The Labour party is a “broad church”, but there’s little space on its pews at the moment for principled nonconformists. The suspension of seven leftwing MPs for rebelling over the abolition of the two-child benefit cap is a curious affair, given that almost all their colleagues agreed with them. The two-child cap, introduced by the Conservatives in 2017, restricts child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households. It impoverishes children, punishes ethnic minorities and humiliates women who have been raped. Unfair and morally repugnant, it is “the worst social security policy ever”, say academic experts. Ministers know this. Yet it is a truth that must be acknowledged everywhere but in the lobby divisions.
Removing the party whip was once considered the nuclear option. But it has now become routine. This will have far reaching consequences. “If we are now saying that MPs will have the whip removed – even temporarily – for voting against their party line on any measure,” posted the academic Philip Cowley, “we have changed the rules of engagement considerably.”
Sir Keir Starmer could have simply ignored the septet, given he has a majority of 158 seats in the Commons. However his leadership team sees in the rebels’ actions political manoeuvring that will discredit a pragmatic Labour party. This attributes to the Labour left a cohesiveness that it does not have. There are undoubtedly ideological differences between Sir Keir and the suspended MPs. But they present no threat to party consensus.
Labour’s leadership might argue that it has been electorally successful when it is united in its purpose. The most obvious examples of this were in 1945, when Clement Attlee delivered a landslide majority, or Tony Blair in 1997. In both cases the leadership saw the large majorities as giving their governments a huge amount of leeway in policy terms with little concern about political opposition. As Prof Cowley’s colleague Richard Johnson pointed out, Attlee in 1946 faced rebellions on the king’s speech and didn’t remove the whip. Mr Blair’s honeymoon came to an abrupt end in 1997, with the vote of 47 Labour MPs against the government’s proposals to abolish single-parent benefits. None of them were disciplined.
Sir Keir should re-admit his wayward MPs after a cooling-off period. Labour’s problem is far bigger than the seven dissidents. Sir Keir seems keenly motivated by the importance of winning elections and the acceptance that this may require opportunism and flexibility. That is no bad thing. Power is the sine qua non of a successful party. But winning without a philosophical underpinning can end up requiring a continuous demonstration of intra-party unity and loyalty to the party leader.
That is where Labour finds itself today, with its MPs being told to accept a moral cost for political harmony’s sake. This is a break with the past perhaps more profound than Mr Blair attempted. Labour historically has been a party of factions, which have sought to further their aims through consciously organised political activity. This inevitably leads to clashes based on perceived interests. Resolving these on acceptable terms is a key to success. If the events of Tuesday night were the Labour leadership’s attempt to set a precedent to avoid dissent, it would be profoundly wrong and undemocratic. In making Labour MPs feel nervous about taking a stand against unjust and immoral policies, it also makes bad decisions more likely.
