or even an MP! Here’s hoping Andrew Feinstein defeats him in the GE!
https://www.mysociety.org/2024/02/22/opposition-day-gaza-ceasefire-votes/
About last night’s votes. Not unanimous, apparently. Flynn has now added his name to the EDM calling for no confidence in the speaker. Usually front benchers do not sign EDMs.
The ‘vast majority’ of people in this country are NOT protesting.
As always it’s a small, vocal minority who you support, consistent with your anti-Israel rhetoric.
I am not and have never been anti-Israel.
I am anti-fascist.
Are you?
If you are, how can you support Netanyahu?
Starmer; so terrified of being labelled anti-Semitic that genocide is preferable.
I’d like to put this in the perspective it deserves.
1. The debate was an Opposition Day Debate allocated to the SNP, one of the 3 allocated to the “minor” Parties during every Session. The Opposition is allocated 17 Opposition Days every Session. The procedure is that, unlike ordinary Debates, the Opposition motion is tabled first, then debated; the Government may table amendments, which with the current Government majority, are certain to be passed. It is almost without precedent for a second, separate amendment to be tabled – and allowed by the Speaker – from a different Opposition Party.
2. The Labour amendment significantly watered down the SNP motion calling for an immediate ceasefire, which was brief and specific. The Labour amendment, on the other hand, was wordy and obfuscating, and omitted the words “collective punishment” in relation to the total siege inflicted on Gaza by the IDF. The SNP motion would have allowed MPs from all parties to vote with their consciences, as there was no whip. As a result, it was probable that about 100 (?) Labour MPs, including a couple on the Labour Front Bench, would vote with the SNP in calling for an immediate ceasefire. This constituted a major rebellion, and a significant threat to Starmer’s leadership. A number of Tory MPs also intended to vote with the SNP.
3. Starmer went to see the Speaker on the morning of the debate, and told him that he feared for the safety of MPs in the current situation if the Labour amendment were not debated, as many had faced severe abuse for abstaining on a previous motion for a ceasefire. He “urged him to ensure the broadest possible debate” and argued that the Speaker should ignore precedent.
4. The Speaker did exactly that. His inclusion of the “extra” Labour amendment provoked outrage in the Commons, for the reasons above – although Starmer’s intervention was not public knowledge till later in the debate. When the hint of it was revealed in a Tweet by a reporter, the Leader of the House considered it serious enough to withdraw the Tories from any further part in the debate.
5. In the ensuing uproar, the whole of the SNP and many Tories walked out. The end result was that the Deputy Speaker said she hadn’t heard any opposing calls in the shouts of “Aye” or “No” so the Labour amendment went through WITHOUT A DIVISION.
6. The Speaker was almost forcibly dragged back to the House to explain himself. He’d acted, he said, to protect the safety of MPs, despite the Clerk to the House’s advice ( publicly available on the Commons library website) that he was in contravention of procedure and precedent.
7. The SNP asked repeatedly why their motion on their (1 of 3) Days had been hijacked. Labour had never tabled its own motion on any kind of ceasefire on any of its 17 Days. Tories were furious, notably those who had intended to vote FOR an immediate ceasefire and had been denied the chance because of Starmer’s intervention. Additionally, MPs were shocked that there had NOT been a Division, despite calls for one. Hansard recorded that Labour’s amendment has “passed unanimously” which was also challenged repeatedly.
All in all, a bloody disaster, which has left Starmer and Labour smelling of something other than roses. Worst of all, the talk everywhere has now veered away significantly from Gaza and a ceasefire, into the safety of MPs and antisemitism.
How very, very convenient for Sir Keir.
I agree with your conclusion
A clear, trenchant summary, Hannah; if I may say. I shall await with interest how this unfolds in Parliament as everyone in politics and media (it seems including the Conservative front bench – I can only assume they have given up on winning the election, decided Starmer is their best hope for neoliberal continuity, and saving the Union); tries desperately to salvage Starmer from the real blowback from the appalling shenanigans in Parliament having any consequences for someone who is in reality a ‘Neoliberal Conservative in everything but name’.
I also await to see how this is playing out in Scotland (but not on the BBC, because it is an unreliable source on Scottish opinion).
There are two arguments being made to defend the Speaker and Starmer, and the client journalists are out ‘en masse’ on the airwaves to rationalise into dust anything wrong in Parliament; that could stick to Starmer and Hoyle.
Two arguments are used, and both are full of holes. The first is the threats to MPs (a serious problem, but not one that can be fixed by Hoyle changing Standing Orders; indeed his solution is untenable, and he knows it); and the second is providing the widest opportunity to debate the issue by allowing the motion and two amendments; but it led to the motion of the SNP being eliminated, and not even voted on; and this possibility was effectively forecast by the Clerk, who warned the Speaker not to do it. There is no excuse to ignore that on an SNP motion day, but he did it.
