Cameron alienates Tories over Arrest Warrant ‘chicanery’

If you thought Ed Miliband was in trouble with his back-benchers, it’s nothing compared to the deep doo-doo that David Cameron finds himself in after furious Tory MPs were denied a proper chance to debate the European Arrest Warrant last night.

Labour announced today they are going to use their own Opposition debate to force Cameron, Theresa May and Michael Gove back to the Commons next Wednesday to face the debate they tried to duck yesterday.

It will take place on 19 November, the day before the by-election at Rochester and Strood which most Tories have already written off as a guaranteed humiliation at the hands of Ukip.

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There is so much bad blood flowing among Tory MPs after last night’s debacle that there are fears in Tory circles that it could push more eurosceptic back-benchers to defect to Ukip if Tory deserter Mark Reckless wins in Rochester.

The unprecedented parliamentary chaos followed a ruling by the Speaker, John Bercow, that MPs could not debate the EAW because of the way the government had tabled their motion.

Instead, MPs, many of them ready with horror stories from constituents about the injustices of the EAW system, were expected to vote on a secondary piece of legislation - or statutory instrument.

As Ann Treneman puts it in The Times, "It was about a clutch of regulations but not the one thing that everyone wanted to talk about, rebel over, shout out loud about".

The whole thing was so arcane that even experts on parliamentary procedure were baffled by the government’s tactics. Readers keen to learn every detail can find useful summaries in The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph or even follow it blow-by-blow in Hansard (starting at 4.24pm).

It all ended up with Speaker Bercow accusing Cameron and the government of treating the Commons with “contempt” by avoiding a straight debate on the EAW as the PM had promised.

Jaws dropped when Bercow said: “It may be the sort of thing that some people think is very clever, but people outside the House expect straightforward dealing, and they are frankly contemptuous — I use the word advisedly — of what is not straight dealing.”

The erudite Jacob Rees-Mogg accused Cameron, May and Gove of “procedural prestidigitation” and “legislative legerdemain”.

Rees-Mogg, the Tory MP for North East Somerset, said: "This is an outrageous abuse of parliamentary proceedings. This approach is fundamentally underhand.”

Bill Cash, chairman of the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, described the government’s handling of the debate as a “trick” that was "tainted with chicanery".

When Labour's Yvette Cooper engineered a vote designed to get Theresa May to come back with a motion specifically naming the EAW, David Cameron had to be dragged out of the white-tie-and-tails Lord Mayor’s Banquet at the Guildhall to vote: the government won it by nine votes.

This morning, the bad blood continued to flow on Radio 4’s Today programme. Former Tory Cabinet minister Liam Fox agreed that the government had “misjudged the mood of the House” but he accused Labour of playing politics by giving over its Opposition day on 19 November to an EAW debate. He accused Labour of “synthetic anger” given that they support Britain signing up to the arrest warrant.

But Yvette Cooper, shadow home minister, said a proper debate was essential to avoid giving lawyers the chance to argue in future that the arrest warrant had never been properly sanctioned by parliament.

One thing everyone is agreed on: it was a lousy day for David Cameron and a good one for Nigel Farage.

It wasn’t a bad one for Yvette Cooper, either, who had the better of Theresa May in the House and was even cheered by some Tory MPs.

And it was a much better day for Ed Miliband, off the front pages at last.

Incidentally, Alan Johnson has sought to draw a line under the Labour “crisis” by writing an article for The Guardian in which he says he has no intention of standing for the leadership, not now, not ever.

The popular former postman-turned-best-selling-author called for the party to realise that Miliband “is entitled to expect our loyalty”, adding: “Ed Miliband will lead us into an election that I am convinced we can win. It was my decision to walk away from frontline politics, not Ed’s.”