Speaker on brink after walkout
♦ Furious MPS accuse Sir Lindsay Hoyle of favouring Labour over Gaza ceasefire vote ♦ Hoyle faces ‘no confidence’ motion after decision broke Commons convention ♦ Telegraph can reveal Sir Keir Starmer lobbied Hoyle to choose amendment
SIR LINDSAY HOYLE is fighting to keep his job as House of Commons Speaker after chaotic scenes broke out in Parliament last night during a debate on Gaza.
Tory and SNP MPS have launched an attempt to oust him, with 33 MPS putting their names to a motion of no confidence so far and more expected.
Sir Lindsay was accused of favouring Labour, the party that he represented as an MP for two decades, by agreeing to put their position on the Israel-gaza conflict to a vote. He took the decision despite the House of Commons clerk explicitly warning him that the approach broke with a convention for such Opposition Day debates.
Last night, 33 MPS put their names to an early day motion instigated by Will Wragg, the Tory MP and vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee, that effectively urged Sir Lindsay to go. In the Commons, Penny Mordaunt, the Leader of the House, said Sir Lindsay had “hijacked” the debate and “undermined the confidence” of the House while the leader of the SNP told Sir Lindsay that he would “take significant convincing that your position is not now intolerable.”
The backlash led to heated scenes not witnessed for years in the Commons, with SNP and Tory MPS eventually walking out in protest over how the votes were being handled.
Simon Hart, the Government Chief Whip is understood to have repeatedly warned Sir Lindsay against allowing the Labour amendment.
Sir Lindsay ended up giving an emotional apology, saying he regretted how his decisions had panned out and promising to meet party leaders to provide reassurances.
He said: “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.”
The Daily Telegraph can reveal that Sir Keir personally lobbied Sir Lindsay to choose Labour’s amendment for a vote. The Labour leader visited him yesterday to plead his case, raising fresh questions about the degree to which the Labour leader sought to lean on the Speaker as the decision on votes was being made.
The political danger for Sir Lindsay has not passed. There is no formal mechanism to oust a Speaker, but the scale of concern among MPS has been a critical factor for past departures.
At the heart of the row is an allegation – vehemently denied by the Speaker’s team – that he agreed to a vote being held on Labour’s Gaza position because of political bias. Sir Lindsay’s allies said he made the decision because of concerns about MP security and a genuinely held belief that all parties should have their positions put to votes.
The day of drama in the Commons was triggered by an SNP attempt to split Labour MPS with a motion calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.
To head off the rebellion, Labour tabled its own amendment. That wording called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” but made clear that a longer ceasefire was reliant on Hamas giving back hostages taken in the Oct 7 attack. The Government also tabled its own amendment calling for steps to be taken towards a “permanent sustainable ceasefire”.
It was up to Sir Lindsay, who has been Commons Speaker since 2019, to decide whether a vote should be held on the Labour amendment. Doing so was likely to have political benefits for the Labour leadership, since it would be easier to whip its MPS to back their amendment and abstain on the SNP position. But there was fury from SNP and Tory figures when Sir Lindsay announced that the Labour amendment would indeed be voted on, despite that breaking convention for how opposition days work in the Commons.
A letter written by Tom Goldsmith, the Commons Clerk, which was then published, revealed the official felt “compelled to point out that long-established conventions are not being followed in this case”.
Sir Lindsay eventually publicly apologised for the decision, expressing regret at the way the situation had played out. He said: “I do take responsibility for my actions, and that’s why I want to meet with the key players who have been involved.”
In the hour before the apology, chaotic scenes had played out in the Commons. Ms Mordaunt announced that the Government was withdrawing its amendment in protest at how the debate had been handled.
She said: “I fear that this most grave matter that we’re discussing today and this afternoon has become a political row within the Labour Party and that regrettably Mr Speaker has inserted himself into that row with today’s decision and undermined the confidence of this House in being able to rely on its long-established standing orders to govern its debates.”
It remains unclear whether Sir Lindsay’s public apology has done enough to placate critics.
In the end the Labour amendment was passed without a vote being triggered. The SNP motion fell.
