What happened in the House of Commons tonight?

[Bookridden]

I'm struggling to understand what is going on and would be grateful is someone can explain to me in simple terms.

Why were Labour worried about the safety of MPs?

Why were the SNP unhappy?

Why were the Tories unhappy?

What's likely to happen next?

Are MPs who don't take a Pro-Palestinian stance really putting their lives at risk?

Yes including the Starmer led meeting beforehand

That's my understanding, too, and you have explained it very clearly @noblegiraffe .

There is a parliamentary convention (which is not a "rule", more custom and practice) that the opposition don't table amendments to motions from the minor parties, and Hoyle deviated from that convention in allowing the amendment to be put.

The Labour amendment removed the bit in the SNP motion that mentioned "collective punishment", ie a war crime, which watered it down a bit, which pissed off the SNP. Hoyle allowed the amendment, which pissed off the Tories. I suspect the Tories would have preferred the "collective punishment" bit to stay in so that they would have a good reason for not supporting the motion (ie, deciding if it's collective punishment is not a matter for the UK parliament) without being seen to be on the side of Israeli government.

Imo it was a sensible, pragmatic decision. And I found it fascinating. I was a committee clerk in local government for many years, and spent a lot of my time explaining to chairmen how to get deal with this sort of stuff, and in a similar situation, I would have advised the chairman that allowing it would be controversial but not wrong.

https://www.gbnews.com/politics/jacob-rees-mogg-defends-unquestionably-impartial-speaker

Interesting clip here. JRM defending speaker.

Hoyle’s father was one of the founding members of Labour Friends of Israel. This doubtless has no bearing but it’s unfortunate in the circumstances.

Sounds largely like the SNP shit stirring and trouble making as usual. They cannot be trusted.

You'd think the country had its own problems to sort, rather than shitstorms in parliament regarding some never ending, entrenched conflict in the middle east, that we hold no influence over.

What people who don’t know much about Scottish politics and the SNP may not understand. They care a whole lot less about Gaza than keeping their own noses in the trough. A lot of them stand to lose their seats to Labour. It suits them just fine to deliberately word the motion in a way they know Labour cannot support, instead of more neutral wording, given the whole thing is just virtue signalling anyway.

The only thing the SNP are any good at is self promotion and trying to cover their own arses.

Agreed. Here it is.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/21/while-people-die-in-gaza-the-uk-parliament-goes-to-war-over-the-ceasefire

Could we end up going to war if our MP's demand a ceasfire and pal/is ignore it?

No.

If Hoyle broke with convention because of strong-arming from the Labour Party then that is wrong. If he did it because of threats to MPs then that is effectively a terrorist's veto in Parliament and is also wrong. However, as nobody in Israel or Gaza will give two hoots about this motion, this was purely about the Tories and the SNP trying to manoeuvre Labour into a difficult position and throwing a tantrum when it didn't work. It was unedifying all round, a complete squandering of parliamentary time, and using serious international issues to play petty party political games makes them all look almost as bad as the craziest of American Republicans. Even though I think he made a bad decision, I would feel sorry for Lindsay Hoyle if he fell over this debacle.

What I'm struggling with is the Tories refusal to vote on the Labour amendment to the SNP motion.
If they had won a vote against the Labour amendment would there then have been a vote on the governments amendment ?
Sorry if I'm being hopelessly dense.

The SNP leader had family in Gaza. Not quite as detached from that topic as you suggest.

No. They will ignore it. But it would add our voice to those of many other countries calling for a ceasefire and perhaps at some point that will impact.

I’m well aware of that. It still doesn’t mean their main impetus here isnt to try and split Labour to cover their own arses.

There’s a big conflict of interest here re the SNP leader. He has family in Gaza, and so therefore does not have an impartial view on the situation. I really can’t see how the party can navigate their view/stance when their leader has a big emotional connection to the pro Palestinian cause.

DIFID between 2008 2013 gave 173 million to Palestine in aid. This continued unabated until three years ago when they threw in the towel according to a friend. Other countries have also worked hard to finance them.

Israel also receives a lot of financial aid. I don't know whether that's been paused though

Whatever the fine details of what happened it is yet another sign of the general chaos and disgraceful behaviour in British politics.

Our parliament used to be respected, now it is a joke.

It is so sad as well that they could not even get their act together on such an important issue when people on both sides died and are dying everyday in that conflict...

"How much aid does the US give to Israel?" https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-military-aid-does-the-us-give-to-israel/

33 billion in 2022.

It was Starmer covering his arse. Clearly

He set up a meeting with Hoyle to avoid his own issues and rebellion

The SNP get to write the motion, that’s the point of it

Notgoodatpoetrybutgreatatlit
the best summary I found for this was the journalist John Crace in the guardian...
The Tories then didn't vote for their own motion, because if they lost it would be considered a no confidence in the government vote by the commons and this would mean the PM should resign.

BIossomtoes
Agreed. Here it is.

I can't see any suggestion in John Crace's summary that the government faced a rebellion - instead he says this;

Just before the vote was about to be taken on the Labour amendment, Penny Mordaunt made a point of order. Having failed to get one over on Labour, the Tories were going to throw their toys out the pram and not vote on anything. Not even their own amendment.

Hoyle has no other option now but to resign, he is neither impartial nor neutral, that is now clear as day. Let’s hope he takes the dignified route.

What does this say about Labour and the serious implosion of the party, given they had to call in such favours in the first place??

What has happened is a serious crisis

It needs dealing with swiftly. It’s a shame Labour were too busy fighting with each other instead of putting the children of Gaza first in a vote that could have seen an agreed stance.

According to Christopher Hope & GB News Simon Hart threatened to "unleash hell" on Hoyle if he selected the Labour amendment.
Very professional.

"Tory MPs say the Government’s boycott of proceedings tonight wasn’t actually about anger with the Speaker, but not having the votes

They say the whips had warned they had too many rebels who were about to vote for Labour’s amendment"

x.com/johnestevens/status/1760401974485246206?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

Tory minister texts: "We're not as angry at the speaker as we're pretending to be." (Remember, this is supposed to be a debate about Gaza.)

x.com/kiranstacey/status/1760378069573845330?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

It should have been a free vote and then there would have been none of the partisan nonsense to cloud this important issue.

The issue is a Labour one. Conservatives seem for once United on this, and have been from the beginning.