Thanks to the votes of Labour MPs, David Cameron handily defeated a rebel backbencher’s wrecking amendment to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill.

Former children’s minister Tim Loughton tabled an amendment that would have allowed heterosexual couples to form civil partnerships. Right now, they are only available to homosexual couples. Loughton argued that it is unfair to discriminate against heterosexual couples, and he claimed that allowing them to enter into civil partnerships would encourage many of Britain’s cohabiting couples to formalize their relationships.

“Cohabitation is the fastest-growing form of family in this country, and we need to recognise that our society is changing, whether or not we approve,” he said.

“People choose not to get involved in the whole paraphernalia of formal marriage for a variety of reasons: it is too much of an establishment thing to do; it is too much of a religious institution for some, and even if done in a register office, it has religious connotations; there is a patriarchal side to it; it is a form of social control—there are a whole load of complex motives as to why many of our constituents do not go down the formal marriage route,” he continued.

Cameron opposes extending civil partnership rights to opposite-sex couples on the grounds that it could undermine the institution of marriage, and if Loughton’s amendment had passed, it could have proved fatal to the bill’s progress.

To add to Cameron’s woes, many Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs are known to support heterosexual civil partnerships. In the lead up to the vote, there was rampant press speculation that Cameron was headed for defeat, and some papers predicted that as many as 150 Tory MPs could defy Cameron and vote for the Loughton amendment.

In a bid to steal the rebels’ thunder, Culture Secretary Maria Miller tabled an amendment of her own that would provide for a comprehensive review of the Civil Partnerships Act 2004. Increasingly worried Tory whips repeatedly asked Labour to support their amendment, and at the eleventh hour, Labour leader Ed Miliband agreed to vote against the Loughton amendment in exchange for a commitment to begin the review as soon as possible.

The Loughton amendment was ultimately defeated by a vote of 375 to 70, while the government’s amendment passed 391 to 57. The Labour amendment regarding the timing of the review was subsequently agreed to without a division.

Image credit: David Cameron via Facebook

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The British House of Commons voted to legalize gay marriage by an overwhelmingly majority of 400 to 175 despite a major rebellion by Conservative MPs.
Although Britain has allowed same-sex couples to enter into civil partnerships since 2004, Prime Minister David Cameron has long stated his belief that they should be entitled to full equality before the law.

In late January, the government introduced the Marriage (Same-Sex Partners) Bill into Parliament’s lower house. The legislation would allow same-sex couples to marry in religious as well as civil ceremonies, though a much-vaunted “quadruple lock” would ensure that no religious organization would be forced to solemnize same-sex unions. The Church of England was particularly anxious about the bill, fearing that since it is the state church, it could be forced to host gay weddings. However, the bill specifically states that the church can continue to pass legislation that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman (under the terms of an act passed during the reign of Henry VIII, ecclesiastical laws must always yield to secular law).

But while the move to legalize gay marriage proved popular with his Liberal Democrat coalition partners, it exposed bitter divisions within Cameron’s own party. Last weekend the chairs of 20 local Conservative groups presented Downing Street with a letter urging the Prime Minister to delay the vote, claiming that the government had no mandate to redefine such a key institution.

They also claimed that Cameron’s support for gay marriage would lead to an exodus of local party members, a finding echoed by a recent poll commissioned by opponents of gay marriage that reported that 20 percent of Conservative voters would vote against the party in the next election due to its stance on the issue.

As is typical with matters of this sort, the leaders of all three major parties allowed their MPs to vote according to their consciences. Over the weekend, the British media reported that up to 180 Conservative MPs might ultimately vote against the bill. In the end, 139 voted against and 30 abstained. The dissenters included two Cabinet ministers (Environment Secretary Owen Paterson and Welsh Secretary David Jones), as well as three junior ministers. Defense Secretary Philip Hammond and Attorney-General Dominic Grieve both abstained.

The debate on the bill was often quite emotional. Openly-gay Conservative MP Mike Freer urged his colleagues to support the bill. “I am not asking for special treatment. I am simply asking for equal treatment.

