Rishi Sunak swipes at Sir Lindsay Hoyle as pressure mounts on the Commons Speaker to quit over his botched handling of Gaza debate

Rishi Sunak took a swipe at Sir Lindsay Hoyle last night, as pressure mounted on the Commons Speaker to quit over his botched handling of a debate on Gaza.

In a rare public rebuke, the Prime Minister suggested Sir Lindsay was wrong to tear up Commons procedure on Wednesday in an apparent favour to Labour.

Sir Lindsay yesterday suggested that he had allowed Labour to put its call for a Gaza ceasefire to a vote to reduce the risk of violence against MPs. But the Prime Minister warned this was a ‘slippery slope’ which could lead to more intimidation.

‘The important point here is that we should never let extremists intimidate us into changing the way in which Parliament works,’ he said.

‘Parliament is an important place for us to have these debates. And just because some people may want to stifle that with intimidation or aggressive behaviour, we should not bend to that and change how Parliament works. That’s a very slippery slope.’

Sir Lindsay’s future remained in doubt yesterday as the SNP called for him to resign and dozens of Conservative MPs said they had lost confidence in him.

Downing Street refused to say whether Mr Sunak retained confidence in the Speaker, and health minister Maria Caulfield warned that he had just 48 hours to save his job.

Sir Keir Starmer was also facing growing calls to explain what pressure he had placed on Sir Lindsay to over-rule normal Commons procedure in order to spare Labour’s blushes over Gaza. The Labour leader claimed he ‘simply urged’ the Speaker to have ‘the broadest possible debate’ by allowing Labour’s Gaza motion to be heard alongside those from the Government and SNP.

He said: ‘I can categorically tell you that I did not threaten the Speaker in any way whatsoever.’ But Whitehall sources told the Mail that Sir Keir had ‘gatecrashed’ a meeting between the Speaker and the Labour chief whip just minutes before Wednesday’s debate in an apparent attempt to ‘bounce’ him into agreeing to a vote which would avoid exposing Labour splits over Gaza. Commons leader Penny Mordaunt condemned Sir Keir for ‘bullying’ a ‘decent man’ into a misguided decision.

‘We have seen into the heart of Labour’s leadership,’ she said. ‘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 Speaker’s chair. The Labour Party before fairness, integrity and democracy.’

In a rare public rebuke, the Prime Minister suggested Sir Lindsay was wrong to tear up Commons procedure on Wednesday in an apparent favour to Labour

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said: ‘Lindsay Hoyle is fundamentally a decent man who made a mistake. My question is, what kind of pressures were put on him, to make that fundamental mistake? And it seems to me the pressures were put on by Keir Starmer, by the Labour Party. That is unacceptable. And that is the point. I think, that needs further investigation.’

Sir Lindsay yesterday issued a second emotional apology, telling MPs: ‘I made a mistake. We do make mistakes. I own up to mine.’

He insisted that he had acted because of concerns about the safety of MPs, who have faced threats over their voting record on Gaza. ‘I never ever want to go through a situation where I pick up a phone to find a friend, of whatever side, has been murdered by terrorists,’ he said.

But Stephen Flynn, Westminster leader of the SNP, whose debate on Gaza was wrecked by the decision, rejected the Speaker’s apology and called on him to resign. He told Sir Lindsay the debate ‘descended into farce because of a decision that you made’.

By last night, 67 MPs had signed a Commons motion calling for Sir Lindsay to go. Conservative MP Danny Kruger said: ‘This isn’t personal: he’s a decent man and I’m sure he thought he was doing the right thing. But Sir Lindsay allowed Labour to use the Islamist threat to change the way our democracy works. This is unacceptable.’

Former attorney general Sir Geoffrey Cox said that if Sir Lindsay acted to help his former party, it would amount to an ‘abuse of office’, while if his decision was a ‘misguided’ attempt to protect MPs from harassment, it would amount to ‘an abject surrender to intolerance and tyranny’.

But in a sign that Sir Lindsay may survive, other senior Tories came to his defence. Former defence secretary Ben Wallace said the Speaker remained ‘head and shoulders’ above predecessors such as John Bercow. Tory grandee Sir Edward Leigh said it was time to ‘move on’.