A Conservative MP with a reputation for targeting bills protecting women’s rights has broken his own record by talking for more than 90 minutes in an attempt to derail a measure demanding the government ratify a treaty on domestic violence.
Philip Davies, who represents Shipley in West Yorkshire, talked without a break for an hour and 31 minutes as he introduced 47 proposed new clauses to the bill about the Istanbul convention, which was signed by the UK in 2012 but not yet ratified.
However, he failed in his attempt to talk out the bill, a procedure known as filibustering. It was eventually passed by 138 votes to one.
The Istanbul convention, created by the Council of Europe, is aimed at preventing violence against women and domestic violence, and has been signed by almost 40 countries.
Davies, who styles himself a champion of men’s rights, proposed amendments including that the convention “be deemed, across the United Kingdom, to apply equally to men and women”.
Other amendments, many of which were also proposed by another Tory MP, David Nuttall, suggested the ratification should lapse if it did not reduce violence against women, and that the UK be exempt from any scrutiny or monitoring on the issue.
Getting up to speak in the House of Commons, Davies – who in December was voted on to parliament’s women and equalities committee – began by warning: “We’ve actually got quite a large number of new clauses and amendments to go through this morning.”
He added: “I will try and do justice to these amendments, and I will try and do it as quickly as I can.”
Davies said he opposed the private member’s bill, proposed by the SNP’s Eilidh Whiteford, which gained support from the government and from nine parties in the Commons. “I’ve made it clear that I don’t agree with the Istanbul convention, as it is discriminatory,” he said.
Davies, who in December spoke for more than an hour in the Commons to try to derail a bill to protect women against violence, later withdrew his amendments, so they were not voted on.
However, he and a handful of other Conservative MPs forced votes on the measure – formally called the preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (ratification of convention) bill – as well as on a series of government amendments, causing more delays.
Davies’s tactics brought condemnation from a series of other MPs. SNP MP John Nicholson tweeted during the speech:
The absurd Philip Davies has been on his feet filibustering now for 1 hr 20mins on the @EilidhWhiteford bill. I'm embarrassed for him.
— JOHN NICOLSON M.P. (@MrJohnNicolson) February 24, 2017
Labour’s Anna Turley, whose private member’s bill to increase penalties for animal cruelty had been due for debate but was stopped due to Davies’s tactics, said some of his own party’s MPs were upset.
She tweeted:
Even the Tories are angry at Philip Davies for filibustering today's bills and are turning on him in the chamber.
— Anna Turley MP (@annaturley) February 24, 2017
