UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[CumbrianLefty]

I know Badenoch has a habit of making trouble for herself, but I would be... amused, if she actually finds a way to turn herself into the most high-profile casualty of the Post Office scandal, after everything that's happened so far.

Just seems dumb for someone with full access to parliamentary privilege in the Commons to choose to flirt with the sort of reputational damage you'd need to trigger a defamation case - out in the open on social media.

The same reasons why she appeals to quite a few Tories could also be her downfall.

[LabourJersey]

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in Rishession
https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/1758025610314580266

So from my general peanut gallery watching, the Tori seem to be dead man walking for the next election primarily based on a combination of gross incompetence to the point they couldn't organize a packet, plus just Tori fatigue after over a dozen years in power. Now there heading into a recession where voters will quite likely want to scalp them for the economy as well?

Obviously it's too early to tell given the mildest introduction to a recession ever blah blah blah blah thank you BBC, but am I overreacting and feeling that if a recession does actually kick in with a commiserate increase in unemployment that this could be at least as bad as 97?

A recession with tangible effects like more unemployment would mean Labour could win in a landslide bigger than 1997.

Emphasis on "could" there, of course.

[Silent Hunter]

Anyone here watching Breathtaking, the Covid-19 drama, on ITV?

I'd highly recommend it, although be warned it isn't an easy watch.

[Silent Hunter]

In other news, the Government website has changed its logo to reflect the change of monarch and his new royal cypher:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68341982

[Meclazine for Israel]

Rishecession

That's pretty clever. I hope for his sake England turns around, but many of my English friends in Australia are not making plans to return.

Once the convicts from England get here and experience the farming life free of the ankle shackles, they love it.

[Joseph Cao]

In other local news, Transport for London have announced the names for the London Overground lines.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/15/london-overground-new-names-and-colours-for-six-lines-revealed

The Liberty line isn't actually that bad a name.

Should've been the Goblin line (and Suffragette is a worthy commemoration but quite a mouthful compared to the others). All pretty unobjectionable otherwise.

[afleitch]

Speaker saves Labour faces by breaching Standing Order.

Though worth noting if the government vote down Labour's amendment, that would lead to a vote on the SNP amendment. Even though, like everything, there's little difference between the Labour and the governments wording.

https://twitter.com/breeallegretti/status/1760302702225985662

[EastAnglianLefty]

There's also very little difference between the Labour amendment and the SNP motion.

Substantively, this is not an argument about what the Commons wants to happen in Gaza, it's about the SNP and the Tories both wanting to drive a wedge between Labour and parts of its traditional electoral coalition.

[icc]

It's frankly very unedifying from all involved.

[CumbrianLefty]

One of the longest standing and least edifying Auld Alliances is exposed again

Actually, the SNP can have a bit of slack here - they are entitled to do what they are doing, and whilst it may be annoying that it is so transparently trying to exploit internal Labour unease it is also a quite legitimate thing for a political party to do (and Labour have done it themselves often enough)

No, it is the *Tories* who have behaved here with total transparent shameless bottomless cynicism. I suspect it was that which caused Hoyle to do what he did - and why they are so mad at it.

[afleitch]

One of the longest standing and least edifying Auld Alliances is exposed again

Actually, the SNP can have a bit of slack here - they are entitled to do what they are doing, and whilst it may be annoying that it is so transparently trying to exploit internal Labour unease it is also a quite legitimate thing for a political party to do (and Labour have done it themselves often enough)

No, it is the *Tories* who have behaved here with total transparent shameless bottomless cynicism. I suspect it was that which caused Hoyle to do what he did.

The SNP position hasn't changed, rhetorically or legislatively, since the first vote.

I think it's clear, several months later that people in Labour are genuinely conflicted over failing to show moral clarity over  Gaza, and they're angry at the SNP for making them confront that in the public record.

The SNP motion is effectively what Scottish Labour passed at conference just last week.

[Cassius]

Rumours that some Labour people may have leaned on Hoyle with threats against his position after the general election.

