For the best part of three years I worked with Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, on a daily basis when Parliament was sitting.
Knowing him as I do, I have absolute confidence in his suitability to remain Speaker.
Lindsay is a man of the greatest integrity, honour and impartiality. As leader of the House, or indeed Shadow Leader, there are endless discussions that go on about the decisions a Speaker has to make every day.
Sometimes these go in your favour, sometimes not. On occasions they cause political inconvenience, sometimes for your opponents rather than for you.
Jacob Rees-Mogg has ‘absolute confidence’ in Sir Lindsay Hoyle
GB NEWS
But all sides need to have confidence that the Speaker makes his decisions with the best interests of the House of Commons at heart.
He is there to protect the interests of members of the House of Commons, not the government of the day. And inevitably some of his decisions will annoy, rile and irritate the government side.
This is what happened yesterday.
The Speaker, thinking he was acting for the best and in the interests of all Members of Parliament, decided to break with tradition, and whether this decision was right or wrong is not the fundamental point. What matters is whether he made it impartially and free from undue influence.
I am confident that he made it in the right spirit, regardless of whether the decision was the one the clerks advised.
Ultimately, the Speaker needs to rise above the rows that take place on the floor of the House. He is the impartial arbiter, the judge, the umpire of the proceedings that take place and I therefore hope that my fellow Conservatives, who have signed a vote of no confidence in him, will reflect on what they are doing.
The SNP, the Scottish Nationalist Party, wishes to destroy the United Kingdom. Its aim is to undermine all our institutions.
Of course, when it has an opportunity to kick a speaker, it will take it.
But should Conservatives join in? Or should they recognize that, in the interests of the Constitution and of the dignity of Parliament, they should sometimes accept, indeed quite often accept, that a speaker will make a decision in good faith that they do not like?
There is, however, one thing about which we should be even more concerned, and this is about the safety of the body politic.
Are Members of Parliament free to vote in the Commons without being afraid of the consequences?
If they are not, democracy itself is under threat along with individual members.
What does it say about the state of the United Kingdom when parliament bows to a sectarian mob?
Well, the independent reviewer of Prevent, Sir William Shawcross, has given an interview to the Telegraph one year on from the publication of his review.
Sir William has said that extremism is not being effectively tackled by the government and that it hasn’t fully implemented his proposals.
And he’s right.
Since the 7th October attacks in Israel, we have seen the emboldening of extremists in London every weekend.
Calls for jihad, explicit support for and glorification of terrorism, of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
We’ve also seen a huge spike in antisemitism.
Last night outside parliament, as the Commons was erupting on the inside, pro-Palestine protesters projected onto parliament, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
When GB News’s very own Martin Daubney pointed this out to the police, they did nothing.
Sir William Shawcross rather presciently warned ministers about Islamist extremism a year ago, but you can’t help but think that if we had acted earlier we may have stopped the situation we are in today – where politicians feel the need to cow to sectarian mobs that intimidate Jewish people, members of Parliament and the greater public at large.
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