Sir Keir Starmer faces possible probe over claims he put pressure on Speaker over Gaza debate
Sir Keir Starmer is facing a possible parliamentary investigation over allegations he put pressure on the Speaker in a debate on Gaza last week.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle is facing a backlash for allowing a vote on a Labour amendment to an SNP motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Parliamentary convention dictates that there would usually only be a government amendment to an opposition motion, but Sir Lindsay said he selected the Labour amendment to allow as broad a debate as possible.
However, critics within the SNP and the Conservatives have claimed he bowed to pressure from the Labour Party to select the amendment with the aim of staving off a potential rebellion among its MPs who could have voted for the SNP motion if denied the opportunity to vote on their own.
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Following the outcry, reports circulated that Sir Keir had put pressure on Sir Lindsay, a Labour MP before taking on the Speaker role, to select his party’s amendment in order to stave off a potential rebellion – thus bringing his impartiality into question.
While Sir Keir has “categorically” denied the claims, Sky News has learned that the Commons leader, Penny Mordaunt, believes there could have been a “breach of privilege” and an investigation is one of a number of potential options being considered.
Asked on Monday if he regretted the way things had panned out, the Labour leader said: “My focus is on the awful situation in Gaza. Not the parliamentary process, the awful situation.
“And we all want to see an end to the thousands of people being killed in Gaza. We want to see those hostages out, and we want a pathway to a peaceful settlement.”
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Starmer denies threatening Speaker
Sir Lindsay has also rejected accusations he was put under pressure by Labour and has insisted the safety of MPs was the main reason for his move. He later issued an emotional apology admitting he had made a “mistake”.
On the prospect of a privileges committee probe – first reported by the Times – a Labour spokesperson said it was “desperate stuff from a Tory party trying to distract from their own troubles by repeating lies about Keir Starmer”.
Sir Lindsay is facing a battle to save his job following the debacle, which has led to the SNP – the third largest party in the Commons – losing confidence in him.
A total of 81 SNP and Conservative MPs have now signed a petition of no confidence in Sir Lindsay.
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‘I have a duty of care to protect’
The SNP’s anger was stoked further when the Speaker rejected an application from the SNP for an emergency debate over a ceasefire in Gaza – something Sir Lindsay himself had proposed as an olive branch following the scenes last week.
Sir Lindsay said the government planned to “make a relevant statement” around the situation in Gaza on Tuesday, meaning there would be a “very relevant opportunity for this matter to come before the House”.
But the SNP’s Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, accused parliament of “failing the people of Gaza by blocking a vote on the urgent actions the UK government must take to help make an immediate ceasefire happen”.
“The Speaker broke the rules last week – and this week he has broken his word,” he said.
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SNP: Speaker’s position is ‘untenable’
“How can MPs have any trust in the Speaker when he makes a public commitment one minute, only to rip it up the next?
“If 30,000 dead Palestinians aren’t worthy of an emergency debate, what is?”
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Labour’s role in last week’s saga came back into focus this week following an interview shadow minister Chris Bryant gave on Channel 4 News, in which he admitted to filibustering – a delaying tactic – ahead of the opposition day debate to allow Sir Keir and the Speaker time to talk.
The SNP’s Kirsty Blackman said Starmer’s party had been “caught red-handed following the admission by Chris Bryant”.
“There must now be a full, independent investigation into the appalling behaviour of Keir Starmer and his colleagues, who are no better than the Tories when it comes to manipulating the broken Westminster system,” she said.
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf says his party’s mission is to “remoralise” young people.
Speaking off the back of his party’s massive gains in the local elections, Mr Yusuf said young people were being taught to “hate their country” and that Reform’s mission was to change their morals.
“There has been an industrial-scale demoralisation, particularly of young people in this country, who are basically being taught quite deliberately that they should hate their country; they should be deeply ashamed of their country’s history; that the United Kingdom had a brutal empire,” he told The Times.
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“Look, of course, you know, the British Empire was not perfect, but I actually think overall the British Empire did much more good for the world than it did bad.”
He said the party’s mission was to “remoralise” the youth and that within a couple of months of gaining power, Reform would erect statues of great British figures and end “all this woke nonsense”.
He continued: “How many young people know who Isambard Kingdom Brunel is? Look at the character assassination that has occurred on the legacy of Sir Winston Churchill.
“The fact that they have to cover up his statue because they don’t want to provoke protesters. I mean that’s the sort of utterly indefensible so-called leadership that we’ve had and young people feel that in their bones.”
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Inside Reform’s election success
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He said he believes Reform leader Nigel Farage’s message is “resonating” with young people and added: “I think that a lot of young people we speak to feel very smothered by a finger-wagging sort of teaching class.
“They feel very restricted, they feel a huge lack of opportunity ā¦ You’re going to hear from us over the next couple of years more and more of a policy platform for young people, for Gen Z and for millennials.”
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Voters turn to Reform UK
Mr Farage has been more focused on what his party’s trajectory is doing to the Conservatives, saying in his column for The Telegraph that Kemi Badenoch’s party had been “hollowed out” and is experiencing a “strange death” due to the rising popularity of Reform.
He said the UK had reached a “new political age”, reiterating earlier claims that two-party politics “is finished”.
Reform chairman Zia Yusuf will be appearing on Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips from 8.30am this morning.
OKX founder and CEO Star Xu has publicly defended the crypto exchange after Tron founder Justin Sun accused it of failing to act on a law enforcement request to freeze stolen funds following a recent hack of Tronās official X account.
āOKX also has consumers protection policy according to law, we canāt freeze a customerās funds according to your personal X post or an oral communication. I think you should understand it as the CEO of HTX,ā Xu said in an X post.
OKX says there is no communication in the spam box, either
Xu said that the crypto exchange had not received any related correspondence through OKXās official channels. āOur LE cooperation team just checked the email, including the spam box; we havenāt received any request related with this case,ā Xu said.
In what is now an unavailable X post, but was screenshotted by Xu, Sun had earlier claimed that OKX has not responded to a āfreeze noticeā sent to its official email address from a ārelevant law enforcement agency.ā Sun said that he had no other way to contact OKXās compliance department.
āThese stolen funds do not belong to me; Iām acting to protect the community,ā Sun said. On May 3, Tron DAO told its 1.7 million X followers that its account had been compromised. Tron explained that during the breach, an unauthorized party posted a malicious contract address, sent direct messages, and followed unfamiliar accounts.
āIf you received a DM from our account on May 2, please delete it and consider it the work of the attacker.ā
In response to Sunās claims of inaction, Xu publicly called on him to provide a screenshot showing when and where the law enforcement request was made.
The Tron incident is one of several recent security breaches involving high-profile crypto accounts on X.
Related: Over 14,500 Tron addresses at risk of silent hijacking
Kaito AI, an artificial intelligence-powered platform that aggregates crypto data to provide market analysis for users, and its founder, Yu Hu, were the victims of an X social media hack on March 15. The hackers opened up a short position on KAITO tokens before posting that the Kaito wallets were compromised and advised users that their funds were not safe.
The Pump.fun X account was compromised on Feb. 26 to promote a fake governance token called āPUMPā and other fraudulent coins.
Meanwhile, the X account of UK member of Parliament and Leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell, was hacked to promote a scam crypto token.
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