A veteran Tory MP has described chaotic scenes in the House of Commons tonight as 'an absolute disgrace'.
Amid claims of bullying by Tory whips, MPs rejected Labour’s motion to allocate Commons time to consider banning fracking, in a vote initially designated as a 'confidence motion' in Prime Minister Liz Truss’s Government. Labour’s motion was defeated by 230 votes to 326, a majority of 96.
But moments later a Labour former minister Chris Bryant asked the Commons Deputy Speaker to investigate 'the scenes outside the entrance to the No lobby' after he saw 'members being physically manhandled into another lobby and being bullied'.
Describing events in the Commons, Conservative backbencher Sir Charles Walker told the BBC: “I’ve really not seen anything like tonight.
“What I understand is that we were on a confidence vote, which means if you voted against your government, you’d lose the whip because in essence, you were saying you had no confidence in the Government.
“Then at the despatch box, in the wind-up, the minister said it wasn’t a confidence vote, which created chaos in the division lobbies. There was then a sort of 20-minute delay between the vote happening and the result being announced, which by the way, wasn’t even close. The Government won it by nearly 100 votes.
"But I just think the whole thing is extraordinary. And somewhere in between this, the vote being called and the result being announced the chief whip resigned.
“But I just think the whole thing is extraordinary.”
He said he is leaving Parliament at the next general election voluntarily, adding: “Unless we get our act together and behave like grown-ups, I’m afraid many hundreds of my colleagues, perhaps 200, will be leaving at the behest of their electorate.”
He described the chaos in the House of Commons as “inexcusable” and an “absolute disgrace”. The MP for Broxbourne since 2005, he told the BBC: “To be perfectly honest, this whole affair is inexcusable.
“It is a pitiful reflection on the Conservative Parliamentary Party at every level and it reflects really badly obviously on the Government of the day.”
Asked if there is any coming back from this, Sir Charles, visibly angry, said: “I don’t think so. And I have to say I’ve been of that view really since two weeks ago.
“This is an absolute disgrace, as a Tory MP of 17 years who’s never been a minister, who’s got on with it loyally most of the time, I think it’s a shambles and a disgrace. I think it is utterly appalling. I’m livid.”
“I really shouldn’t say this but I hope that all those people that put Liz Truss in Number 10, I hope it was worth it.
“I hope it was worth it for the ministerial red box.
“I hope it was worth it to sit around the Cabinet table, because the damage they have done to our party is extraordinary.”
Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said confusion arose over whether the Commons vote on fracking was a confidence vote because of a message sent by a “junior official in 10 Downing Street”, suggesting they did not have the authority to do so.
Asked whether the Government “blinked” and u-turned on the confidence vote over fears of losing it, he told Sky News: “I don’t think that’s a fair way of looking at it. I think what happened was that, late in the day, a junior official at 10 Downing Street sent a message through to the front bench that it was not a vote of confidence and nobody else was aware of that.
“The whips were not aware of that, I was not aware of that and most members thought that it was a vote of confidence.
“It was simply one of those unfortunate miscommunications that occasionally happens.” He added: “It’s one of the issues you always face in government that people say they speak for Downing Street without having actually ever bothered to get the authority of the Prime Minister and unfortunately on this occasion it fed through immediately to the floor of the house.”
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