UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[afleitch]

And it’s plain that Stephen Flynn doesn’t care about the people of Gaza, and that he’s teamed up with Sunak

Is it? That's quite a proposition. One where people can't believe genuine things, and everything is calculated and expedient.

[Coldstream]

And it’s plain that Stephen Flynn doesn’t care about the people of Gaza, and that he’s teamed up with Sunak

Is it? That's quite a proposition. One where people can't believe genuine things, and everything is calculated and expedient.

If he cared about the people of Gaza he’d:

1. Want the war to end and the people to be free, that means Hamas laying down their weapons and being removed from power
2. Want to work with Labour who have almost the exact same position rather than playing pointless games
3. Want the focus to be on them not on him throwing a fit at Lindsay Hoyle over some arcane procedure no one cares about

He is a grasping cynic quite plainly willing to use the people of Gaza as props in his ultimately futile campaign to hold on to the SNP’s position as largest party in Scotland in the next GE.

[Coldstream]

https://twitter.com/maitlis/status/1760386232377336036?s=61&t=SZKJ6VoqaR617A...

How can anyone conclude this is about Gaza when this is how he frames it?

[afleitch]

And it’s plain that Stephen Flynn doesn’t care about the people of Gaza, and that he’s teamed up with Sunak

Is it? That's quite a proposition. One where people can't believe genuine things, and everything is calculated and expedient.

If he cared about the people of Gaza he’d:

1. Want the war to end and the people to be free, that means Hamas laying down their weapons and being removed from power
2. Want to work with Labour who have almost the exact same position rather than playing pointless games
3. Want the focus to be on them not on him throwing a fit at Lindsay Hoyle over some arcane procedure no one cares about

He is a grasping cynic quite plainly willing to use the people of Gaza as props in his ultimately futile campaign to hold on to the SNP’s position as largest party in Scotland in the next GE.

The vote was for an immediate ceasefire. Not an end to the war. Israel can take out military targets in a manner that doesn't flatten Gaza, kill thousands and leave people effectively starving.

[Coldstream]

And it’s plain that Stephen Flynn doesn’t care about the people of Gaza, and that he’s teamed up with Sunak

Is it? That's quite a proposition. One where people can't believe genuine things, and everything is calculated and expedient.

If he cared about the people of Gaza he’d:

1. Want the war to end and the people to be free, that means Hamas laying down their weapons and being removed from power
2. Want to work with Labour who have almost the exact same position rather than playing pointless games
3. Want the focus to be on them not on him throwing a fit at Lindsay Hoyle over some arcane procedure no one cares about

He is a grasping cynic quite plainly willing to use the people of Gaza as props in his ultimately futile campaign to hold on to the SNP’s position as largest party in Scotland in the next GE.

The vote was for an immediate ceasefire. Not an end to the war. Israel can take out military targets in a manner that doesn't flatten Gaza, kill thousands and leave people effectively starving.

Sorry but this is nonsense, he called for Israel to lay down their weapons and has made no such demands of Hamas, who started a war they can’t win. Who’ve thrown their own people on this bonfire, yet Flynn is incapable of denouncing them.

[JimJamUK]

The vote was for an immediate ceasefire. Not an end to the war. Israel can take out military targets in a manner that doesn't flatten Gaza, kill thousands and leave people effectively starving.

But can they really? Gaza is a very densely populated area where Hamas need to be cleared out street by street, tunnel by tunnel. They have purposefully embedded themselves in civilian areas in order to deter Israel from attacking and making their invasion as costly as possible.

[rc18]

And it’s plain that Stephen Flynn doesn’t care about the people of Gaza, and that he’s teamed up with Sunak

Is it? That's quite a proposition. One where people can't believe genuine things, and everything is calculated and expedient.

If he cared about the people of Gaza he’d:

1. Want the war to end and the people to be free, that means Hamas laying down their weapons and being removed from power
2. Want to work with Labour who have almost the exact same position rather than playing pointless games
3. Want the focus to be on them not on him throwing a fit at Lindsay Hoyle over some arcane procedure no one cares about

He is a grasping cynic quite plainly willing to use the people of Gaza as props in his ultimately futile campaign to hold on to the SNP’s position as largest party in Scotland in the next GE.

