MPs have clashed over demands for a snap general election as they debated a petition that garnered more than a million signatures.
Labour Party chair Anna Turley refrained from committing to an immediate vote, arguing that fulfilling manifesto commitments “takes time”.
However, leading the debate, Conservative former minister John Lamont said that voters felt “utterly betrayed” by the government.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer leading Labour to a substantial 174-seat majority in the 2024 general election, bringing an end to 14 years of Conservative governance.
The UK Parliament petition, titled Call an Immediate General Election closed last month after accumulating a total of 1,059,231 signatures.
“We think the majority need and want change,” it read.
Speaking in Westminster Hall, Mr Lamont told MPs: “This Labour government have now been in power for 18 months, and Britain is suffering as a result.
“We have a Prime Minister surrounded by advisers who appear to lack both clarity of purpose and a coherent plan for the country.”
Referring to voters and pointing to Labour MPs, he later added: “They feel utterly utterly betrayed, and you lot are responsible.”
But Patrick Hurley, the Labour MP for Southport, said “democracy requires more than just knee-jerk, reflexive wanting”.
He said: “If adults behaved in their working lives the way this petition urges Parliament to behave – abandoning responsibility at the first sight of trouble, demanding resets whenever outcomes fail to please them – we’d call that irresponsible, we’d call it childish.
“We would not reward it.”
Mr Hurley also warned the petition was “not a considered proposal for better governance of this country” nor “accompanied by a constitutional argument that we want to change this place to make it better”.
He continued: “It is simply an expression of dissatisfaction at how long it’s taken the new government to fix the problems that were left behind after 14 years of chaos, division and decline caused by the party opposite.
“There were years of economic stagnation, a referendum of such consequential proportions that the country hasn’t grown its economy – barely – since 2016, and a Tory government that was more concerned with looking after itself than with looking after the most vulnerable in this country.”
Conservative former minister Mark Francois appeared to refer to a 2024 row over gifts which Sir Keir accepted from Lord Waheed Alli, including multiple pairs of glasses to a value of £2,485.
From his seat, Mr Francois said: “At least we buy our own glasses.”
Mr Hurley replied: “Doesn’t look like it.”
The pair had earlier clashed over the European Union in-out vote held almost a decade ago, which Mr Hurley labelled a “self-harming referendum” brought about by the Conservatives.
When Mr Francois said more than 17 million voters opted to leave – “a lot more people than voted for Labour in the last general election” – Mr Hurley replied: “Those people voted in good faith and they were lied to by people like him.”
Mr Francois demanded the Merseyside MP withdraw his remarks, which he did.
Dame Harriett Baldwin, a Conservative former minister who has had a seat on the green benches since 2010, said she did not “recall the Petitions Committee having to call as many debates on calling another general election in any other Parliament”.
She referred to an earlier petition which closed in May 2025, which gathered more – 3,084,715 – signatures.
When Peter Prinsley, the Labour MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, suggested the fresh petition showed “the number of people calling for an election has fallen by two thirds”, Dame Harriett said she would “encourage” him to “dream on”.
Dame Harriett added: “I think that’s probably four million people who in this length of time signed this petition.”
Ms Turley, speaking for the government, said: “This year we will be taking £150 off energy bills, the living wage is up £900 per year, we’ve extended the £3 bus fare, interest rates have been cut six times, we’ve frozen prescription fees to keep the costs under £10, we’ve taken 500,000 children out of poverty – that is an extra 3,000 in my constituency of Redcar – for pensioners, we’re protecting the triple lock, which is worth over £1,900 over the course of this Parliament.”
She added the government had “set up 750 primary school breakfast clubs to help those kids to get a healthy start in life”, a move which she said was aimed at “breaking the cycle of poverty”.
Ms Turley said Conservative MPs “may have enjoyed the chaos and the upheaval of the last period government”, with three general elections and the referendum in a space of four years.
“But the public voted to end the chaos and they want us just to get on with governing the country and fixing the mess that they left behind,” she continued.
“This takes time, this takes patience.”
Source: UK Politics - www.independent.co.uk
