Over the years there\u00a0have been many good arguments put forward for why we need a written constitution\u00a0but none\u00a0have\u00a0been as persuasive as\u00a0the utter farce\u00a0we witnessed as the\u00a0SNP\u2019s\u00a0Gaza ceasefire\u00a0motion\u00a0was \u201cdebated\u201d\u00a0in the Fun Palace on the Thames calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That place defends itself on the grounds that it works because of \u201cconventions\u201d and \u201cprecedents\u201d! Aye, right!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just as a wee background. The Government of the day, usually Tory,\u00a0allows the Opposition parties to command the agenda on a whole 20 days in a Parliamentary session. Of these Labour get 17 days and the SNP get the other 3. The idea is that the opposition party can choose which topics to debate and have voted on. The \u201cconvention\u201d and \u201cprecedent\u201d is that\u00a0the Government will put forward an amendment and\u00a0after the debate a vote is taken. This allows opposition parties to air topics which are of wide interest but which usually the Government would rather steer clear of.\u00a0Convention and precedent both say that no other Party will put forward an amendment, either abstaining (which is Labour\u2019s default position\u00a0on anything the SNP propose) or voting with the Government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is exactly what the Clerk of the House told Sir Linsay Hoyle before the debate started and then took the very unusual step of recording his written advice, because the Speaker was proposing to break all the conventions and rules. Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s strange that Hoyle took this step after Starmer had met with him in his private office just before the debate, why? Hoyle says that he acted because he was worried about the safety of MPs, a concern which has never led to a change in procedures even following the murders of Jo Cox and Sir David Amess. Not to mention a raft of incidents recently of MPs offices and homes being targeted. To say that we desperately need a written rule book is a gross understatement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starmer claims that he wanted to give MPs as wide a choice of options to vote for, which makes you wonder why on earth he didn\u2019t use even one of Labour\u2019s\u00a0Opposition Days to table a motion and allow it to be debated. Instead he\u00a0hijacked one of the 3 days the SNP gets because he was\u00a0scared to put his own plan to even his own MPs far less the full chamber. He claims to\u00a0have \u201chated\u201d the phrase \u201ccollective Punishment\u201d of the people of Gaza in the SNP motion even though the exact same phrase was in the motion\u00a0backed by the Labour Conference. The simple fact is that on this\u00a0issue\u00a0Labour has more fractures in\u00a0its\u00a0ranks than an A & E Department in winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s part of an MPs job to highlight the weaknesses in the positions which other parties adopt as much as supporting their own. Labour seem to think that they should be exempt from such scrutiny. Maybe because they have no policy proposals to defend of their own but that cannot and will not stop others highlighting the simple fact that the Emperor has no clothes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Over the years there\u00a0have been many good arguments put forward for why we need a written constitution\u00a0but none\u00a0have\u00a0been as persuasive as\u00a0the utter farce\u00a0we witnessed as the\u00a0SNP\u2019s\u00a0Gaza ceasefire\u00a0motion\u00a0was \u201cdebated\u201d\u00a0in the Fun Palace on the Thames calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. That place defends itself on the grounds that it works because of \u201cconventions\u201d and \u201cprecedents\u201d! Aye, right! Just as a wee background. The Government of the day, usually Tory,\u00a0allows the Opposition parties to command the agenda on a whole 20 days in a Parliamentary session. Of these Labour get 17 days and the SNP get the other 3. The idea is that the opposition partyRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3609,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608\/revisions\/3609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}