The On-going Never-ending Brexit Story Part Four

Yeah, so they're giving different messages, like I said.

 

Yes

 

... and if that wasn't the shortest post I've ever done on here I'd like to know what was

 

At LAST, some clear headed thinking as to how we can get elected...

 

Lindsay Hoyle, throwing a spanner in the works of the SNP...

 

You have other admirable qualities!

 

Is Hoyle in any real trouble or is this Tories and SNP throwing toys out of the pram because they didn't get their way.

 

Hard to tell. Speakers aren't replaced until the beginning of a new parliamentary 'term', after a general election, (obviously), or when they retire or die.

I'm guessing he's safe until there's a general election when he'd probably be replaced anyway by a tory

It's all been pretty unedifying, bearing in mind the subject matter at hand, but it's not like the tories liked the last one a great deal either.





In all honesty, as the subject IS this important, you could argue various options SHOULD be allowed a go to see if one can get through. Just having the two is a bit daft but then, normally that's the case.

 

Anyone bigging up Milei is crazy.

 

Regarding Hoyle. I'm sure all of the people complaining that he ignored precedent will be arguing for a written constitution to codify what should be done. Just because somethings happened before, doesn't mean it has to be done every time. Without something defined as required, a new precedent can always be set.

 

Turns out the ancient 'precedent' was set in 1997

TBH what should have happened is that the SNP and labour agree a motion and then both go with that but both of them are as bad as each other in many ways. The only thing is that labour are obviously the bigger party so if the SNP wanted to stand any chance of getting anything through, (with some tory abstentions, obviously), they needed both labour, LibDems, etc. to vote with them. By trying to go it alone to embarrass the labour party they'be bollocksed up any chance of getting through a ceasefire vote for several more days.

The SNP seem to have forgotten that they're MEANT to be in opposition to the government. They seem to think the entire purpose of them being there is to oppose labour.

 

To be fair, it's a two way thing. Labour will very rarely back anything put forward by the SNP, as they are in opposition in Scotland.
Ultimately, nobody has really come out of this particularly well.

 

This sums it all up well.

Differences between Cons, Lab & SNP over Gaza are tiny. A great pity the respective Whips offices couldn't put their heads together to craft a motion that all could support. Raucous squabbles and faux outrage over Commons procedure make us look like an unserious country

— David Lidington (@DLidington) February 21, 2024

 

You'd think at some point one of her advisors would tell her she's lost the plot, or maybe they just hate her so let her be.

🔴 Civil service full of trans activists sabotaged my leadership, Liz Truss tells Republicanshttps://t.co/nDPYak6gsV

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) February 22, 2024

 

Hannah White from the institute for government was on Politics Live today and she mentioned something that's occurred to me before now... that the opposition day motions system only really work well in a binary parliament. When you have 2 main parties and one or more others, (but still of a reasonable size), they tend to fail and often when it's about something very important.

She mentioned both the brexit votes AND the one last night.

As they said, opposition day motions have tended to be vehicles simply to embarrass the government, (AKA 'Holding them to account). Basically they say things like 'The government isn't doing enough to ensure that people are nice to cats' but, as the government can hardly agree with it, (either because they don't like cats or they think they ARE doing enough), it turns more into performance art than political debate.

With some issues it probably doesn't matter but with something like this, (and, funnily enough, more so with the brexit debate because that WAS something the UK parliament had control over), it does.

 

The other thing that occurs is that this stuff about a 'threat' from labour to Hoyle is a bit odd because, if you go through list of speakers, (and certainly recently), it's actually quite common for the speaker to come from the main opposition party.

Even with some speakers from the same party they're often extremely centrist like the tory John Bercow who was appointed when labour was in power but remained there for so long partly because he was adamantly opposed to brexit, i.e. the tory party main policy. Hoyle, himself, is an opposition MP as well. Betty Boothroyd was a labour MP who was chosen by a tory parliament in '92.

So the idea that Starmer threatened him with something that was always liable to happen anyway seems... well, odd.

I think he makes some good points here...



It also seems that MP's have been receiving threats because of the situation in Gaza and Hoyle was concerned with that.

 

If he wants to look at the main thing making us look like a serious country he should take a peak in the mirror and his support for Theresa May's approach to brexit... THAT'S when we stopped being a 'serious country'.

That was also when the SNP and LibDems were more interested in trying to find minor differences to squabble about than finding a sensible approach to the original vote.

 

BTW, THIS was the position when this 'precedent' was set that the 'opposition' party had first dibs on a vote...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_United_Kingdom_general_election

Tory - 336
Labour - 271
LibDems - 20
SNP - 3
Ulters Unionist - 9
SDLP - 4
Plaid - 4
DUP - 3
UDUP - 1

So when the precedent was set there pretty much WAS only labour as the main opposition.

We seem to have a system that works well ONLY when there are two main parties as, otherwise, if they're faced with anything too complicated that's NOT reflected in a simple yes or no binary debate, it falls apart.

 

This is they key point on it all. If something had happened, then Hoyle would have been slammed for it. He was really in a no win situation.

 

The Tories don't have a leg to stand on with this, as May kept her party away from opposition day motions and let's not forget the illegal prorogation of Parliament under Bozo.

 

His point is still valid though. After all, the Nats voted for Labour's amendment so they got what they wanted, but it all could have been sorted out without anyone trying to score political points over it.

 

Possibly the last person you'd expect to be the voice of reason on all of this

Mark Francois says MPs should respect the Speaker's apology and pay him the same courtesy he would pay MPs who digress. Says Speaker did so much to help MPs when David Amess MP was murdered and he is a decent man "he is not the villain here". SNP debate should be re-run instead.

— Kate McCann (@KateEMcCann) February 22, 2024