Commons
Analysis
Sir Lindsay Hoyle vowed to restore calm but now
faces Brexit-like chaos
Ben Quinn
Political
correspondent
Questions about speaker’s future after he causes
uproar by breaking convention over Gaza motion
Wed 21 Feb
2024 20.20 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/21/sir-lindsay-hoyle-speaker-gaza-motion-commons
After his
election as the Commons speaker on a promise of restoring calm after the
rancorous final years of John Bercow, Sir Lindsay Hoyle finds himself facing
the sort of bitter criticism once directed at his predecessor.
On
Wednesday, amid shouts of “resign”, Hoyle issued an apology to MPs after the
Commons chamber descended into chaos over his handling of a tense Gaza vote,
which had prompted a walkout by SNP and Tory MPs.
“I thought
I was doing the right thing and the best thing, and I regret it, and I
apologise for how it’s ended up,” he said.
Such was
the anger at his selection of both government and Labour amendments to the
Scottish National party’s Gaza ceasefire motion – a decision that defused the
scale of rebellion facing Keir Starmer – the Conservatives are not ruling out
running a candidate against him in his Chorley constituency at the next general
election. Speakers are not traditionally challenged by the main parties at
elections.
“I do take
responsibility for my actions, and that’s why I want to meet with the key
players who have been involved,” said the speaker.
Hoyle said
he wanted to meet with party leaders and chief whips to “discuss what is the
best way forward”. To heckling, he also denied he had earlier met Sue Gray,
Starmer’s chief of staff, amid Tory claims that he had wilted under Labour
pressure.
Although he
was expected to avoid a government-backed heave against him in parliament,
there was an explicit rebuke of him from the dispatch box by the leader of the
Commons, Penny Mordaunt.
Announcing
that the government would withdraw from the votes on Gaza, Mordaunt said Hoyle
had “raised temperatures” on an issue where feelings were already running high
and had “put MPs in a more difficult position”.
While Hoyle
had justified his decision on the basis that it would give MPs the “widest
possible range of options” on the “highly sensitive subject”, it departed from
a convention where one opposition party cannot amend another’s motion.
In a letter
to Hoyle, the clerk of the House of Commons, Tom Goldsmith, said he felt
“compelled to point out that long-established conventions” were not being
followed in this case.
In scenes
reminiscent of Bercow’s time in the speaker’s chair after the Brexit
referendum, MPs repeatedly interrupted Hoyle.
He faced
widespread heckling as he suggested the rules around opposition-led debates
reflect an “outdated approach” that restricted the “operations” that could be
put to the Commons. The former Tory minister Sir Desmond Swayne shouted “bring
back Bercow!” while others shouted “shame”.
On a highly
charged day, during which tensions rose inside and outside parliament, sources
close to Hoyle said the personal safety and pressure that MPs and families had
been under had weighed heavily on his belief that colleagues should be able to
weigh up all options.
There was
also a public call for calm by the Tory MP Sir Charles Walker. While there was
“upset and concern” at the speaker’s decision, Walker said, he did not foresee
the grievance turning into a sustained move to remove Hoyle.
Asked about
the level of anger in government, a minister told the Guardian that Wragg’s
motion offered a way of venting anger but described it as “a parliamentary
issue, not a government one”.
“Colleagues
are just embarrassed for [Hoyle] now after the immediate shock. It was he who
had said in his manifesto that he would support the smaller parties yet just
bulldozed them in favour of Keir’s need not to have frontbench resignations,”
the minister added.
Either way,
Hoyle, an avuncular pet lover who was first elected as a Labour MP for Chorley
in 1997, finds himself in the parliamentary crosshairs of others after a
political career in which he was well regarded on both sides of the house.
Coming
after Bercow, who was found to have bullied his staff in a parliamentary
investigation and was widely criticised as being partisan, Hoyle vowed to
transform a “toxic parliament”.
The son of
a Labour MP, Hoyle ran a textile and screen-printing firm before entering
parliament. A ministerial appointment never came, but he was a diligent
committee member not without the political skills that paved the way for his
elevation.
“I’ve come
into this job as a referee,” Hoyle said when appointed speaker, before adding:
“It shouldn’t be about me, it’s about the chamber.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário