FSU General Secretary Toby Young was a guest on BBC Radio 4’s World at One on Friday 23rd February, where he debated whether Islamic extremism poses a threat to parliamentary democracy with Labour peer Baroness Shami Chakrabarti.
It was a great debate, and conducted in exactly the right spirit for something so important.
The debate took place in the wake of the extraordinary decision by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, to break with Parliamentary convention by allowing Labour MPs to vote for an amendment to an SNP motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The SNP had been hoping to split the Parliamentary Labour Party by tabling a motion calling for an “immediate” ceasefire, which the Party opposes but which some Labour MPs support.
However, the Speaker then allowed MPs to vote on Labour’s amendment to the motion, which called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” but made a longer ceasefire contingent on Hamas releasing the Israeli hostages. He did so despite being warned by the House of Commons clerk that to do so would break with Parliamentary convention for such opposition day debates.
Sir Lindsay has since explained that he took this decision because of genuine fears over the safety of Labour MPs who have faced threats from pro-Palestine – and pro-Hamas – supporters over Labour’s hesitation on calling for a ceasefire.
In the absence of being able to vote on their own party’s amendment, loyal Labour MPs would have felt obliged to vote against the SNP motion and that, in turn, could have led to violent reprisals against them and their families by Muslim extremists, according to this line of reasoning.