THE House of Commons dived headlong into a political crisis as MPs from both Labour and Tory parties struggled to maintain their support for Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza in the face of an uprising by millions of workers and youth demanding an immediate ceasefire.
MPs stormed out and Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House and the man in charge of the Commons, was reduced to tears as the motion by the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) calling for an immediate ceasefire was blocked by political manoeuvrings by Labour leader Keir Starmer.
A similar motion from the SNP had already seen 60 Labour MPs defy his order to abstain on a ceasefire.
Now 100 Labour MPs had indicated they would defy Starmer again as the murderous onslaught that has claimed the lives of nearly 30,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, could not be ignored or justified.
In a panic, Starmer proposed his own amendment to the SNP motion that simply called for a ‘humanitarian’ pause in Gaza with the condition that the Palestinian resistance must surrender and release any Israelis held by them.
After such a pause, of course the Israeli regime would be free to restart the bombing and invasion of Gaza in the drive to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land.
Under the normal rules of Parliament, the SNP motion would be heard first followed by amendments from both Labour and the Tories.
To prevent the prospect of Labour MPs voting for an immediate ceasefire Starmer pressurised Hoyle into dropping all normal procedures and put the Labour amendment first – meaning cowardly Labour MPs would not have to vote against an immediate ceasefire.
Its passing or defeat meant the SNP motion automatically fell. This was a blatant attempt to shield Labour MPs from an enraged working class that has had enough of the slaughter and are demanding an end to genocide.
In the event, this did not go as planned and instead SNP MPs furious at being denied their right to vote on a ceasefire walked out followed by Tory MPs only too grateful to join in the mayhem.
The fact that 30,000 Palestinian lives count for nothing compared to saving the political lives of Starmer and the Labour leadership will provoke millions of workers already rising up against the Zionist slaughter.
The spectacle of the ‘Mother of all Parliaments’, that great bastion of bourgeois democracy, collapsing like a pack of cards, while refusing to do anything to undermine continued support of the British state for the Zionist regime will further enrage the masses.
The blocking of even a non-binding motion calling for an immediate ceasefire to halt genocide in Gaza and the subsequent collapse of Parliament is a sign of the depths of the crisis gripping the British capitalist state as it is forced to confront tens of millions of workers rising up in fury in support of the Palestinian revolution.
Its closest historical parallel is the great bourgeois revolution in the 17th century led by Oliver Cromwell.
The Cromwellian revolution pitted the progressive capitalist class against the old feudal system, underpinned by the ‘divine right of Kings’. In his famous speech dismissing the old feudal parliament in 1653 Cromwell said: ‘It is time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and by your practise of every vice.’
He concluded by saying: ‘In the name of God, go!’
Cromwell was the great leader of the only class that could end a decaying, corrupt and outmoded feudal system with the victory of the bourgeois revolution.
Today, the working class is the only revolutionary force that can put an end to a collapsing, bankrupt and corrupt capitalist system that can only survive through wars as it attempts to regain world domination at the expense of the lives of millions of people across the world.
Now the working class must take up Cromwell’s demand by forcing the TUC to call a general strike to kick out the Tories and bring in a workers’ government and socialism.
If the TUC leaders refuse, then they must be removed and replaced by a revolutionary leadership prepared to take the British socialist revolution to victory.