Much now hangs on how many MPS choose to go public calling for Sir Lindsay to go. It is possible for more MPS to add their names to Mr Wragg’s no confidence motion in the days ahead. It is not binding but acts as a reflection of the mood of the Commons.
Some MPS expressed exasperation that votes on differing party positions on Gaza, which did not have any binding impact on government policy, descended into such heated scenes. Thousands of pro-ceasefire protesters had gathered outside Parliament last night.
STEPHEN FLYNN, the SNP leader in Westminster, rose from his spot on the green benches and twirled his black coat on to his shoulders.
So began one of the most extraordinary scenes the Commons has witnessed in years, as scores of MPS joined him in a walkout from the chamber.
First the SNP began to file out en masse. Then, seeing the exodus of Scottish adversaries, dozens of Tory MPS decided to follow suit.
Dame Rosie Winterton, the deputy speaker, watched in bewilderment as the chamber emptied because of a decision Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, had made hours earlier.
Labour MPS pounced. One shouted “call yourself a government?” across the void at those jockeying to leave. “What a rabble,” pronounced another.
Sir Chris Bryant, the shadow culture minister, was left to make a point of order facing row after row of deserted green leather benches opposite.
The walkout was the dramatic high point of an afternoon of Commons chaos sparked by Sir Lindsay’s controversial decision to choose a Labour amendment on Gaza. Its seeds had been sown some seven hours earlier when the Speaker had unexpectedly been confronted by Sir Keir Starmer in his office.
All morning, after a night of little sleep, he had faced mounting pressure from political parties over which Gaza amendments to select for votes.
The lobbying from Labour, the Tories and the SNP for their proposals – each with a different form of words calling for the fighting to stop – was led by the parties’ chief whips.
Alan Campbell for Labour, Simon Hart for the Conservatives and Owen Thompson for the SNP tried to persuade Sir Lindsay to select theirs.
However, as the morning went on and the decision point drew closer, Sir Lindsay, huddling with his clerks in the Commons, received an unexpected visit: Sir Keir went to see the Commons Speaker personally to make his case.
The visit was unusual. Normally matters of Commons business and votes are left to the whips, the traditional connection point between political parties and the parliamentary authorities.
No other political leader, neither Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader whose party had called the vote, nor Rishi Sunak, the Conservative leader and Prime Minister, visited the Speaker.
But it is Labour whose MPS are more split on the Israel-gaza conflict than political rivals and it was the Labour leader who felt he had to make his case to Sir Lindsay personally. During their conversation, which lasted a few minutes, Sir Keir is understood to have said, “emotions are running very high,” or words to that effect, according to a source familiar with the discussion.
The decision to lobby the Commons Speaker personally was eye-catching for another reason. Sir Keir leads the party that Sir Lindsay represented as MP for Chorley from 1997 to 2019.
Only in 2019, on becoming Speaker, did he give up party allegiance, as is traditional when taking on the role.
How firmly did Sir Keir lean on Sir Lindsay? The conversations were about the substance, sources close to both figures have said.
An allegation that some Labour figures had made clear to the Commons Speaker he would be forced out after the election should he not pick Sir Keir’s amendment was dismissed as “rubbish” and “completely untrue” by a Labour spokesman. Figures close to Sir Lindsay agreed. Sir Lindsay also had to deny that he had met Sue Gray, Sir Keir’s chief of staff, after a Tory MP tweeted she had been seen in the Commons.
His allies said the Speaker’s motivation was the security of MPS and the need to let all sides of the debate have a say. “He would have seen any party leader who asked to see him,” said one.
Sir Lindsay had to hot foot it from the ill-fated meeting to the Commons to make the announcement that would throw his future into doubt. He rushed into the chamber and turfed one of his deputies, Sir Roger Gale, out of the chair with just minutes to spare before the debate started.
But he was barely 30 seconds into his speech when dissent began to spread across the green benches as it dawned on MPS just what he had decided. It began with gasps among MPS as he read from a script that he wanted to present them with the “widest possible range of options”.
He frowned at the Tory benches from behind his papers and ploughed on, but things were about to get much worse as the bewilderment turned into anger.