[afleitch]

Rumours that some Labour people may have leaned on Hoyle with threats to against his position after the general election.

And as is always the way, what could have been a 24 hour media driven 'bloody nose' with respect to the vote, even though the British public are broadly in favour of an immediate ceasefire, may now drive a weeks worth of focus on Starmer's leadership and end up with the Speaker out of a job.

[Coldstream]

It’s amazing how much oxygen Gaza has sucked up in the last 5 months vs how many times it comes up on the doorstep (next to zero).

[Torrain]

Government has pulled its amendment. If Labour amendment passes, there's no separate vote on the SNP motion.

Flynn absolutely furious - not helped by the Deputy Speaker pointing out that if he wants a vote on his motion, he'll need to vote against the Labour motion, and thus against a ceasefire, rendering this entire ordeal even more of a charade than it already was.

He's demanding Hoyle come back to the chamber - really feels like we're reaching the point where someone picks up/throws the mace around.

***

And now all of the SNP and several dozen Conservative MPs have left the chamber. Full theatrics engaged - zero pretence this is about Gaza at this stage, all a game of bruised egos.

***

And *now* we're having a vote over whether the House should sit in private.

[rc18]

Can it be arranged that they all lose in the General Election?

[Torrain]

For the record, stuff like this is why I think Flynn's attempts to weaponise Gaza are particularly shameful, beyond matters of good taste.
https://twitter.com/PaulJSweeney/status/1760361270455247096
MPs have been publicly harassed, threatened and stalked over the Gaza situation. Ellwood, Reeves, Rayner, all in the past fortnight.

Running another non-binding ceasefire vote just to stir the pot was always going to increase behaviour like this, but Flynn just doesn't care. And yet he has the gall to wax on and on about the moral high-ground.

[rc18]

If Labour's elected officials are being harassed then that is a policing matter. Parliament doesn't have to placate Labour's Islamist following by submitting to their demands.

[Torrain]

Labour amendment (and thus the fully amended SNP motion) was put to the Commons, and was recorded as passing unanimously amid the pandemonium. Kit Malthouse has intervened to demand a chance to vote on the matter and rebel against the government.

Rosie Winterton taking one point of order after another from MPs demanding a division. She’s refusing to call a division, and members are going feral.

[Coldstream]

The police do need to step in to take better action against harassment/intimidation of MP’s. We said never again after Jo Cos & David Amess but this ridiculous hysteria being whipped up over Gaza (over which we have exactly zero influence) is leading us down exactly the same path.

[afleitch]

For the record, stuff like this is why I think Flynn's attempts to weaponise Gaza are particularly shameful, beyond matters of good taste.

Running another non-binding ceasefire vote just to stir the pot was always going to increase behaviour like this, but Flynn just doesn't care. And yet he has the gall to wax on and on about the moral high-ground.

In what way is calling for a ceasefire vote, following the correct parliamentary procedures to do so, even if the Speaker upended them due to reasons that will probably become clear, in response to the actions taking place in Gaza, and in light of 66% of the population, according to YouGov supporting an immediate ceasefire, directly responsible for threats made to MP's?

[Coldstream]

For the record, stuff like this is why I think Flynn's attempts to weaponise Gaza are particularly shameful, beyond matters of good taste.

Running another non-binding ceasefire vote just to stir the pot was always going to increase behaviour like this, but Flynn just doesn't care. And yet he has the gall to wax on and on about the moral high-ground.

In what way is calling for a ceasefire vote, following the correct parliamentary procedures to do so, even if the Speaker upended them due to reasons that will probably become clear, in response to the actions taking place in Gaza, and in light of 66% of the population, according to YouGov supporting an immediate ceasefire, directly responsible for threats made to MP's?

Calling for a ceasefire vote accomplishes nothing. We have no ability to force the Israelis or Hamas to make peace (though Flynn seems to think a ceasefire only requires Israel to stop fighting, showing his sophomoric grasp of reality).

Whatever amendment passes today it will have no impact on people in Gaza or Israel. It is virtue signalling. It is empty vanity.

