Most Labour MPs are prepared to give Keir Starmer the benefit of the doubt that he will eventually scrap the two-child limit on benefits. Some are not.
Critics of the cap – brought in by the Tories in 2017 – say scrapping it would immediately lift 300,000 children out of poverty, while other MPs argue it is a relatively small part of tackling the wider issue. Billed as a key test of Labour’s fiscal discipline, the leadership have said they cannot afford to get rid of it while public finances are in dire straits.
Starmer’s parliamentary enforcers aren’t worried about angry left-wingers; they’re only concerned if the contagion spreads and infects the wider party.
The rebellion, however small, is brewing because there is a vote over whether to scrap the two-child benefit cap this evening, after a Scottish National Party amendment to the King’s Speech was selected by the speaker. The names of the rebels didn’t surprise the Government: left-wingers who served under Jeremy Corbyn including John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Rebecca Long-Bailey. These people are never going to serve as ministers so long as Starmer is leader. So far, so predictable.
Posting on X, former shadow chancellor McDonnell threw one of Starmer’s election slogans back in his face, confirming he would vote for the SNP amendment: “I don’t like voting for other party’s amendments, but I am following Keir Starmer’s example, as he said, ‘put country before party’. So, I am putting lifting children out of poverty before party whipping.”
However, the speed at which the left-wing awkward squad got their act together to rebel so soon into the new Parliament did come as a shock, Government sources said. It’s the biggest rebellion on a King or Queen’s Speech since November 1946, when 57 of Clement Attlee’s backbench Labour MPs tabled an amendment on conscription.
Given most Labour MPs agree with the principle behind the rebellion on child benefits, the key now for the Government is to keep Labour’s newbies away from the temptation to rebel.
Professor Philip Cowley of Queen Mary University of London – an expert on parliamentary rebellions – characterises it in a colourful way. “Rebelling as an MP is the equivalent of losing your virginity,” he told i. “Once you’ve done it, you realise the sky didn’t fall in and it becomes much easier the next time.”
A Government source used a slightly different tone. “We need to stop them rebelling in the first place because once they realise a lightning bolt isn’t going to get them, then they can swiftly go off the reservation,” they said. “Looking ahead, there will obviously be more trouble coming down the track.”
Labour Party managers have learned lessons both from the previous Labour administration under Tony Blair, and how the Tories behaved before the election. In 1997 there was some outreach to Labour MPs; but by and large they were bullied and cajoled through the voting lobbies.
This inevitably led to a bitterness that played out later in massive rebellions over counterterrorism legislation and the Iraq War. While Parliament has been slow to catch up with a lot of modern working practices, whips now take on more of a pastoral role than their predecessors.
Some returning Labour MPs have also been passed over for jobs in government and are eyeing new starters being awarded ministerial portfolios with a degree of anger and jealousy. “I guess that’s it for me then,” one Labour MP said bitterly, warning of unspecified troublemaking to come. Another complained of Starmer promoting his friends. “People can never see favouritism when it’s them, they think they’re just promoting the best people for the job,” the Labour MP said.
“Those people will inevitably be upset,” a government source said, but added that Labour has also taken instruction from how the Conservatives rehabilitated sacked ministers, bringing them back into government. “If someone resigns or is kicked out for misbehaving and they think that’s the end of their career then they can go rogue very quickly and become permanent members of the awkward squad,” the source said. “We can avoid that.”
Starmer, gaining a new reputation for political ruthlessness, nevertheless forgave Labour MP Jess Phillips for her rebellion over Gaza, making her a minister in his new government.
For most new Labour MPs, though, rebelling is the last thing on their mind. Busy getting lost and attending computer training sessions, some tell of knocking knees when called on to ask a question in the chamber. Wandering around the corridors clutching piles of post and laptops as they await a permanent office, some have been warned they won’t have a base until October.
The office shortage in the Palace of Westminster is in part caused by the huge number of new MPs, but there is another reason too: Conservative squatters.
Some members of the now Shadow Cabinet are refusing to move out of their plum offices on the upper ministerial corridor for the less salubrious rooms they are being offered, according to a source, which is having a trickle-down effect on how the rest of the offices are allocated. The claim of squatting was angrily rejected by the Tories, who in turn blame Labour for being too slow to swap offices.
Some newbies report being told they should welcome sharing an office with another MP because it could lead to a great political partnership, such as the one enjoyed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. More recently, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Science Secretary Peter Kyle shared an office in Portcullis House while in opposition.
“I was told, ‘Look where they are now,'” a new Labour MP told i, not totally convinced.