Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle acted after repeatedly warning MPs to sit down and telling them to “shut up a minute”. Alba Party MPs Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey were ordered to leave the chamber amid furious scenes at the start of the meeting. Mr MacAskill was heard trying to raise a point of order and appeared to say “we need a referendum on the Prime Minister” before being drowned out by other MPs. Mr MacAskill refused to sit down and continued to speak, prompting Sir Lindsay to act. Mr Hanvey then stood up, before he was then told to leave the room. Both men are former SNP MPs. But both joined the Alba Party when it was created by former SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. Mr MacAskill is a former senior minister in the Scottish Government. The two men protested the UK government’s refusal to devolve the necessary powers to hold a second Scottish independence vote to the Scottish government. Ministers said now was not the time for another vote on the issue after 55 per cent of Scots backed remaining in the UK in 2014. During PMQs, Boris Johnson told MPs that when it came to Scottish independence: “We are much better together.” He said the “last thing” Scots needed in the current economic situation was more constitutional wrangling. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the two Alba MPs wrote: “The decision you took, in the final days of your Prime Ministership, to unexpectedly reject the request for an Article 30 Order which would have allowed for an approved and legal referendum on independence. take place is an outrageous front for Scottish democracy and for the people of Scotland. “The majority of Scots voted in the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections, on the Regional List, for the Scottish National Party, the Scottish Green Party and the ALBA Party – all of whom stood on a platform to secure a referendum on the independence. current parliamentary term”. They add: “As a self-styled ‘Union Minister’ you must recognize that this Union is voluntary and was intended to be a union of equals, as such it can only be maintained with the consent of the people of Scotland. You must be in no doubt that holding Scottish democracy hostage is something that the people of Scotland will not tolerate.” The two MPs were later formally expelled from the Commons.