Speaking in opposition to the bill, Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale claimed that the government was entering “Alice in Wonderland territory.” Instead of redefining marriage, he called on ministers to “withdraw the Bill, abolish the Civil Partnership Act 2004, abolish civil marriage and create a civil union Bill that applies to all people, irrespective of their sexuality or relationship. That means that brothers and brothers, sisters and sisters and brothers and sisters would be included as well.”

Meanwhile, his colleague Matthew Offord warned that the bill represented a slippery slope that could lead to the legalization of polygamous relationships. Referring to the law on marriage, he said that “another government can simply change the definition to include as many partners as they want.”

The bill will now receive clause-by-clause scrutiny from a Public Bill Committee, and when it returns to the full House, MPs will have another chance to vote on it. Then it goes on to the House of Lords, where it may face stiffer opposition. While it is highly unlikely that peers would reject the bill outright, they may try to kill it by passing amendments that the Commons are unlikely to accept. If that happens, there could be a lengthy period of ‘ping pong’ as the two houses try to iron out their differences. If agreement cannot be reached, the government may have to reintroduce the bill in the next parliamentary session and use the Parliament Acts 1911 & 1949 to override peers’ objections.

Image Courtesy :  Robyn Ramsay

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After the three police investigations and thirty arrests that resulted from the News International scandal, the United Kingdom has begun a media ethics trial to investigate the influence and ethical issues surrounding the media. The previous criminal trial began after Murdoch’s tabloid “News of the World” hacked a kidnap-murder victim’s phone and the emails and phones of war veterans and their families.

The former British Prime Minister John Major – Conservative party premier from 1990 to 1997 – testified at the media ethics trial, known as the Leveson inquiry after Lord Justice Leveson was appointed to oversee the evidence.

Major claimed that Rupert tried to influence the government interactions with the European Union by asking Major at a private dinner to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union; Major refused.

Murdoch told the inquiry on 25 of April that he “[has] never asked a prime minister for anything.” Major responded that he assumes Murdoch meant, “he [Murdoch] has never asked for anything that would benefit him personally or his company…in my very limited contact with Mr. Murdoch his statement is on a strict interpretation literally true.”

Major went on to explain for what Murdoch seemed to ask. “Certainly he never asked for anything directly from me but he was not averse to pressing for policy changes. In the run-up to the 1997 general election in my third and last meeting with him on 2 February 1997 he made it clear that he disliked my European policies which he wished me to change.”

According to the former Prime Minister, Murdoch made the implication that if Major did not change his European policies the prime minister would lose the support of Murdoch’s media networks. Major stated, “so far as I recall he made no mention of editorial independence but referred to all his papers as ‘we’…Both Mr. Murdoch and I kept our word. I made no change in policy and Mr. Murdoch’s titles did indeed oppose the Conservative party. It came as no surprise to me when soon after our meeting the Sun newspaper announced its support for Labour.”

Shortly after the private dinner party where this conversation took place Murdoch’s two major papers backed Tony Blair in the 1997 general election; Blair won the election three months later.

News International, Murdoch’s news corporation, has since issued a statement in regards to Major’s comments. “News International titles did not act in unison in the 1997 election. The Sunday Times supported John Major, the Times was neutral, and the Sun and the News of the World supported Labour.”

Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have also testified at the inquiry about their relationship with the media mogul. Brown claimed that Murdoch’s papers undermined the British government’s efforts in Afghanistan.

Major made several comments about the influence of Murdoch and his media empire. “I do think parts of his press, parts of his media empire have lowered the general quality of the British media…I think the interaction that there has been with politicians has done no good either to the press or to the politicians.

“I think the sheer scale of the influence he is believed to [have] whether he exercises it or not, is an unattractive facet in British national life, and it does seem to me an oddity that in a nation which prides itself on one man, one vote, we should have one man, who can’t vote, with a large collection of newspapers and a large share of the electronic media outlets.”

Major claims that he has not talked about the conversation with Murdoch in the last fifteen years but since he was under oath at the inquiry he was bound by law and his word to talk about it.

Major and Murdoch also had meetings in 1992 and 1993 although neither party remembers what was discussed at those meetings. Murdoch claims that he does not remember the conversation at the private dinner with Major in 1997.

Before the meeting in 1993 Major’s press secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, sent out a memo stating that Murdoch has “made matters worse” and his papers “ceased to make rational criticisms of policy and are now simply anti-everything and [Major] in particular.”

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