MPs should be able to vote from home

The mixed messages from Government at the moment really gets my goat.

The Prime Minister and the front bench and leading scientists have said during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown ‘please work from home if you can’.

Avoid using public transport, keep a two-metre distance from other people if you have to go out for essentials, and please wash your hands regularly .

On Tuesday, June 2, I was watching the Parliament channel and what I witnessed was a farce beyond belief. I felt like throwing a brick through my TV screen watching the mother of all Parliaments crumbling into chaos . Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the house, put forward an amendment to stop MPs from online voting and said to vote you had to attend parliament to vote only. Because the voting lobbies were not fit for social distancing, MPs were made to file in a line around the Palace of Westminster very much like a conger line. Once they reached the chamber in the House of Commons at the despatch boxes they voiced their name and their vote. In some parts, MPs seemed blind to the fact of social distancing, others just waddled into the chamber, some were not paying attention, and some just walked past the dispatch boxes not voicing their vote.

May I say that this is the people’s parliament and if my elected MP is self isolating, shielding, and conforming to Government rules it cannot be right in a democracy to take away the right to vote from home.

Just because MPs are not in parliament does not mean they are not working, they are working from home for their constituents.

Maybe just maybe I have forgotten we are the little people and our opinions and views through our elected MPs doesn’t matter.

John Large Scarborough