Yes, it would have been better for Starmer to have been shown up as supporting war crimes in a failed vote, than any kind of motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to have passed.
Westminster Politics
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Starmer has had multiple Opposition Days to table anything calling for an immediate ceasefire and he hasn't done so, instead he and his lackeys have spent months going as far as saying they were against a ceasefire as it 'would only help Hamas'. Completely coincidentally as the SNP use their opposition day to table a motion containing the term 'collective punishment', he decides that day is the day to call put forward an amendment calling for a ceasefire...but that bit about collective punishment needs to be removed at all costs.
so its perfectly acceptable for senior right wingers in the UK (like Farage and Truss) to mix with known antisemites like Bannon (as they are doing this week at CPAC in the states). But someone on the left so much as walks past someone who once said bad things about a person who may have been jewish and all hell breaks loose.
What are you unhappy with in the Labour motion?
The bit that removes Israel's collective punishment of the people of Gaza, in order to protect their war crime apologist leader.
If you disagree with that, maybe you'll finally be the person on here who explains to me how Israel's actions don't meet that criteria.
Yep. That's the state of play.
In what sense? I guess people might feel a little more represented. Labour could have used one of its own opposition days in order to forward their own motion; instead they had to be spurred into action by the SNP. Let's not pretend Starmer's amendment was provoked by an overriding concern for the Palestinian people. SNP aren't exactly new born babes either but their motion reflects a widely held view and represents a position that is deserving of a vote in its own right. By denying a vote on this more strongly worded statement constituents were denied an opportunity to explicitly see where their representatives stood. Instead the section of the population who's opinions the SNP statement reflects feel even further shut off from institutional representation.
As I say I'm not particularly scandalised by the content of Labour's amendment itself or the fact that Hoyle took it up. It's a fairly lame statement motivated by Starmer protecting his own backside but it also needed to be that lame in order to peel off enough Tories to pass. It also reflects a widely held position in the coutnry that is deserving of a vote in its own right. Fine, take it up! What I think is scandalous is that this position was essentially allowed to gazump the SNP one and the Speakers decision denied the SNP its parliamentary rights, made a mockery of the debate and embarrassed the fecking country - leaving whatever motion was actually passed buried beneath equal parts anger and laughter. Like yeah, at least it got passed but it's not exactly covered in glory and might well have passed anyway, and with more dignity, if SNP precedence had been observed.
listening to all the chatter in westminster, there certainly seems an agenda that somehow pro-Palestinian / 'islamist' (?) groups are a threat to democracy, and specifically responsible for a significant number of death threats to MPs.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37888849
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37888849
Worra surprise. And the charade goes on. How many more babies dying today in the meantime? No one's falling for these games. Not us voters anyway.
The motion passed calling for a ceasefire, in case that passed you by, not that we have much influence on things
this is another talking about pushed by many anti-ceasefire / pro zionist voices on social media, that its pointless to debate these foreign issues as their impact is limited. imagine if someone said that on Oct 7th in parliment. expressed condolences and then said we should focus on british issues and not waste parlimentary time. instead many senior parlimentarians (including the speaker) actually visited Israel to express their solidarity etc.
but 30,000 Palestinians dead, hundreds of thousands injured and millions facing starvation. Uk supplies arms and military support. lets not waste any parliamentary time on them.
just reveals the dehumanisation of the Palestinians.
The motion passed, in case that passed you by, I guess we'll see what impact it has. Similar to when people have been saying it previously, I imagine
Absolutely, we're in exactly the same place as we were before yesterday. That Starmer doesn't consider collective punishment to be collective punishment if it's Israel doing it, because he believes they have the right to do those things.
Previously we just had his LBC reveal of those views, yesterday we saw the lengths he'll go to protect them.
That line of argument only holds up when we see you not having double standards. (I personally didn't defend Labour for what they did yesterday, just pointing out that we've not seen the same disdain for politicking for quite some time now).
The commentariat quite rightly lost its collective marbles when Johnson did it get his way and that it was an affront to the conventions of Parliament. Today Starmer is a genius for 'skilfully avoiding a trap' and who cares if it undermines Parliament moving forward? Only dullards worry about conventions anyway.
A don't remember a parliamentart walkout and 5 pages on this thread devoted to it, can you point me towards them?
When Johnson fudged the rules to try and keep his cronies in positions of power he rightly lost his job over it. Now Starmer does the same to save himself a bloody nose, and everybody is what's all the fuss about breaching convention.