The vote was for an immediate ceasefire. Not an end to the war. Israel can take out military targets in a manner that doesn't flatten Gaza, kill thousands and leave people effectively starving.

A military expert speaks.

[Cassius]

Trotting by with the historical colour commentary for a moment, if Hoyle somehow does get forced out that’ll make him the shortest serving speaker since 1839!

[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.
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.

Just on that note;

You can argue whether a few people should have entered the building with placards. But it's very different from what he claimed occurred.

https://twitter.com/ejhchess/status/1760419000494817790

[TheTide]

Maria Caulfield (Women's Health Minister) has publicly declared her lack of confidence in Hoyle. If she's reflective of the wider Parliamentary Tory Party then he's probably done for.

As of now, more than 50 MPs have signed a no confidence Early Day Motion, including (and most ominously for Hoyle) Sir Graham Brady. The majority of them are Tories, but presumably the 25 or so SNP MPs who haven't yet signed would fall in line too.

https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/61908

[Coldstream]

It’s time to give the people of Gaza what they need, Lindsay Hoyle’s resignation.

[Torrain]

If the full SNP, and all six officers of the 1922 committee are opposed to Hoyle, it does seem like he’s getting pretty close to some sort of invisible threshold. It only took 22 signatures  on a similar motion to finish Martin - sounds like we’re at almost 3x that now (54 at last count).

Holding an election for speaker, right before the composition of the Commons is about to change significantly feels like a recipe for a very bad-tempered contest. Some of the candidates being briefed out by Conservatives too…

If it comes to it, I think they’ll just end up with a mild-mannered Conservative. Presumably Roger Gale, will fall into the role similarly to the manner he ended up as Deputy Speaker. The requirement for cross-party nominations to get on the ballot typically excludes the real cranks. Excluding, of course, that one time Sammy Wilson and Frank Field conspired to get Ann Widdecombe on the ballot.

[Pericles]

Tory MPs spending their last days in office on this is sure to do wonders for their poll numbers.

[Earthling]

Would the Labour Party accept this new Speaker after the election or will they just take revenge?

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/BWallaceMP/status/1760611809650761925

[Wiswylfen]

Amusing as the attempts to pretend that there is nothing we can do would be if not for the subject matter, there is in fact plenty we can do. Elections have been fought in this country before over our allies in the Middle East committing atrocities: the attempts to paint a healthy English interest in goings-on overseas, and in the protection of peoples suffering horrific cruelties, as something 'foreign' are downright contemptible.

I will admit that I once felt it weird, and in many cases still do, that people would wave the Palestinian flag about. But arguments relying upon that no longer wash: not when those who decried those people for that are waving (or see no issue with waving) the flag of a state carrying out a genocide. As little interest as I hitherto had in 'The Conflict', one of our allies (not that Israel really is one--we would do well to remember that its government sold arms to Argentina out of hatred for us--but whatever) committing a genocide is, in fact, worthy of concern and perhaps action.

Also personally I'm still kind of mad about it being suggested that thinking perhaps our citizens shouldn't be going off fighting for foreign armies is racist.

[Agafin]

Really funny how Labour outmaneuvred SNP. They deserve it though.

[CumbrianLefty]

Hoyle should say he is staying until the GE, and then the next parliament can pick his successor.

There aren't that many sitting days even until an autumn GE anyway - which has been deliberately done by the Tories as they don't want to do any actual governing (as opposed to culture wars)

[Torrain]

Largely agree - resolves the issue, but makes sure the Commons isn’t voting for a new speaker amid the current froth.

That being said, the idea that he holds on just long enough to let a Labour-dominated Commons pick a new chair will probably trigger fresh anger from those most irked by the past 24 hours.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes - but to be uncharacteristically brutal here, f*** them

[Torrain]

Understandable. I’m not far off that view myself right now…

Has to be said, the divisions over Hoyle within the Conservatives are quite idiosyncratic.

