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And we wonder why the vast majority of the public don't give a fuck about politics.
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great summary
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It was pure politics by Labour
You say that like it's a bad thing - isn't their job to challenge the gov't and exert as much influence over Parliamentary proceedings as possible? When the administration is riding roughshod over procedure and its own manifesto you can hardly accuse Labour of being anti-democratic or going against the "will of the people".
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So much of it just needs throwing away such as twats parading round in 15th century garb carrying ceremonial maces and staffs.
It all has to go, the flags, dark wood, bars, corners, costumes, including moving them out of the Houses of Parliament. Turn it into a museum, then build a new building that's specifically designed around conflict resolution (there must be some form of behavioural architecture or something to do this?).
Put them into one of those neutral buildings that you see in every other country, where people can debate and vote with ease (and, unbelievably given the last 24 hours, safely) and don't feel the need to shout at each other. Their behaviour is their fault, but we insist on making them run a 21st century country with tools and infrastructure 100's of years out of date.
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Yes to all this, I like to keep up to date as best I can.
The system is an anachronism, yes yes, mother of parliaments etc.. but it's not much of an advert at the moment so renew, refresh, relevant etc.....
Send it to Middlesbrough and see how quickly they get investment. Or Plymouth so we get a motorway to the southeast.
Personally I'd like an English parliament in Birmingham and a small federal overlord body in Westminster split between the four home nations.
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Because Parliament is full of anachronistic shite. So much of it just needs throwing away such as twats parading round in 15th century garb carrying ceremonial maces and staffs.
The electronic voting was introduced recently (2020) as part of the Covid stuff (the lobbies are barely big enough to hold everyone on big votes in normal times let alone if you had to maintain 2m social distancing). Generally the primary source of truth are the Teller's list/count of MPs that pass through lobbies - the electronic bit is there to help reduce any mistakes.
Simply put, the Government panicked last night when it didn't really need to, but if you know what the vote was actually about (see below) you can understand why they did. They won by 90 odd votes in the end and I doubt they physically strongarmed 45 MPs to go through the No lobby, although I'm sure there was a lot of non-physical coercion (which is what the Whip system is there for). It just shows how loose a grip on the situation the Conservative party have.
What isn't being well reported is that the vote wasn't simply about Fracking, the motion was worded in a way to give Labour control of Parliamentary order paper for the next day (today, Thursday), which would have meant they could have put many more things up for debate/vote.
Random quote from https://www.itv.com/news/2022-10-19/fracking-vote-described-as-confidence-vote-in-government-by-tory-whips:
“We cannot, under any circumstances, let the Labour Party take control of the order paper and put through their own legislation and whatever other bits of legislation they desire,” he said.
That's why there was a need for a three line whip against it.
It was pure politics by Labour. They framed the vote to be about Fracking as they knew that would be how it would be reported. But wording it as Labour did forced the Tories into making it a three-line whip vote against, but this made it look like a three-line whip vote against something that was in their own manifesto (the moratorium on Fracking). Labour never thought they'd actually win the vote as the Tories simply wouldn't allow Labour control of the order paper for the day.
It was hugely destabilising for individual MPs as they would now be seen as voting for Fracking and thus risking a load of shite from their constituents.
A more "on it" Tory press office would have filled the media with the line that it wasn't about Fracking but something like "Labour attempting to subvert process and pushing their own legislation through despite not being in power" but they were all too busy dealing with twelfty other crises to think straight.
The fact it generated such mayhem (three-line whip vote, not a three-line whip vote, whips resigning and then unresigning) is just a bonus.
(This info is probably already out of date as anything could have happened in the 15 minutes I've been typing...)