Slight difference is that in this case, the Tories and the SNP are politicking jsut as well as Labour with this motion.
fecking hell, we're talking about the order in which motions are heard, that if one fails to pass the next will be and so on. The explanation provided was that without the intervention Labour's motion could not be heard under the convention regardless.
It's not proroguing of parliament, or voting to exclude parliament from having a vote on issues of particular importance, or wanting to change it so ministers can decide whether they are breaking the law etc.
It's not proroguing of parliament, or voting to exclude parliament from having a vote on issues of particular importance, or wanting to change it so ministers can decide whether they are breaking the law etc.
So it's a good thing a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire passed?
The entire parliament walked out on account of it being suspended at Johnson's request.
I can't do 5 pages of this thread, but will 18 pages in a thread devoted to it do?
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/government-will-attempt-to-prorogue-parliament.450174/
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Your first paragraph is unfortunately quite fair off.
Are we any closer to you letting us know how Israel's actions don't meet the criteria for collective punishment, to the point that Starmer couldn't tolerate the suggestion of it featuring in an Opposition Day motion, yet?
Labour's motion shouldn't have been heard, they get vote not a veto on an SNP opposition day. The idea is Labour raises issues it finds critically important on it's own days, nothing stopped Labour doing so it's had plenty of opportunities.
Let's reverse this and say the government or the SNP get to amend (and by amend it can a complete reversal) all Labour motions and their amendments go first. You think that's fine? Can't see an issue how it blocks parliamentary democracy? The government just says the opposite and it passes via majority without Labour motions ever tabled to put ministers on the record.
If the house had a sensible and flexible set of rules then fine, they could have tabled SNP, Labour, Government in that order. Sadly parliament doesn't and the security reason here was clearly bullshit.
Did you just ignore what I said, he is not going to say anything that can lead to more of this stuff.
Spot on.
Those parroting the 'oh but Labour's amendment called for a ceasefire anyway, won't impact ICJ etc' argument are wildly missing the point. Parliamentary convention was broken by Labour, aided by a hapless speaker simply to make amendments that would help Starmer prevent a rebellion and avoid some hard talking points. Call it a Starmer masterstroke all you like, but I feel like the uncharacteristic nature of how it all unfolded, coupled to the amendment going out of its way to remove wording that protects the aggressor from condemnation, leaves plenty for us to object to. The speaker breaking impartiality obligations to pander to the opposition leader at the behest of his own internal struggles isn't some trivial nitpicking. Its not just some reductionist 'far-left Corbynistas want Starmer to fail at any cost' take.
How old is the convention, if you know?
So he doesn't actually believe Israel has the right to commit war crimes, he's just pretending he does because otherwise people might say things about him.
At what point during his time as PM does this stop and he decides international law applies to everyone, or does this excuse transfer from needing to do it to get power over to needing to do it in order to keep it?
I obviously don't know, and why it does it matter. It clearly wasn't usual parliamentary proceedings. I'd wager you'd find it equally distasteful if it were a Corbyn-led Labour government, choosing to add far more harsh language towards condemning Israel in an amendment for another opposition party's initial draft, abetted by Jon Bercow.
He's not PM but isn't the complaint of all politicians is that they say stuff to get elected and then go back on that. It's always the complaint....
No, there's no required number. He's in the role until the next election unless he resigns.
Again, he doesn't decide international law. This is like student union politics, like he is responsible for Israels crimes in Gaza. It's all so weird.
im not sure what this is getting at? if it is a dig at me pointing out the narrative against muslims - when it comes to the prevaricating around calling for a ceasefire, then i would suggest its actually quite offensive, and it makes my point, as no one would get away with saying similar if the concern was anti-semitism / lack of support for Israel re the 7th Oct attack / the fate of the hostages.
Again, it's odd that for someone who doesn't think he decides international law he seemed more than keen to state he believes it doesn't apply to Israel and even more keen to ensure parliament wasn't given a chance to vote in such a way to express that it did yesterday.
And the excuse now is that he has to say and do that otherwise people would say things about him. But one day, feck knows when, he'll decide he no longer believes countries (well, one particular country anyway) get a mulligan on war crimes.
The same James Heartfield who claimed that israelis have every right to lay siege to all the palestinians, as Israel is at war with them, and so have have no obligation to feed them...
This is why I dont understand Starmers position, unless he is completely supportive of Israel's actions, hes always going to be targeted by the Zionist lobby. and the likes of the Daily Mail will lap it up. So why not stick to his principles, instead of trying to fudge things.
Starmer should send a cease and desist letter to Mr Heartfield for stealing his rhetoric.
This is his principle. He's a self proclaimed 'Zionist without qualification'.
By Zionist do you mean believes in a state of Israel?