You’ve got the likes of Will Wragg trying to burn the house down, and then Mark Francois intervening to defend Hoyle - accepting his apology and talking about him as a good man who offered comfort to members after the death of David Amess.

You know we’re through the looking glass when *Francois* is the empathetic voice of reason.

[Coldstream]

Amusing as the attempts to pretend that there is nothing we can do would be if not for the subject matter, there is in fact plenty we can do. Elections have been fought in this country before over our allies in the Middle East committing atrocities: the attempts to paint a healthy English interest in goings-on overseas, and in the protection of peoples suffering horrific cruelties, as something 'foreign' are downright contemptible.

I will admit that I once felt it weird, and in many cases still do, that people would wave the Palestinian flag about. But arguments relying upon that no longer wash: not when those who decried those people for that are waving (or see no issue with waving) the flag of a state carrying out a genocide. As little interest as I hitherto had, one of our allies (not that Israel really is one--we would do well to remember that its government sold arms to Argentina out of hatred for us--but whatever) committing a genocide is, in fact, worthy of concern and perhaps action.

Also personally I'm still kind of mad about it being suggested that thinking perhaps our citizens shouldn't be going off fighting for foreign armies is racist.

You can write as many strongly worded letters to the Israelis as you want, but they won’t care. Anymore than Hamas will. And do not delude yourself, that is all a motion in the House of Commons is, a strongly worded letter. The geopolitical equivalent of the guardian comments section.

We’re quite plainly not going to take any economic action, or even less to take any military action (not that either of them is likely to deter the Israelis who don’t need us anyway).

One of the last vestiges of British imperialism is a steadfast refusal to recognise our own impotence & irrelevance.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I get why the SNP are cross - 'they shot our fox!' and so on - but there is genuinely no coherent case for Conservative fury, or, rather, there is none that is actually coherently defensible. There is a case for annoyance of a sort: Hoyle ran for Speaker on a 'no innovations' ticket, just made one and it happens to be one that his pre-Speakership party wished for. But that's not grounds for fury, just a little grousing.

[CumbrianLefty]

Let's be blunt - they are furious because their totally principled, correct and in *no* way opportunistic deal with the SNP (their supposed sworn enemy, remember) was exposed for all to see.

[Wiswylfen]

Amusing as the attempts to pretend that there is nothing we can do would be if not for the subject matter, there is in fact plenty we can do. Elections have been fought in this country before over our allies in the Middle East committing atrocities: the attempts to paint a healthy English interest in goings-on overseas, and in the protection of peoples suffering horrific cruelties, as something 'foreign' are downright contemptible.

I will admit that I once felt it weird, and in many cases still do, that people would wave the Palestinian flag about. But arguments relying upon that no longer wash: not when those who decried those people for that are waving (or see no issue with waving) the flag of a state carrying out a genocide. As little interest as I hitherto had, one of our allies (not that Israel really is one--we would do well to remember that its government sold arms to Argentina out of hatred for us--but whatever) committing a genocide is, in fact, worthy of concern and perhaps action.

Also personally I'm still kind of mad about it being suggested that thinking perhaps our citizens shouldn't be going off fighting for foreign armies is racist.

You can write as many strongly worded letters to the Israelis as you want, but they won’t care. Anymore than Hamas will. And do not delude yourself, that is all a motion in the House of Commons is, a strongly worded letter. The geopolitical equivalent of the guardian comments section.

We’re quite plainly not going to take any economic action, or even less to take any military action (not that either of them is likely to deter the Israelis who don’t need us anyway).

One of the last vestiges of British imperialism is a steadfast refusal to recognise our own impotence & irrelevance.

Yes, see, this is the difference between me and Emma Picken: whereas she and her ilk denigrate their own nation at every opportunity while defending some foreign country, I am proud of England--which has every capability to be a great power--and believe that the Labour right should not be an outgrowth of Luke Akehurst's We Believe in Israel.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting really fed up of Eustonite fossils gushing over how nice and kind the IDF is and how we would never have such concern for civilian lives.

The time for 'strongly worded letters' (which are more symbolic than anything else) has long passed. That we will take no action is a damning indictment of our government, but not of our power.