Even if it wasn’t pointless (and to reiterate, it is), the SNP are at best very strongly implying that because Labour believe there is culpability on the part of Hamas (since, you know, they started the war) that Labour are complicit in genocide. Which is quite plainly encouraging - if not necessarily inciting - threats, and inevitably, eventually  violence against MP’s.

[afleitch]

For the record, stuff like this is why I think Flynn's attempts to weaponise Gaza are particularly shameful, beyond matters of good taste.

Running another non-binding ceasefire vote just to stir the pot was always going to increase behaviour like this, but Flynn just doesn't care. And yet he has the gall to wax on and on about the moral high-ground.

In what way is calling for a ceasefire vote, following the correct parliamentary procedures to do so, even if the Speaker upended them due to reasons that will probably become clear, in response to the actions taking place in Gaza, and in light of 66% of the population, according to YouGov supporting an immediate ceasefire, directly responsible for threats made to MP's?

Calling for a ceasefire vote accomplishes nothing. We have no ability to force the Israelis or Hamas to make peace (though Flynn seems to think a ceasefire only requires Israel to stop fighting, showing his sophomoric grasp of reality).

Whatever amendment passes today it will have no impact on people in Gaza or Israel. It is virtue signalling. It is empty vanity.

Even if it wasn’t pointless (and to reiterate, it is), the SNP are at best very strongly implying that because Labour believe there is culpability on the part of Hamas (since, you know, they started the war) that Labour are complicit in genocide. Which is quite plainly encouraging - if not necessarily inciting - threats, and inevitably, eventually  violence against MP’s.

If taking a stated position in Parliament on any international conflict that the UK is not involved in (putting economic and military aid aside) and is unable to unilaterally stop, is just that, as you say, what would your view be when it comes to any future international conflict, humanitarian crises and indeed previous ones?

[Coldstream]

And it’s plain that Stephen Flynn doesn’t care about the people of Gaza, and that he’s teamed up with Sunak to try and split Labour’s electoral base because he knows what’s coming in the next election. It won’t work, because again few people care about this issue (it’s just that those who do care a lot to the exclusion of reality) and even amongst those who do - they aren’t watching Flynn/Hoyle’s p**sing contest in Westminster.

[Coldstream]

For the record, stuff like this is why I think Flynn's attempts to weaponise Gaza are particularly shameful, beyond matters of good taste.

Running another non-binding ceasefire vote just to stir the pot was always going to increase behaviour like this, but Flynn just doesn't care. And yet he has the gall to wax on and on about the moral high-ground.

In what way is calling for a ceasefire vote, following the correct parliamentary procedures to do so, even if the Speaker upended them due to reasons that will probably become clear, in response to the actions taking place in Gaza, and in light of 66% of the population, according to YouGov supporting an immediate ceasefire, directly responsible for threats made to MP's?

Calling for a ceasefire vote accomplishes nothing. We have no ability to force the Israelis or Hamas to make peace (though Flynn seems to think a ceasefire only requires Israel to stop fighting, showing his sophomoric grasp of reality).

Whatever amendment passes today it will have no impact on people in Gaza or Israel. It is virtue signalling. It is empty vanity.

Even if it wasn’t pointless (and to reiterate, it is), the SNP are at best very strongly implying that because Labour believe there is culpability on the part of Hamas (since, you know, they started the war) that Labour are complicit in genocide. Which is quite plainly encouraging - if not necessarily inciting - threats, and inevitably, eventually  violence against MP’s.

If taking a stated position in Parliament on any international conflict that the UK is not involved in (putting economic and military aid aside) and is unable to unilaterally stop, is just that, as you say, what would your view be when it comes to any future international conflict, humanitarian crises and indeed previous ones?

My view is clear: We should not pretend our debate matters, and that therefore opposition votes matter. Pretending that MP’s voting against a pointless ceasefire motion is endorsing death in Gaza just to whip up anger to win votes is appalling.

 We should also not have spent 5 months banging on about a conflict we quite plainly aren’t able or willing to influence when next to no normal people care. It wouldn’t even be in the top 10 most important issues nationally.