Keir Starmer's iron fist makes sense now, but it could store up problems
4 min read
The Prime Minister's tough handling of rebels appears to have worked. But history shows Labour MPs have been an increasingly disobedient bunch — and much bigger threats to party unity could await Keir Starmer down the line.
Have you heard of the Rev Herbert Dunnico? He was the Labour MP for Consett, in County Durham, and almost exactly a century ago, on 21 February 1924, just nine days after the formation of the first Labour government, he voted against his party whip. He was the first Labour MP ever to vote against a Labour government.
Dunnico may have been the first, but he was certainly not the last. The relationship between front and backbench has been a problem for every Labour administration – and a problem that has been getting worse. Every period of Labour government since the second world war saw more backbench rebellions than the one before. Between 1945 and 1951, there were 84 occasions when at least one Labour MP defied their whip; that rose to 110 between 1964 and 1970 and hit 317 between 1974 and 1979.
The Blair/Brown years then saw over 700 rebellions; the 2005 parliament alone witnessing more Labour revolts than the 1974-79 period. During the Brown years, I did a presentation for the then government whips and began with a quotation from Psalms 133:1: Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. They did at least get the joke.
In part, this is all reflective of a more general increasing willingness by MPs to be independent; it is not as if it is just Labour MPs who have been willing to defy their whips, every recent Conservative Chief Whip has the scars to prove that. The high point of parliamentary cohesion came in the 1950s – there were two whole sessions when not a single government MP voted against the party line – and since then life has been getting tougher for the whips of all parties.
And in principle you may well think this is positive; maybe it’s to be applauded that MPs are now less likely just to do what they are told. That said, my experience is that most people are pretty hypocritical on this – they praise MPs to the skies for their independence when they happened to agree with them, but think them splitters when they don’t.
Either way, for government which needs a cohesive voting bloc to deliver legislation, this is a growing problem. And for this government, which no-one thinks has an easy time ahead of it, it is perhaps even more important than for some others.
So you can at least understand the motivation behind the disciplinary hardline coming from the Labour whips office. In ten years, the Blair government did not remove the whip from a single MP because of their voting; that compares to seven under Starmer already. Further disciplinary measures may follow tonight. This is not normal, but it is driven by a desire to break that historic pattern – for this to be a parliament in which Labour MPs do dwell together in unity.
The whips concern will not be the fate of votes this early in the government – such as the vote on the King’s speech on the two-child cap or this vote on the winter fuel allowance – because they know they can and will win those easily. The concern is more what happens in the future. Rebellion can be like a drug; it starts with a principled vote on an issue of deep concern but it never ends there.
The whips approach is all about keeping the number of rebels as small as possible for as long as possible, inculcating a culture of cohesion rather than allowing the habit of rebellion to spread. Spare the rod, spoil the child, and all that.
And, like it or not, in the short-term, it is working. There were fewer rebels on the King’s Speech than might otherwise have been true. All the indications are that there will be fewer tonight than we might otherwise expect – and a lot of abstentions that might otherwise have been cross-votes.
It is therefore understandable. But will it work in the medium or long-term, which is where it matters? That must be more doubtful. All the evidence from recent parliaments is that threats only go so far. The problem with taking such a hard line this early in the parliament is that it can store up problems for later on. The problem isn’t so much those who have been suspended (or, if it comes to it, expelled); the problem will be those MPs, larger in number, who have reluctantly toed the line and feel resentful about it, especially once they start to get grief from constituents or (even worse) local activists. They may bite their tongue now, in the hope of jam tomorrow, but I doubt very much it will last.
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