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Thursday 20 October 2022

Chaos



Chaos among Tory MPs as Labour motion to force vote on fracking bill is defeated

Politicians have claimed Conservative MPs were being 'manhandled' and 'bullied' into voting with the government to oppose a ban on fracking, counter to what the party's manifesto said in 2019.

Politicians have claimed Conservative MPs were being "manhandled" and bullied into voting with the government to oppose a ban, counter to what their party manifesto said in 2019.


It's an interesting story this, because 'chaos' is part of the anti-Truss narrative, so the word was bound to be hammered home unless the Commons was particularly orderly and subdued. No investor is likely to invest in UK fracking anyway, because of the political uncertainty, so allowing the debate was probably the only worthwhile option.

It does perhaps help to hammer home an obvious conclusion that the major political parties are not worth a vote. Yet Labour still comes across as a worse option than the Tories, despite Sir Keir's apparently firm grip on party discipline. He appears to value nothing at all apart from power. Not that this sets him apart, but he makes it too obvious not to be chilling. 

3 comments:

DiscoveredJoys said...

Discipline is easy when the dangers of dissent are obvious... but my guess is that the various 'wings' of Labour won't be able to maintain discipline once electioneering starts.

Sam Vega said...

Starmer might look as though his troops are loyal, but I suspect the likes of Rayner and Streeting would knife him in the back once he was in office. Labour only have to sit quietly and do nothing to take power, or at least to form a coalition. The Labour left probably understand that as well as anyone.

A K Haart said...

DJ and Sam - I agree and there are too many Labour MPs with enough personal ambition to plan on undermining him when the time comes. They are probably laying the foundations already.