Labour MP Chris Bryant could not have been clearer: the ugly scenes that unfolded last month in parliament during the vote on fracking amounted to bullying:
‘I saw members being physically manhandled into another Lobby and being bullied. If we want to stand up against bullying in this house, of our staff, we have to stop bullying in the chamber as well don’t we,’ he told MPs.
It was a serious allegation and the House of Commons responded by launching an immediate inquiry. The verdict is not good for Bryant.
You can read the report, which was published this week, in full here. In short, it dismisses Bryant’s claims. ‘There is no evidence that anyone was bullied into voting in a particular way,’ the report, says. It concludes that, while ‘voices were raised’, MPs’ behaviour ‘did not amount to sustained… abuse, bullying or physical pressure to vote’.
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