Government wins fracking vote amid chaos

The government won tonight’s vote on fracking but it truly was a Pyrrhic victory. On paper, the numbers involved – 315 'noes' to ban fracking for shale gas versus 228 'ayes' – might suggest a well-oiled whipping machine. But it was the carnage within the House of Commons that everyone was talking about tonight.

Opposition MPs are full of indignation at the scenes they claim to have seen in the voting lobbies tonight. Labour’s Chris Bryant told Sky that he saw four Tory MPs, including Deputy PM Thérèse Coffey and her colleague Jacob Rees-Mogg, physically man-handle a colleague of their party into their voting lobby. He added that he has photo evidence on his phone. The SNP’s David Linden tweeted that he saw Coffey ‘practically pick up a hesitant Tory MP and march him into the Government lobby.’

Lots of Tory MPs are themselves talking about a ‘bust up’; both the Chief Whip and the Deputy Chief Whip have now resigned. Among the 40 Tories who abstained on the opposition day motion, put forward by Labour, were Kwasi Kwarteng, Liz Truss’s recently sacked Chancellor, along with rebels Chris Skidmore, Tracey Crouch and Angela Richardson who made their concerns known before the vote.

With party discipline in tatters and tempers running high in Westminster, there are few, if any, ways left for the Truss administration to reassert its rapidly-diminishing authority on its restless MPs.