Will Labour's backbencher purge have unexpected concequences?

New Statesman​

7 days ago

BRIGHTON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 22: Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott addresses delegates in the main hall of the Brighton Centre on the second day of the Labour Party conference on September 22, 2019 in Brighton, England. Labour return to Brighton for the 2019 conference against a backdrop of political turmoil over Brexit. (Photo by)
There are five fewer Labour MPs as this week closes than there were when it started. Four MPs – new intake serial rebels Chris Hinchliff, Brian Leishman and Neil Duncan Jordan, plus 2015 intake critic Rachael Maskell – had the whip removed on Wednesday. On Thursday, following a radio interview in which she defended the controversial 2023 letter that saw her suspended from the Labour Party, Diane Abbott is once again an independent, rather than Labour, MP.
The question of who, exactly, gets to be a Labour candidate or a Labour MP has been a very live one in the last few years. The selections that took place in advance of the general election were tightly controlled. I remember being genuinely surprised in 2022 when Maurice Mcleod, a councillor considered a strong candidate in the Camberwell and Peckham selection, was blocked from the longlist (I wasn't the only one; well liked moderate MP for Vauxhall Florence Eshalomi said she thought Mcleod should have been able to put himself in front of members). By the time of the general election, there had been many such cases of candidates not making the cut (most dramatically and acrimoniously in Broxtowe, a series of events surely not unrelated from the fact that many of the local councillors have now gone independent). I can't pronounce on the reasonings behind each of these, and the party was very clear that it was merely interested in high quality candidates. Taking a step back, however, it was possible to discern a very distinct factional direction. I flippantly took to telling people that the average 2019 era Labour candidate was a public sector worker with some questionable tweets, and the average 2024 candidate was a lobbyist with a good half marathon time.
The instincts for control that guided Labour's selection processes have continued into its party management (along with some of the same personnel). The opposition that was quick to block or ditch candidates is now a government quick to suspend the whip. In this regard it's vastly more trigger happy than the last Labour government. There are, however, a number of problems with this approach. Vet as hard as you like, it is just not possible to create a completely, always and forever, loyal PLP when you win so many seats and you are trying to push through legislation – like the welfare bill – unpopular with your base.
Let's consider Chris Hinchliff. Labour did not put resources into winning his North East Hertfordshire seat, and the selection process (he was picked after the election was called) did not receive the scrutiny that Labour's pick in, say, Camberwell and Peckham did. But on the day they did win it – and almost certainly won't hold it. No favours owed for selection, no realistic possibility of resource in future, or promotion – there's not much to motivate Hinchliff to follow the party line rather than his conscience. The same applies to Neil Duncan-Jordan, who was a Unison official before becoming the Labour MP for Poole last year with a majority of just 18. When he was suspended earlier this week, he said that he 'couldn't support making disabled people poorer' and that 'although I've been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party today, I've been part of the Labour and trade union movement for 40 years and remain as committed as ever to its values'. In short, Duncan-Jordan is just a normal Labour guy and he, like the membership of the party as a whole, didn't like the proposed PIP cuts. When you win seats like Poole and North East Hertforshire, you end up having selected a whole bunch of normal Labour types (and you probably made their activists go elsewhere at the election, creating a sense that they owe less to the party than more caressed candidates). And in truth, my glib line about lobbyists and half marathon times has proved ungenerous: on the whole, the PLP is more interesting than I might have expected a year ago.
Let's also think about Diane Abbott. Her decision to re-litigate her 2023 letter is a harder to defend bone of contention than the general rebelliousness that has seen the other ejected, but she also has status the others don't, as an icon of the party and a genuinely famous person. She was the first black woman MP; she has been a regular on television and radio for decades; she ran to be Labour leader and was shadow home secretary. Fundamentally, lots of people know who Diane Abbott is and not very many know who Chris Hinchliff is. In the last election I knocked on the doors of people many miles from her constituency who said they wouldn't vote Labour because of how she had been treated; it's not a comment on his merits to say I struggle to imagine Brian Leishman provoking this response.
This Labour Party's instinct for control and a church that can be broad as long as it's quiet about it is longstanding. When the world changes, however, you need to change with it: there is now a space opening up to the left of Labour, and an overall move from the two party system to something more complicated. Independents, Greens, and whatever ultimately emerges from Zarah Sultana's recent announcement all now present real threats to Labour – and will presumably want to court the newly un-whipped MPs. Whether or not they're successful (I think people often under-rate the emotional connection politicians have to Labour, so would be hesitant to predict any concrete defections), it's not an ideal position. Keeping so many troops in line is a genuinely difficult proposal. The party are unlikely to reconsider its heretofore very decisive view on whether it is in fact better to have your opponents in your tent pissing out than outside pissing in – but perhaps they should.
[See also: A day out with Jeremy Corbyn's new party]
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