Starmer employs high-risk strategy to deal with rebels

With the PM having suspended four Labour MPs to reassert his authority, David Maddox looks at how events unfolded and what it all means through the eyes of those involved

- David Maddox

On Wednesday afternoon, York Central MP Rachael Maskell, like most MPs, was winding down, getting ready for a long summer recess to recharge, take stock and come back refreshed. Many of her colleagues were hitting the summer drinks circuit in Westminster, with dreams of the various beaches in different corners of the Mediterranean they would soon be heading to.

But then Maskell got a call out of the blue asking her to go and see the Labour chief whip, Alan Campbell, immediately.

She was to discover that the prime minister - after discussion with his closest allies - had decided to strike back. The talk of deputy prime minister Angela Rayner or possibly health secretary Wes Streeting replacing him had got too much.

And it was clear after the welfare rebellion, which Maskell had in the end reluctantly led, that he had lost control and needed to restore it.

The plan to make examples of a few troublemakers was, it is claimed by one source, “cooked up at Chequers” between him, Campbell and chief of staff Morgan McSweeney when senior ministers, key staff and others were called in to have a much-needed reset.

It was perhaps also a message to the MPs - if one was needed - that their demands for McSweeney to be sacked would not be heeded and that he still wields influence over this government.

The meeting with the chief whip on Wednesday afternoon was short, with Maskell discovering that she and three other colleagues — Neil Duncan-Jordan, Brian Leishman and Chris Hinchliff - had been suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party. Three others lost their trade envoy roles.

“I was very shocked,” Maskell admitted to The Independent.