Let me be clear about what that means. It means that a single misplaced vote, a coughing fit that keeps a loyalist from the lobby, or a Labour MP’s well-timed defection could bring down not just a bill, but the entire precarious architecture of this administration.
Jessie Ames is the BBC’s Senior Political Correspondent. Follow her on BBC News at Ten and on the BBC Politics Live panel this Thursday. jessie ames bbc
There is a peculiar kind of silence that falls over the Palace of Westminster just before a seismic shift. It is not the silence of peace, but the silence of held breath. Let me be clear about what that means
The Prime Minister entered the chamber this morning with the grim composure of a captain who knows the lifeboats are half-empty. The rebellion over the Financial Responsibility and Regional Growth Bill —a dry title for a political firestorm—has not been quelled by promises of pork-barrel spending or whispered threats of lost whip status. As of one hour ago, the government’s working majority stands at an effective zero. Follow her on BBC News at Ten and
I spoke this morning to a Conservative MP of 12 years, a reliably loyal voice who asked not to be named. “Jessie,” he said, “I have voted with the whip through Partygate, through the lettuce, through everything. But if I vote for this, I am voting to close the A&E in my town. I can’t explain that to a mother waiting six hours for an ambulance.”
It is easy, in this insulated Gothic village of power, to treat politics as a sport. But the delay in this bill has real consequences. The bill contains emergency funding for the insolvent steelworks in Port Talbot. It holds the renewal of the student loan interest cap. Every hour of infighting adds another question mark to the pay packets of 1.2 million public sector workers awaiting a settlement.
For the past 48 hours, No. 10 has dismissed this as “fictional accounting.” But backbenchers are not fools. They represent constituencies where a new MRI machine or a bypass road is now being weighed against a tax break for tech investors in the South East.
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