Commons chaos as the Tories fall apart

The government chaos continues. On Wednesday morning, Tory MPs were told that Labour’s motion to force a vote on a bill to ban fracking was a confidence motion in Truss’s government. Whips were determined not to give Labour control of the order paper. There would be no ifs or buts – all Tory MPs had to vote with the government to block it. Then as the debate ahead of the vote neared its end, No. 10 started to have doubts – with a number of MPs going public to say they would rebel. Climate minister Graham Stuart then told the Commons: ‘Quite clearly this is not a confidence vote.’

This led to widespread confusion. Reports of drama and bad blood in the voting lobbies emerged – with ministers accused of manhandling MPs in a bid to get them to vote with the government. The chief whip Wendy Morton and her deputy Craig Whittaker were reported to have resigned in protest at being undermined (as Isabel reports, Whittaker was overheard swearing in the voting lobby) powers above. However, they then appear to have been talked down from the ledge after hours of confusion. Late last night the government confirmed they were both still in place. 

Could that deal have come at a price? In the early hours of the morning, a Downing Street source confirmed that it was a confidence motion after all. They say:

“The Prime Minister has full confidence in the chief and deputy chief whip. Throughout the day, the whips had treated the vote as a confidence motion. The minister at the despatch box was told, mistakenly, by Downing Street to say that it was not.

However, Conservative MPs were fully aware that the vote was subject to a three line whip. The whips will now be speaking to Conservative MPs who failed to support the government. Those without a reasonable excuse for failing to vote with the government can expect proportionate disciplinary action.

So, that means all the MPs who abstained in the vote without permission to miss it now have to explain why they failed to vote and potentially face losing their government role or even the whip. In total 40 Tory MPs did not vote with the government – however, around 20 are thought to have been paired so had permission to abstain. Were even a handful of MPs to lose the whip it would make pushing government business through harder. It's worth noting that among that list of abstentions were Prime Minister Liz Truss and her chief whip Morton.

Does Truss even have the political capital to discipline her MPs? The mood in parliament late last night was one of misery. ‘We might have reached the end,’ says a former minister. You know things are bad when Labour is simply putting up videos of Tory MPs complaining about the government rather than bothering with their own messaging. While there are still some supportive ministers calling for unity, other one-time supporters are turning – with former cabinet minister David Frost now calling for her to go. It follows that any attempt at a show of strength could simply inflame tensions further and expose Truss’s weakness. Strap in. Today is full of danger for the beleaguered prime minister.