Keir Starmer has acted against the most self-indulgent of his rebel MPs, suspending four of them and sacking a further three from their non-jobs as trade envoys.
The whip was cracked with deliberation, a week after 49 Labour MPs opposed the government over its attempt to reduce the rate of increase in disability benefits spending.
Starmer understands that no government with such a huge majority can afford to be pushed around by a minority faction. All Labour MPs were elected on a platform of moderation and fiscal responsibility. They owe their election to him – and to his efforts in opposition to reassure the voters that Labour can be trusted to manage the public finances.
Yes, one can deplore the macho locker-room language of an unnamed Labour source saying that the four have been punished for “persistent knobheadery”. But the anonymous loudmouth is essentially right that some MPs have been self-important in putting their ideology above the interests of the government and the country.
The hardcore rebels, meanwhile, have confirmed their lack of judgement. They thought there was safety in numbers. “They can’t sack us all,” one of them said, at a time when more than 100 MPs were threatening to vote against the government.
Some of them continued to think that, after Starmer was persuaded by Angela Rayner to take most of the savings out of the bill, which was still opposed by 49 Labour MPs.
They were right that it would have been foolish for Starmer and Alan Campbell, the chief whip, to have suspended all the rebels. But it was essential that they sack some of them to make the point that a vote against the government is not a cost-free option.
Some of the rebels who escaped suspension continued to demonstrate their inability to think straight. It was unfair, they said, to discipline their comrades who had raised legitimate concerns about the bill and persuaded the government to U-turn. It shows how “thin-skinned” and “weak” the prime minister is, one said.
This is the soft-headedness of the soft left. The point is that the government U-turned – and 49 of them still voted against. The four persistent offenders are not being disciplined because the government agreed with them, but because they continued to vote against the bill after the government had conceded a large part of their demands.
Tony Blair never felt he had to suspend the “persistent knobheads” of his day. When Hilary Armstrong, his chief whip, suggested suspending Jeremy Corbyn, he said he thought the party could “tolerate that level of difference”. Well, I wonder if he has changed his mind since.
Starmer is not in the same situation, despite some parallels between then and now. Blair faced a similar-sized rebellion from his backbenchers (47) in his first year as prime minister, over a similar issue – cuts to lone-parent benefit. But Starmer was confronted with insubordination in the first week of his government, with John McDonnell, Corbyn’s shadow chancellor, leading a revolt of seven MPs against the King’s speech because it failed to lift the two-child benefit limit.
Starmer rightly suspended the seven – although he allowed four of them, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain and Rebecca Long-Bailey, back into the parliamentary party in February.
The selective approach continues. The four who were suspended yesterday – Rachael Maskell, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Chris Hinchliff and Brian Leishman – were disciplined not just because they voted against the disability benefits bill, but because they have been serial rebels throughout the government’s first year.
The suspensions send a clear message to potential rebels that opposing the prime minister comes at a price. If they cannot “tolerate that level of difference”, in Blair’s words, then fine – but they won’t be able to stand for Labour at the next election. They are free to join another party, such as the one being set up by Zarah Sultana (one of McDonnell’s fellow suspendees) in the name of Corbyn.
But they will know that their chances of retaining their seats under a Corbynite banner are minimal.
As for the trade envoys, the position is simple: you cannot have a government post and vote against the government.
Duncan-Jordan and Leishman have hit back, saying they were not elected to make people “poorer”. But Meg Hillier and Debbie Abrahams, the Labour select committee chairs who led the early phase of the rebellion, would say the same thing. They made their representations in private, persuaded Starmer to think again and then voted with the government.
They were not elected to make people poorer – but they were not elected to blow up the public finances, either.
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