Crackdown on his own MPs could backfire on Starmer

The prime minister’s parting shot of the summer has sparked a mutinous mood in the Labour ranks, warns Andrew Grice

-  Andrew Grice

The Labour Party will start the Commons summer recess next Tuesday in an unhappy place.

MPs were already drifting off from Westminster on Wednesday for their six-week break when Keir Starmer suspended four Labour MPs for disloyalty, with Diane Abbott to follow the next day.

“Parliament was already like the Mary Celeste,” one Labour insider told me. “Now the mood is mutinous.”

Starmer’s move shocked his MPs because he had taken a more conciliatory line immediately after the revolt over cuts to disability benefits. As my colleague John Rentoul argued, there is a strong case for saying he needed to restore his battered authority.

Removing the whip from four of the rebels was designed to limit future revolts looming over special education needs and, possibly, the two-child benefit limit. A free hit on welfare would have swelled the number of rebels. It was also an important nod to the silent majority of Labour MPs who supported the welfare bill; many felt angry that, after they defended the measure (sometimes through gritted teeth), the government pulled the rug from under them by filleting it to prevent a humiliating Commons defeat.