Document:Losing the Plot: reflections on the Gaza debate debacle
| It wasn’t the Nasty Nats that lost the plot. It was the Labour Party, and the Speaker. I trust they have now lost Scotland. |
Article by John S Warren dated 24 February 2024Subjects: Lindsay Hoyle, Keir Starmer, Labour Party, SNP, LFI
Source: Bella Caledonia (Link)
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Losing the Plot: reflections on the Gaza debate debacle
There is an extraordinary, concerted media, press and political effort currently, to rescue the Speaker of the House of Commons, Keir Starmer and the Labour Party from ultimate responsibility for the catastrophic shambles into which the House descended on 21st February 2024. The only beneficiaries of the grotesque mess, let us be clear, were Starmer and the Labour Party. The media is nevertheless determined to find everyone else in the House guilty of the disgrace, or one or more scapegoats to spread the guilt, notably the SNP; guilt based on the spun narrative of the SNP’s alleged shoddy dependence on arcane procedural manoeuvring for cynical political advantage.
There is no doubt that, as the debate was about to begin Keir Starmer and Labour had a meeting with the Speaker, and consequent on that meeting the Speaker very, very unusually overruled Standing Orders, against the technical advice of the Clerk, to allow the Labour amendment to be presented. The public has not been given a full and unexpurgated account of that meeting. Lacking that information, or verification from an independent and reliable source, the best we can do is deconstruct what information we do have. It is important that we do this, because the press is attempting to spin as fact what is, at best a very dubious, murky account of what happened.
The debate was one of only three days in the year that the SNP, as the third largest Party, and second largest Opposition Party can present its own choice of motion for debate. It chose to lay before the House a motion for an ‘immediate ceasefire’ in Gaza. The crux of the criticism of the SNP is that this was a cynical, opportunistic motion intended solely to cause rebellion in the Labour Party, for reasons of electoral advantage in Scotland. There is no doubt that the motion gave Keir Starmer a serious problem, but we require to look closely at the context of the motion, and at what both the SNP and Labour Party actions produced.
There is an extraordinary, concerted media, press and political effort currently, to rescue the Speaker of the House of Commons, Keir Starmer and the Labour Party from ultimate responsibility for the catastrophic shambles into which the House descended on 21st February. The only beneficiaries of the grotesque mess, let us be clear, were Starmer and the Labour Party. The media is nevertheless determined to find everyone else in the House guilty of the disgrace, or one or more scapegoats to spread the guilt, notably the SNP; guilt based on the spun narrative of the SNP’s alleged shoddy dependence on arcane procedural manoeuvring for cynical political advantage.
The SNP first called for an ‘immediate ceasefire’ on 14th November 2023. Stephen Flynn MP then referred to “Humanitarian Pauses, or whatever the latest term is for doing nothing, pose more questions than they answer”. The SNP selection of a motion on Gaza, in the simple form of an “immediate ceasefire” motion on 21st February; given the Opposition day it had, was simple consistency of approach, and in line with a huge swell of public opinion in Scotland, and indeed throughout Britain. The fact that the Labour Party was in consequence in a fix, is much more to do with the Labour Party; so let us examine the Labour Party policy. The Labour Party is a very late convert to an ‘immediate ceasefire’; well behind the public, and even behind Labour opinion in Scotland. The sudden conversion can be dated, albeit in qualified terms that left lots of ‘wriggle-room’ for an escape, at least from the meanderings of the amendment it eventually tabled; a conversion dated to 20th February 2024, and simply in order to counter the SNP motion, and give the Labour MPs something usable to vote for, without humiliating Starmer by voting for the SNP motion. The amendment was a late attempt to fill a vacuum of its own making. All of these issues have been in Labour’s own hands to fix, for months; if the scarcely unexpected wording of the SNP motion gave Labour a big, big problem (a 100 MP rebellion?) on 21st February, it was entirely of Labour’s own making, inadequacy and policy formation failure; and they think they are ready to govern. British policy, or even SNP motions should not be formed, simply in order not to inconvenience the Labour Party.
