The Knesset House Committee approved the official secession of MK Idan Roll from the opposition Yesh Atid Party on Tuesday, leaving Roll operating as an independent one-man faction in the Knesset.
The decision has political implications for Roll. Assuming he does not resign in the near future, Roll will be barred from serving as a minister in the current government should he join the coalition.
He is also barred from running in the next election as a part of any of the parties that are currently in the Knesset, and he will no longer receive funding from the Knesset for routine political activity nor receive advance funding ahead of the next election.
These rules are in place to deter MKs from switching sides during a given Knesset for opportunistic reasons, i.e., to prevent “political bribery.”
For this reason, if Roll resigns within 48 hours of Tuesday’s decision, he will have shown that his secession from his party was based on ideology, and, therefore, he will be allowed to run in an existing party in the next election.
"Open the gates"
For example, former defense minister Yoav Gallant recently resigned from Likud, reportedly because Likud was considering announcing him as a “seceding MK.” Since Gallant resigned, he will be permitted to run in the Likud slate in the next election.
Roll argued in a book that was launched on Sunday that the Knesset needed to “open its gates” by lowering the electoral threshold. In the House Committee meeting on Tuesday, Roll said, “Israeli society underwent a tremendous upheaval on October 7. It is a society that had to struggle for basic things to ensure the future of the state.”
He continued, “From this schism, a camp emerged that wanted to leave behind everything that happened until October 6. To create a liberal agenda and understand that a dissonance has been created between what is happening outside and what is happening in the Knesset,” he said.
“This house [the Knesset] has remained closed to what is happening outside. We are at a critical crossroads in the country, and we need to harness all the lessons and awakenings after October 7 to create a new golden age, or else continue in the current state in reruns that will not only be a missed opportunity but a historical injustice. This house quickly returned to the habits of October 6.”
In his initial announcement on Sunday, Roll said he would be a “constructive opposition.”