Labour Whips Urged To Keep Seven Suspended MPs Out Of Party
John McDonnell speaks in September 2024 at conference event organised by Labour Assembly Against Austerity and the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs (Credit: Milo Chandler/Alamy Live News)
2 min read
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is coming under pressure from members on the right of Labour to keep its seven suspended MPs out of the party.
John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Imran Hussain, Apsana Begum and Zarah Sultana had the Labour whip suspended for six months pending review in July. They have since sat in the House of Commons as Independents.
The MPs lost the Labour whip after voting for a Scottish National Party amendment calling for an end to the two-child benefit cap. There was widespread concern over the cap among Labour MPs, but only seven ultimately rebelled.
With the suspensions up for review this week, PoliticsHome understands that government whips are currently looking at whether to extend suspensions or “divide and rule” by treating the best-behaved MPs differently from the more rebellious ones.
The rebel left-wing MPs are seen to be on a spectrum from Long-Bailey, regarded as the least troublesome, to Sultana, who is seen as the most rebellious.
“Joe Biden and Antony Blinken both belong in The Hague,” Sultana, the Labour MP for Coventry South, posted on social media last week. She has publicly criticised the government over its approach to Gaza, as well as for advocating “austerity with a red rosette”.
Some in Labour believe not all of the seven suspended MPs want to be readmitted.
One Labour peer urged whips to “take a stand” on the case of McDonnell in particular, after the former shadow chancellor was involved in a row over a pro-Palestinian march on Saturday.
The Metropolitan Police said that officers saw a coordinated effort to breach conditions put in place on the protest by attempting to march out of Whitehall in a “serious escalation in criminality”.
The peer who has urged McDonnell to be kept out of the parliamentary party described his actions on the march as “egregious and deliberately provocative”.
McDonnell, as well as Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn who joined the march, disputed the police account of events and denied that a group had “forced its way through”.
It was reported on Sunday that McDonnell and Corbyn had agreed to be interviewed under caution by police.
Sources say it is unlikely the march would make a difference to their status as representatives of the party.
Of those suspended MPs who responded to PoliticsHome, all said they did not know what to expect from the whips and had not received any news so far.
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