I WASN'T in Parliament for last week’s debate on Gaza but it certainly looked chaotic.

The descent into ugly arguing about seemingly-arcane procedures is never a good look.

But the rules of engagement for Parliament underpin our democracy.

From time to time, opposition parties have a chance to air things important to them through Opposition Day Debates.

Labour gets quite a few days, the SNP just three per session.

Last week, the SNP chose to have a debate on a ceasefire in Gaza. There is a lot of politics behind the policy.

With a difficult election coming up, the SNP is set to lose a lot of seats north of the border.

They worded their motion in a way that would split the Labour Party.

With the wording presented, there would be a very significant rebellion with further Labour shadow ministers resigning.

This type of thing goes on the whole time – witness the undeliverable motion about sewage discharges that has resulted in Labour activists claiming the Government voted against action (not true).

But what is different about last week is that the House of Commons, apparently, changed rules because of intimidation of MPs.

This is the fundamental crux of the whole issue.

Protesters are taking more and more silly measures to put pressure on MPs.

Just Stop Oil is now threatening to occupy MPs’ homes (they did a rooftop protest on the Prime Minister’s house recently).

Some may think the planet’s future is worthy of such action.

But what if someone does the same to intimidate an MP into voting for something that is less worthy?

My colleague Mike Freer MP had his office firebombed recently.

Both Labour and Conservatives had recent events invaded by protestors for Palestine.

David Amess MP was murdered by an Islamist activist, Jo Cox MP by a right-wing activist. The only thing MPs should fear is the ballot box.

When given the mandate by a constituency, they should act solely in the best interests of their constituents in line with the manifesto they won on.

It is because of this, and the apparent bending of parliamentary procedure to intimidation, that this whole row drags on.

I like and trust Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker.

But there were a lot of peculiarities last week, not least the Labour leader taking the highly-unusual approach of a party leader lobbying the Speaker.

This has been referred to the Privileges Committee and it is right that they investigate.