Nailing the jelly – PMQs 12th February 2025

The Opposition struggles to wrench itself free of the Conservative Party’s lamentable record over the past years and remains vulnerable to Labour’s easy counterattacks.

If they are to succeed in holding the Government to account, their questioning will have to be more focused and they will need to have strength in depth when dealing with woolly and evasive replies.

For example, the main bout today between Badenoch and Starmer was on immigration. Kemi’s first question was about the decision of an upper tribunal to allow in six Gazan relations of a Palestinian who is now a British citizen. They had tried to use the provisions of a scheme intended for Ukrainian refugees and, although rejected at the first tier, they succeeded this time by reference to ECHR rules on the right to a family life. In this case, the applicant was the passport-holder’s brother – how far can the ‘family’ connection be taken?

The PM himself said the decision was ‘wrong’ and he didn’t agree with it. Would he therefore appeal it, asked Badenoch?

Starmer havered, saying the decision was made under the last government; well, “according to their legal framework”; Parliament should make the rules. The Home Secretary’s team was “working on closing this loophole”.

Noting that the PM had avoided the question, Kemi asked whether he would amend the borders Bill now going through Parliament or put forward new legislation? Without choosing either option, Starmer repeated the ‘working on it’ line and resorted to the usual counterpunch on the Conservatives’ former “open borders experiment”.

Then he muddied the waters further by saying that the Tories had voted on Monday “against increased powers to deal with those who are running the vile trade of people-smuggling” and added some Blair-like sloganism: “Same old Tories: open borders, empty promises.”

Here was Badenoch’s opportunity to nail Starmer’s misleading statement on Monday’s vote. During that debate, Chris Philp (Con) had offered a ‘reasoned amendment’, making it clear that the Opposition did indeed support tougher measures to tackle “serious and organised crime”, but “we do not support a path to citizenship for people who arrive illegally, and we do not support cancelling the Government’s obligation to remove them”. The Tories wanted no amnesty for ‘undocumented’ migrants this time, unlike the huge backlog-clearing of 2011.

She missed the chance to expose in PMQs that serious weakness in the Bill and in Labour’s underlying intentions, saying for Philp’s amendment that:

“… the Bill abolishes laws passed under the previous Government to ensure removals, and abolishes laws passed under the previous Government to ensure a deterrent by restoring illegal migrants’ ability to claim indefinite leave to remain and British citizenship; and because the Bill contains no proposals to limit legal migration, nor limit the eligibility criteria for settlement and citizenship, which means that the Bill will lead to increased illegal and legal immigration.”

Philp also noted that the Border Security Commander “cannot actually command anything. There are no powers at all in the Bill, merely functions … he has no clear powers, merely an ability to publish documents and reports.”

These points had been made in the Commons, but not in the limelight of PMQs, where the public is much more likely to hear them. This was a lost opportunity for a headline-grabbing forensic attack.

Then the PM repeatedly slithered out of the question whether he would appeal the Palestinian case: “She asked me if we are going to change the law and close the loophole in question one – I said yes. She asked me again in question two – and I said yes. She asked me again in question three – it is still yes.”

Three times only! Remember Jeremy Paxman’s twelve, to Michael Howard? In that case, one hardly knew which man to admire more, given Howard’s lightning twists as he evaded the question differently each time. Starmer has not that speed of mind – but he doesn’t need it, since his myrmidon army of MPs can simply bulldoze resistance, as they did to the ‘reasoned amendment’.

Badenoch turned to another vulnerable target, the new Attorney General Baron Hermer, “the Prime Minister’s personal friend and donor”, whom Labour’s Lord Glasman has called “the absolute archetype of an arrogant, progressive fool”.

The Government lawyers appear to have tacitly accepted the tribunal judge’s statement that the family were facing a humanitarian crisis “as a consequence of the Israeli Government’s indiscriminate attempts to eliminate Hamas”. How could that adjective ‘indiscriminate’ have been allowed to pass unchallenged? Did this imply a change of our official position on Israel?

A good pin on which to make the PM squirm, but Badenoch pulled it back out smartly and turned to the new chief inspector of borders, who lives in Finland and wants to work from home. Starmer was happy to deal with the latter: the individual had worked from Finland under the Tories but would now be UK-based. Returning to the AG, he noted that a previous Conservative AG had been “sacked for breaching national security”. So there!

When will Kemi break the habit of asking two questions in one?

Space does not permit discussion here of all the other matters in this session, but let us glance at three:

Sir Ed Davey (Lib Dem leader) recalled our time as brothers in arms with the Americans, deplored President Trump’s tariffs and suggested revenge imposts on US electric cars; Starmer shamelessly referred to the ‘special relationship’ and said “British steel is an essential part of our heartlands” – skating over issues of Chinese ownership, the EU’s impact over decades, as well as the dire costs of electricity thanks to the Net Zero push.

Similarly, he told Harriet Cross (Con) that “farming is top of the agenda”, though on Monday, he had fled to Cornwall by jet while hundreds of tractors jammed London’s streets. No changes to inheritance tax yet, then. The National Farmers Union welcomed his ‘road map’ apparently; not that bit though, surely.

‘Angel of Death’ Kim Leadbeater, fresh from modifying her Assisted Dying Bill so that cases would not be overseen by a High Court judge after all, but by a committee (selected how?), wanted Starmer’s confirmation that her 2023 ‘Healthy Britain’ report was resulting in moves to make the UK “healthier, happier and more productive” – right up to the point of the medical ‘kill shot’, one supposes.

What is it about the Left that loves death? David Steel’s 1967 Private Members Bill legalised abortion with a Labour Government’s support (10 million terminations so far); now, we are opening the door to routine officially-helped suicides. And as for war – today, Sir Ed Davey was yet again gung-ho for Ukraine and Zelensky.

‘Affairs are now soul-size,’ wrote the poet Christopher Fry in 1951. Now, Britain is indeed in a battle for its soul.

Source: http://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2025/02/nailing-jelly-pmqs-12th-february-2025.html