“Just let me finish,” he pleaded, as backbenchers began to kick up a fuss.
When he tried to explain there was a precedent for his actions, one shouted: “When?” and another yelled: “You’re moving the goalposts.”
By this point he had lost the chamber. But it was the end of his speech that made it plain just how badly he had misread the mood of Parliament.
Sir Lindsay had begun his speech by admitting his decision to circumvent convention was “exceptional” but justified given the “highly sensitive subject”.
He ended it by arguing that those same rules he had chosen to discard were archaic and deprived MPS of the chance to debate multiple points of view. At his mention of the word “outdated” the chamber descended into a cacophony of jeers, laughing and heckling from both sides of the divide.
The ruckus didn’t stop for an excruciating 30 seconds, during which the helpless Speaker battled in vain to be heard above the din.
As he battled to the end of his statement, at times stumbling over his words, the SNP benches roared into life with outrage at what he had done. He was taken to task by Owen Thompson, the party’s chief whip. “What is the point of an opposition day if it’s going to be done like this?” he demanded.
His colleagues applauded in response, flouting a strict ban on clapping, but received only the mildest rebuke from a stunned Sir Lindsay.
The Speaker left the chair shortly after as MPS in the chamber turned to the substance of the debate, and those outside turned to their mobile phones.
Social media swiftly lit up with criticism from angry Tories. Sir Michael Fabricant, a former whip, said he had caused “a constitutional crisis” with the “unprecedented” decision.
Dame Jackie Doyle-price, an ex-minister, added: “This is a bad day for Parliament. Conservatives should always defend constitutional precedent.”
Their fury was fuelled further when Parliament published a letter to Sir Lindsay from Tom Goldsmith, the Clerk of the House, revealing he had said his decision was against the normal rules.
Everything changed at just after 6pm when Penny Mordaunt, the Leader of the Commons, announced the Tories would withdraw their amendment. She said: “I fear that this most grave matter that we are discussing today and this afternoon has become a political row within the Labour Party and that, regrettably, Mr Speaker has inserted himself into that row and undermined the confidence of this House.”
The announcement mattered because, with the Government no longer opposing the SNP motion, Labour’s amendment was destined to sail through.
Soon Tory MPS began to demand to know where the Speaker was, to which Dame Rosie replied that he would not be returning until today.
A visibly furious Mr Flynn rose and thundered: “Where on earth is the Speaker of the Commons and how can we bring him to this House?”
The mass walkout then ensued, followed by bizarre scenes 10 minutes later when those MPS left were asked to vote on whether to sit in private. William Wragg, a Tory backbencher,
‘Mr Speaker has inserted himself into a row and undermined the confidence of the House’
launched the ploy in an attempt to delay matters, exploiting a Commons rule that stipulates votes on opposition day debates are rendered invalid after 7pm.
The vote ate up a further 15 minutes and was rejected. But, in any case, it failed to stop Dame Rosie calling a vote on Labour’s amendment. Labour MPS shouted “aye” and the deputy speaker declared it had passed without the need for MPS to record individual votes.
But later MPS from other parties insisted they had shouted out to oppose the amendment, so a division should have been called. The SNP’S woes were compounded when they were denied the opportunity to cast individual votes on their motion, even though it was their opposition day in the first place.
Around 7pm, there was another moment of high drama when Sir Lindsay – who had refused to reappear – returned to his chair, apologised for his actions and explained he had made his decision because he was concerned about the security of members.
Speaking as thousands of pro-palestinian protesters massed in Parliament Square, he said: “I regret with sadness that it has ended up in this position. It was never my intention. I was absolutely convinced that the decision was done with the right intentions. I recognise the strength of feeling of members on this issue.”
Mr Flynn was unassuaged, accusing him of treating the SNP with “utter contempt” and adding: “I will take significant convincing that your position is not now intolerable.”
As the evening drew to a close Sir Lindsay was hit by a further blow as it emerged that 33 MPS – 22 Tories and 11 SNP MPS – had signed a motion of no confidence in him.
‘Where on earth is the Speaker of the Commons and how can we bring him to this House? ‘I regret, with sadness that it has ended up in this position. It was never my intention’