End divisive suspensions

Mike Davis says listen to MPs and members and reinstate dissenters

First, there were seven. Then there was a 140. Then there was 47.  The first seven MPs who rebelled on the two child benefit cap vote, seeing the continuation of this iniquitous Tory measure being incompatible with Labour’s Manifesto promises on reducing poverty, were suspended. Four have been reinstated. John McDonnell and Apsana Begum remain suspended from the party whip. Zarah Sultana has now resigned. This was also a revolt against austerity policies.

Now we have a further random, divisive and vindictive suspension of four more Labour MPs:  Rachael Maskell, Chris Hinchcliff, Neil Duncan Jordan and Brian Leishman,from the 47 who opposed the Welfare Bill, plus the sacking of three trade envoys, Rosena Allin-Khan, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Mohammad Yasin. This is no way to run a pluralist party. No way to build a party capable of fighting off Reform and the rump Tories. No way to inspire and recruit new members willing to fight for Labour values and a serious change manifesto.

It is time for Keir Starmer to not just listen to his backbench MPs but to reinstate the whip to those suspended. The summer leading up to party conference should be a time of bridge building and resetting the government’s direction.

Currently, the situation looks like double standards and petty spitefulness against leftist MPs. Throughout the 13 years of Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown’s premierships, not a single Labour rebel was suspended. Blair and Brown understood that Labour was and should be a broad church. Labour is nothing if not an inclusive party that contains a range of views and approaches to achieving democratic socialist goals. Where has that guiding principle disappeared to? It is in danger of sinking Labour into a mire of narrow, back-biting infighting where only unthinking loyalists handpicked by the leadership can represent the party. It’s ironic that Keir Starmer said at the Cabinet meeting after the Welfare Bill vote, “We’ll learn from our mistakes but we will not turn on each other”. He also talked about “healthy representations” from colleagues.

No wonder there is talk of an alternative left party led by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

The government is going through a difficult period, almost all of its own making. The economic growth mantra is not working, and it’s not going to be helped with Donald Trump’s America First policy of tariffs and financial and political bullying.  

In desperation, a new group of over 100 Labour backbenchers have formed a “Living Standards Group” to push for real changes in people’s living standards. They recognise that it won’t be jam tomorrow that secures Labour’s re-election in under four years, but tangible change now on bread and butter issues like food prices, energy costs, the quality of the NHS and schools, housing availability and well-paid work.

So Labour needs to turn the page. To start listening, not just to its MPs but more widely to its members. The Policy Review process has been a farce with little genuine member involvement. Little wonder there is frustration when members see the ditching of the ten pledges that Starmer was elected on, and now key parts of the Change manifesto.

Too many constituency parties have been suspended or are dysfunctional. As Ann Black shows in the current Chartist, the party is haemorrhaging members with over 200,000 lost over the last four years. Without members and their campaigning enthusiasm, Labour becomes more and more dependent on corporate donors and expensive advertising. When elections come round, there aren’t enough grass roots activists to undertake campaigning. As Harold Wilson once said with words to the effect that Labour is nothing if it is not a moral crusade.

Whatever criticisms of the Attlee or Wilson, or even the Blair governments, we might have, and Chartist has plenty, these governments did include Labour leftists in the administrations.

Currently, Starmer seems intent on not just keeping leftists out of government, witness the removal of Louise Haigh and Annalouise Dodds, but driving leftists out of the party. This will only end in tears.

So it’s time to reinstate those MPs suspended and get back to basic Labour values and change policies.

Labour needs to change course and do it now. Labour has the huge benefit of links to the trade unions and the Cooperative Party. It also has over 250,000 members. Increasingly, they are being alienated. We need active democratic socialists in the Labour party to both hold the government to account but also to drive forward a radical change agenda.