19 May 2016
The International PUIP (Punch-Ups In Parliament) League
Sports report – the season so far.
By Neil Tidmarsh
Fellow fans and followers of this ignoble sport will all agree that the 2016 season has got off to a cracking start, with old favourites South Africa and Turkey each hosting a series of spectacular fixtures.
Julius Malema of South Africa kicked off proceedings in February, eagerly seizing the very first opportunity for play – the opening of parliament. During President Zuma’s state of the nation address, Mr Malema tried to question him about the accusations of scandal and corruption mounting against him. So persistent were Mr Malema’s attempts that the speaker ordered him from the chamber. Eventually security guards were called and Mr Malema and the MPs of his EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters) party were violently ejected from parliament.
When President Zuma appeared in parliament early this month, following two court rulings against him, Mr Malema and his EFF MPs were again violently expelled for heckling him. And earlier this week, demands by Mr Malema for disciplinary action against the President precipitated yet another violent ejection in now-familiar style – kicks, punches, wrestling, the throwing of bottles of water and other improvised missiles. Further punch-ups are inevitable while President Zuma continues to shrug off the accusations of corruption which pour over him like a landslide.
In a novel and interesting development for the sport, Mr Malema has introduced the concept of a team strip. His EFF MPs now all wear orange – orange workers’ over-alls, hard hats and heavy boots. While in some ways this enhances the spectator’s experience by clearly identifying the team, in other ways it detracts from it. Part of the sport’s charm derives from the spectacle of men clad in suits and ties – the very uniform of respectability, adulthood, civilisation and decorum – behaving like cavemen or naughty schoolboys. Another of its charms is its presentation of completely random and chaotic violence (you can’t tell which side any of the anonymously-suited players belong to); again, this will clearly be undermined by the EFF’s efforts to badge themselves as a coherent and clearly-identifiable team. Indeed, with the white-shirted security guards on one side against the orange-clad EFF on the other visibly highlighting the real nature of the clash, purists of the sport have questioned whether these engagements fulfil the PUIP’s criteria; strictly speaking, the punch-ups should be between MPs only, not between MPs and court officials. But that’s one for the pedants to argue about.
By contrast, Turkey’s play has been old-school and orthodox. Last month, parliament was suspended, during the critical business of passing the EU’s criteria for visa-free travel in Schengen, after a mass brawl broke out in one of its chambers in the course of a constitutional debate about MPs’ immunity from prosecution. Pro-Kurdish MPs took exception to proposed anti-terrorism laws which would make them vulnerable to prosecution. Scores of MPs scrapped, throwing punches, kicking, wrestling, leaping from tables, hurling any missile that came to hand. PUIP at its finest. When proceedings were reconvened the following week, so was the fighting. Amazingly, no one needed treatment for injuries; unlike the punch-up in the Turkish parliament a year ago (during, ironically, a debate about how to stop political protests from becoming violent) which resulted in two MPs being stretchered to hospital and another three receiving first aid.
Another interesting development this season has been the spread of the sport from parliaments to law courts. Earlier this month, the head of the Egyptian Commission for Right and Freedoms, Ahmed Abdullah, appeared in court in Cairo on terrorism charges. He and his organisation have been representing the family of the murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni. The proceedings descended into chaos and violence as police tried to stop people taking pictures of Mr Abdullah displaying a sign saying “Truth for Regeni” and lawyers and court officials traded punches. The judge expelled British and Italian diplomats, journalists and relatives of the defendants from the court. Can we accept this as a legitimate PUIP event? Some argue that participants have to be MPs, others that law-enforcers and their law-courts should be given equal status to law-makers and their parliaments, and that game-context is everything; if play has been initiated by a powerful authority too impatient to play by the rules of democracy and justice, then the game should be accepted by the PUIP league as legitimate.
There is no room for debate about another, more worrying development, however. This week, in Russia, the opposition leader Alexei Navalny and colleagues were violently attacked at Anapa airport. One man was taken to hospital. All fans of PUIP are united in their condemnation of this perversion of the game they follow with such passion. There is no excuse for off-pitch play. The PUIP league refuses to recognise this disgraceful and unlicensed event.
With this one exception, however, pundits agree that this season has already shown great promise. Some fans are beginning to dream that it might even match the glories of its predecessor. 2015 set a very high bar, however. After all, who can forget the Japanese classic of last September, when pacifist MPs traded punches with government MPs who were proposing legislation that would allow the famously non-combatant Japanese army to actually fight? It was even better than June’s fight between Japanese MPs debating a law about temporary workers. And who can forget Ukraine’s glorious match which closed the season in December? A huge fight broke out after an MP physically removed the prime minister from the rostrum mid-speech; in a masterly and novel manoeuvre (both disarming and distracting) which has since been dubbed the ‘Kiev bouquet’, the MP thrust a huge bunch of flowers into the PM’s hands before seizing him, thus rendering counter-play impossible. And the January game in Nepal which opened last year’s season was a jewel, too; opposition MPs not only traded punches and kicks with the government MPs over a proposed draft constitution – they more or less tore the parliament chamber apart as well, and used the broken furniture as weapons.
Whether or not this 2016 season matches the standards of 2015, one thing is certain. Play in the UK is bound to disappoint. There are occasional training sessions in the House of Commons bar, but real action always fails to materialise in the Mother of Parliaments. Many have blamed this on the calming and civilising influence of the growing number of female MPs, but that argument holds no water: in the first place, play has been disappointing for centuries, even before women were present; and in the second place, look at the female MPs who distinguished themselves in Kosovo’s parliament last September by pelting the prime minister with eggs.
But let’s not be too pessimistic; if ever there was an issue explosive enough to bring the UK into the PUIP league, it has to be the EU Referendum. Reactions to the Queen’s speech this week were very promising. Parliament is open; now is the time to get down to the bookies. Forget about betting on the referendum result – it’s too close to call; instead, have a flutter on Westminster staging a PUIP event, while the odds are still long.
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