Labour whips MPs harshly & with good reason

There was quite a lot of surprise when Labour withdrew the whip summarily from seven MPs after the child benefit cap vote.  Simple outrage from the Left, of course; but even some of the more measured commentary was along the lines of “these minor revolts have happened under many a previous government without such draconian reactions” – and the suggestion that Starmer’s was a gratuitous & rather undignified piece of macho posturing.  Hey (*beats chest*), it wasn’t in the Manifesto so that really means we ain’t rushing to do it!  And we are really gonna have some discipline around here, you better believe it!

OK, everyone knows the perils of a big majority buts surely, there’s more to it than chest-beating.  Starting from the trivial: who in Starmer’s position wouldn’t want to take an early opportunity to suspend, ideally to expel, Corbynite throwbacks the like of Rebecca Long-Bailey, John McDonnell, Richard Burgon & Ian Byrne?  This is a man who fully ejected the saintly Corbyn himself.  And Apsana Begum, Imran Hussain and Zarah Sultana can confidently be recognised as part of the ‘independent’ tendency Starmer has every electoral wish to suppress.  Let ‘em all defect formally to a new Parliamentary grouping: the sooner the better.

Next up, just look at how few there were of them!  Without a merciless whipping operation, might we not have expected dozens of protest-voters?  A quick look down the list of back-bench Labour abstainers gives an indication.  Obviously, the likes of Dianne Abbott have been shaken into sullen compliance.  When they want to lull themselves to sleep at night, they can all tell themselves the Polly Toynbee story: don’t worry, the two-child cap will be removed in the autumn for sure.

Well, but will it?  Toynbee is perennially hyper-ventilating her characteristic brand of premature wishful thinking: served up confidently as fact, but so often to be so sadly disappointed.  More realistic (and these days quite panicky) leftist commentators seem extremely fearful that the autumn will bring measures that in their terms means a fully-fledged re-run of Osborne Austerity, even if it will be sprinkled with a few tax measures they’ll applaud.  The winter fuel announcement serves only to heighten their fears.  The child benefit whipping operation was couched in terms of “you all signed up just six weeks ago for the Manifesto“: and that very document is exactly the flag under which Reeves claims to be sailing.  Cite her ‘Keynesian’ Mais Lecture all you like: that’s not what the Manifesto says. 

IMHO, this bears every sign of (a) prudent attention to Machiavelli’s dictum that the new Prince should set the tone by getting his punitive first strikes in at the earliest opportunity; and (b) a leadership that expects to be whipping hard and frequently on many an uncomfortable Parliamentary occasion in the months to come.  Cow those waverers good and early: their political will needs to be broken right from the off.  

Many of them must be trembling at the thought of what they’re going to be told to vote for.  The Smack of Firm Government, eh?  And a summer of riots still to come …  Kier “I banged them all up in 2011″ Starmer will be in his element.

ND