Penny Mordaunt rages at Starmer as Labour blasted for 'BULLYING' Lindsay Hoyle in furious Commons clash

Addressing the Commons this morning, Mordaunt said: "This house will never bow to extremists, threats or intimidation. It has not, it will not, it must not.

"And I would ask all Honourable members not to do this house a further disservice by suggesting that the shameful events that took place yesterday were anything other than party politics on behalf of the Labour Party."

The Leader of the House of Commons continued: "Let me bring the house up to date. Firstly, it felt to the Government benches to defend the rights of a minority party in this House. If the honourable lady opposite cannot bring herself to reflect on the appalling consequences of her party's actions yesterday, if she cannot rise above the narrow and immediate needs of her weak and fickle leader, to fulfil her duties to this house as its shadow leader, perhaps she might like to reflect on the damage her party has done to the office of the Speaker.

"I would never have done to him what the Labour Party have done to him.

"Secondly, we have seen into the heart of Labour's leadership. Nothing is more important than the interests of the Labour Party."

"The Labour Party before principle. The Labour Party before individual rights. The Labour Party before the reputation and honour of the decent man that sits in the Speaker's chair. the Labour Party before fairness, integrity and democracy. In Rochdale, the Labour Party before a zero-tolerance policy towards antisemitism.

"Many of us knew this about the Labour leader. I saw it in his frustration in our country, getting the best deal possible when we left the EU - the Labour Party before country."

Mordaunt added: "The people of this country don't have a copy of standing orders of this house lying around their house. They haven't been chatting about parliamentary procedure over their cornflakes this morning... but they value fairness. They want the rights of all, to be protected. They cannot abide bullies and cheats."

But Starmer denied that he threatened the Speaker, telling reporters: “I can categorically tell you that I did not threaten the Speaker in any way whatsoever.

“I simply urged to ensure that we have the broadest possible debate.

“So that actually the most important thing , which is what do we do about the situation in Gaza, could be properly discussed by MPs with a number of options in front of them.”

Hoyle is battling for his political survival today after a bruising evening yesterday. As of this morning, more than 55 Tory and SNP MPs have signed an early day motion calling for him to go.

The number of MPs signing the motion jumped from 33 overnight to 57 - amounting to more than one in every 13 MPs.

The motion, tabled by Conservative MP William Wragg, declares no confidence in the Commons Speaker.

Early Day Motions are submitted for debate in the House of Commons and can be used to demonstrate the level of support in Parliament for an issue.

Hoyle sparked the fury of Tory and SNP MPs yesterday after he broke precedent by selecting a Labour amendment, along with a Government amendment, to an Opposition Day motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Protocol dictates that the Commons Speaker would only select one of the amendments, and it is highly unusual for an opposition amendment to be selected.

He apologised to the House of Commons last night following a walkout by SNP and Tory MPs. Hoyle said it was never his “intent” for the Gaza debate to have descended into such mayhem.

He said: "Clearly today has not shown the House at it’s best. I’ll reflect on my part. I do not want it to have ended like this. I’ll meet with all the key players of each party."

He added that he wanted to offer MPs "the widest range of propositions on which to express a view".

But Stephen Flynn, the SNP's Westminster leader, did not seem to accept the apology, saying: "I will take significant convincing that your position is not now intolerable."

He later added: “Every single member of Parliament knows that Lindsay Hoyle was meeting with Sir Keir Starmer and Alan Campbell, the Labour Chief Whip, before a decision was taken today.

"Indeed it was suggested to me that was a reason the Speaker was jumping in and out of the Speaker’s chair in advance of proceedings, which will obviously all be on camera for everyone to reflect upon."

Speaking today, Starmer said Sir Lindsay Hoyle did “the right thing” by selecting Labour’s amendment in the Gaza ceasefire debate.

He said: "The Speaker did the right thing in making sure the debate was broad.

“But the tragedy is the SNP walked off the pitch because they wanted to divide the Labour Party and they couldn’t, and the Government walked off the pitch because it thought it was going to lose a vote.

“So we had one party that was simply seeking to divide on an important issue, the Government lost control of its own MPs and couldn’t control the votes.

“We should have had a proper debate and a proper resolution with all three propositions being put to a vote.”