These long-standing Labour policy problems on Gaza were well understood by everyone in the Westminster bubble. The Labour Party has 17 Opposition days in its gift to table a Gaza motion, but struggles to form a coherent policy that anyone understands, or wishes to support; and do not use them to address the Gaza crisis. The SNP? 3 days; you do the maths. The SNP, whether you favour its approach to the crisis or not, has an established policy on Gaza consonant with their motion; their motion was, therefore not a surprise to anyone. The Labour Party? Who knows. Here is Sam Coates of Sky News, the day before the SNP motion was debated:
- “I was first told Labour was considering a change to its position in the second week of December, but it never arrived.
- "Instead, it only turned up today, 24 hours before the SNP was due to force a vote on the issue in which Labour MPs were threatening to rebel and go through the nationalist voting lobbies.
- "So the revised position had two goals – to try and sooth some anger in parts of the Labour movement over Sir Keir’s decision to stand with Israel as it invaded Gaza, and to deal with the tactical challenge posed by Wednesday’s votes and stop Labour MPs siding with the Scottish opposition.” (Sam Coates, Sky News, 20 February 2024).
Labour’s politicking was manifest. The Labour Party policy problem, that sent Starmer rushing to speak to the Speaker as a matter of desperate, last-minute urgency, was entirely self-induced. Starmer knew there was no justification for the Labour amendment to be tabled (both the SNP motion and Conservative amendment were safe, if Standing Orders were followed), except if the Labour amendment was unprecedentedly allowed; which would effectively turn the SNP’s rare Opposition day, into an 18th Labour Opposition day, and place the SNP motion’s prospect of reaching a vote, suddenly being put in the jeopardy of unknown events. Labour had simply ‘missed the boat’ over months, and was now in a deep hole it had dug for itself. Starmer just couldn’t stop digging. He needs a press baron to tell him what to think. Such a precedent, if allowed by the Speaker, only had one beneficiary: Starmer. The Speaker allowed it. The rest is history.
The events that followed, when the Speaker attempted to explain what had happened and rationalise his thinking, turned towards the bizarre. New arguments were advances ex-post, which had not been discussed in this context, ex-ante. Two arguments which were used by the Speaker, the Labour Party and the media, all of whom were now determined to save Starmer from himself; and both are full of holes. The first argument is the threats to MPs (a very serious problem, but not one that can be fixed by Hoyle changing Standing Orders; indeed his solution is untenable, is already being rejected by politicians as ‘giving in to intimidation’, which is unacceptable for Parliament; and he knows it); and the second argument, is providing the widest opportunity to debate the issue by allowing the motion and two amendments; but it led to the motion of the SNP being eliminated, and not even voted on; and this possibility was effectively forecast by the Clerk, who warned the Speaker not to do it. There is no excuse to ignore that advice on an SNP motion day, destroying rather than widening debate and voting; but he did it.
There is a third argument now being manufactured late in the day, because of the weakness of the other two arguments; that the Speaker was trying to ‘conciliate’. He met Starmer. The problem is, immediately after meeting Starmer, he didn’t conciliate, he bought the Labour line, the hook and the sinker. Conciliation would have required him to call in the Conservative leadership, and even more Stephen Flynn; and explain his thinking and solution. The problem here is, the case he made would be thin. He didn’t even try. All that was left was an apology. Who is he apologising to? The SNP. What does it cost, or achieve for the snubbed electorate? Nothing. Hence, the client journalists of the neoliberal media roll on as if it was a storm in a teacup, created in fact by the Nasty Nats who lost the plot in unseemly fashion. are now working all the airwaves to justify Hoyle on the basis of threats to MPs, and when that is rightly rebutted, they turn to the ‘widest debate’ argument; and when that is rebutted, the client journalists resort back to the ‘threats’ argument. We are going round in untenable, pointless, unsustainable circles; anything to protect Hoyle and Starmer. Grievous errors by the Speaker, and bad leadership by Starmer and Labour are not mere “mistakes” to be shrugged off. It is serious, our politics is debased, and the inability of the media to cope with political wrongdoing, is becoming pathetic; and it is becoming difficult to see what place the Scottish people have in this Union, since their elected representatives may be treated with such casual, shoulder-shrugging contempt.
It wasn’t the Nasty Nats that lost the plot. It was the Labour Party, and the Speaker. I trust they have now lost Scotland.
