A government minister has said she will “struggle now to support” the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, and his position is “difficult” as he faces a mounting challenge from MPs.
Some Conservative and Scottish National party MPs have called for Hoyle to resign after he broke precedent to take a decision that ultimately benefited the Labour party on Wednesday night.
By Thursday morning at least 59 MPs had put their names to a motion expressing no confidence in Hoyle.
The Commons descended into chaos after Hoyle decided to allow votes on three separate propositions submitted by the SNP, Labour and the Conservatives on the war in Gaza.
Dozens of Labour MPs had been preparing to rebel against their party whip and vote for an SNP motion calling for an immediate ceasefire. Hoyle’s decision to allow a vote on the Labour amendment, which called for a ceasefire with caveats, averted a rebellion and took the pressure off Keir Starmer.
The health minister Maria Caulfield told Sky News she was “disappointed and surprised” by Hoyle’s actions but refrained from calling for his resignation. “He’s normally a very fair speaker and his actions yesterday were very, very different,” she said.
“I would say that I would struggle now to support him but let’s see what happens in the next 24 to 48 hours.”
Hoyle apologised on Wednesday after a breakdown of discipline in the Commons, with Tory and SNP MPs storming out, and resolved to have talks with party leaders on Thursday.
Amid shouts of “resign”, he told MPs: “I thought I was doing the right thing and the best thing, and I regret it, and I apologise for how it’s ended up.” He said he had been “very, very concerned about the security of all members”.
But his actions went against the advice of his clerk, who warned that it was a “departure from the long-established convention”.
Caulfield told Sky: “We need to be absolutely sure that the votes weren’t influenced last night in any way … It has got implications going forward if we can’t be sure that the House of Commons can be run fairly.”
Separately she told LBC that Hoyle “went against the advice of the clerks of the house” and “that is a bit of a red line”.
Tories have claimed that Hoyle came under heavy pressure from Starmer and there were reports that Labour threatened to oust him as speaker after the next election unless he complied. Labour has vehemently denied this.
Labour’s Pat McFadden, a shadow Cabinet Office minister, defended Hoyle and said he had “acted in good faith”.
McFadden told Radio 4’s Today programme that Hoyle “took the view that, given the strong feelings in the country on this issue, that he would put before parliament all three propositions that had been advanced on this – one from the SNP and one from the Labour party and one from the government.
“He took that decision to have the widest possible set of options before parliament.”
The Tories withdrew from the vote on Wednesday night, with the Commons leader, Penny Mordaunt, saying that Hoyle had “hijacked” the debate and “undermined the confidence” of the house. There have been claims that the government whips did not have enough support for their motion.
Speaking on BBC Newsnight, the SNP’s culture spokesperson, John Nicolson, denied that the group had purposefully walked out of the chamber together with Tory MPs on Wednesday.
Nicolson said: “SNP MPs thought the whole procedure was absurd. What SNP MPs did was they went to the lobby, that’s the rooms beside the main parliamentary debating chamber, ready to vote, they were anticipating and expecting a vote.”
“A number of MPs cross-party said they wanted their constituents to know where they stood on this and the problem with staged shenanigans was that MPs weren’t allowed to express their views in the lobbies and vote.”
Other MPs have told the Guardian that they went into the aye lobby to make the point that they weren’t getting the chance to vote on their original motion. On Thursday morning Westminster group sources say MPs feel frustrated and angry that the focus has now moved so far from Gaza and at the way Westminster conventions can be broken “when it suits”.
