Sierra Leone — 18 May 1998

David Ruffley MP, Bury St Edmunds voted in the minority (Aye).

I beg to move,

That this House deplores the muddle of government policy towards Sierra Leone over the last year; notes the contradictory statements made on this matter by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; stresses the importance of establishing what knowledge and involvement there was on the part of government ministers, officials and officers of the intelligence services of and in the activities of Sandline International, including possible breaches of both international and United Kingdom law; and calls on the Government to announce without delay that it will establish a public inquiry into this question, presided over by a judge to be nominated by the Lord Chief Justice.

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

'notes the Government's consistent policy of support for the restoration of President Kabbah and recognition of him as the elected and legitimate President of Sierra Leone and welcomes the

Again, the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington has pointed out the fallacy in that argument. It contradicted the Minister of State's evidence that he was not told until 1 May, a statement that he has since revoked, but for which he has not yet apologised.

and the Foreign Secretary has said that he was

"to co-ordinate international support for the restoration".--[ Official Report , 12 May 1998; Vol. 312, c. 153.]

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:--

The House divided: Ayes 128, Noes 287.

Historical Hansard | Online Hansard |

Public Whip is run as a free not-for-profit service. If you'd like to support us, please consider switching your (UK) electricity and/or gas to Octopus Energy or tip us via Ko-Fi.

Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con0 127 (+2 tell)079.6%
Independent1 00100.0%
Lab286 (+2 tell) 0069.1%
LDem0 000.0%
PC0 1025.0%
Total:287 128066.5%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
no rebellions

About the Project

The Public Whip is a not-for-profit, open source website created in 2003 by Francis Irving and Julian Todd and now run by Bairwell Ltd.

The Whip on the Web

Help keep PublicWhip alive