The client journalists are now working all the airwaves to justify Hoyle on the basis of threats to MPs, and when that is rightly rebutted, they turn to the ‘widest debate’ argument; and when that is rebutted, the client journalists resort back to the ‘threats’ argument. We are going round in untenable, pointless, unsustainable circles; anything to protect Hoyle and Starmer. It is pathetic.
The client journalists are also desperate to claim the Labour motion that passed un-voted on without anyone knowing, was actually a success. This is nonsesne. The Labour motion is facing in different, and contradictory directions, because Starmer can’t square the circle. Let us be clear; the Labour Party has 17 Opposition days to bring forward a motion on Gaza. It has failed. The SNP has 3 days, and it has called for a ceasefire since November. The only reason Labour addressed the issue and moved as far as it did, was because the SNP presented its motion. Labour and Starmer have been avoiding the difficulty they are in over the Gaza problem; the SNP did not create that difficulty – it is self-induced, they really can’t blame anyone else. Labour calculatedly hijacked the debate in its own narrow interests, and drafted a motion that is a mere expression of its own uncertainties.
We are now being presented with yet another political cover-up.
In order to frame the context, to understand what really happened on that infamous day in the House of Commons let us do something the politicians, the media and the client journalists never ever do; scroll back a mere three days to the eve of the disgraceful exhibition by Labour and the Speaker.
Sam Coates gave this succinct analysis of what Labour was doing, just before the debate; and everybody changed their tune, because the scam didn’t work with silky aplomb, as it was supposed to do; because reality can come apart, and in the event, the panicking politicians executing the plan are simply hopeless:
“I was first told Labour was considering a change to its position in the second week of December, but it never arrived.
Instead, it only turned up today, 24 hours before the SNP was due to force a vote on the issue in which Labour MPs were threatening to rebel and go through the nationalist voting lobbies.
So the revised position had two goals – to try and sooth some anger in parts of the Labour movement over Sir Keir’s decision to stand with Israel as it invaded Gaza, and to deal with the tactical challenge posed by Wednesday’s votes and stop Labour MPs siding with the Scottish opposition.” (Sam Coates, Sky News, 20th February, 2024).
Now we know; but we knew that two days ago – didn’t we?
In historical terms the Coates piece, the ‘ink’ is still wet; but the shifty politicians and client journalists already have covered it up in four layers of wallpaper, and are now trying to cordon it off from close scrutiny.
I will not rest my case, because I can see the ricketty van arriving with the rogue traders, and three more layers of wallpaper ready, with the latest fashionable, recherché “Guff” motiv.
The story is changing. Starmer is a barrister, he chose his words carefully when challenged over “threats” to the Speaker. It was the wring term. The term is pressure, and pressure can be exerted in different ways; including by using the intimidation of MPs as a reason not to follow Standing Orders. Not only is this inappropriate behaviour, but it is a very bad argument for Parliament, since it implies caving in to the treats of other; not somewhere our Parliament wishes to be; and not the kind of leadership we should expect from a future PM. Starmer requires to be brought to account, and scrutinised for his behaviour, in detail.
“threats of others” not treats. The treat would for Starmer to come out of from behind the sofa and face some close questioning by skilled questioners.
We have too many client journalists; mere propagandists.
Thank you, John.
I should add that the Speaker made no mention of the threats to MPs in allowing the Labour amendment. That became his reason later, after the uproar.
He said that in his opinion, Standing Order 31 (which sets out how opposition day debates are run), “reflects an outdated approach”. He said that his “alternative arrangement” “will allow a vote to take place potentially on all proposals from each of the three main parties”.
“I think it is important on this occasion that the House is able to consider the widest possible range of options”.
Any resemblance to the words used by Sir Keir, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/02/23/starmer-reported-to-parliamentary-privileges-committee-over-hoyle-threat/
He is going to be brought to account.
That is the first sign of sense I have seen from Parliament two days.
[…] Starmer is high in the pantheon of charlatans who have sought high office in this country Richard Murphy, Funding the Future […]
“In an interview yesterday, Keir Starmer revealed that he spoke to the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, before drawing up Labour’s amendment. And, following this, it has also come to light that the Speaker of the House recently visited Israel and that his father, Doug Hoyle, helped found Labour Friends of Israel.”
In another article from Skwawkbox.
Sorry, the above was from Nottheandrewmarrshow.
According to Labourhub John McDonnell has asked for a transcript of the meeting between Starmer and Hoyle. I bet there isn’t one.