Backbench MPs should remain loyal to constituents, not parties

The National

20-07-2025

The very use of that term speaks ­volumes about how the party leadership may ­regard both its troops and any perceived ­dissension from the party line. This follows a year-long freeze of her Labour ­credentials dating from a letter Diane wrote to The ­Observer in early 2023.
It also follows the suspension of seven other 'miscreants' who had the ­temerity to suggest the two-child cap should be history and had no place under a Labour ­Government. And, of course, the massive recent rebellion over changes to welfare eligibility. Featuring, among very many ­others, all of the latest MPs to lose the whip.
READ MORE: 'Time to take action': What it was like at the national Palestine demo in Edinburgh
At which stage, the Labour leadership ­earnestly assured its flock that it would ­listen more intently to its backbenchers and absolutely didn't regard the latter as mere 'voter fodder'.
Abbott's letter said, not very ­controversially, that the kind of lifelong racism encountered by black and brown people, differs from the kind of prejudice suffered by Irish people, Travellers and Jewish people. 'Any fair-minded person will know what I meant,' she later said in a statement to BBC Newsnight. Indeed. Surely a textbook example of 'we ken whit she meant'.
(Image: House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA Wire) In an interview for James Naughtie's Reflections programme last Thursday, she said she had no regrets about these remarks despite having apologised for them at the time. She reiterated that face colour is an immediate red rag to racists in a way that their identity probably isn't for other ­minorities.
Cue portions of the Labour roof falling on her head. Again. It may be that her real crime was a historical closeness to ­former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
At any rate, the Mother Of The House has now been ­unceremoniously flung oot the Labour house.
You might think that a government with a large majority of seats on under 34% of votes cast in a poll where fewer than 60% of electors bothered to use their vote might display some humility. Rather than take a sledgehammer to crack people denounced as irritating nutcases.
Especially since their MPs – more than half of them in parliament for the first time – are there to represent a constituency where two-thirds of electors either didn't vote for them, or simply didn't vote.
The Labour Party's draconian attitude to dissenters suggests complacency and a tendency for overreaction. It also ­suggests they hope their hardline stance will result in fewer Labour MPs willing to take risks. Not so much the firm smack of government as political punishment beatings.
From a Scottish perspective, the most instructive victim is Brian Leishman, the luckless Labour MP for Alloa and ­Grangemouth. Grangemouth, you will know, was Scotland's solitary refinery, a place the Scottish Labour leader promised to save during the election campaign.
Leishman, unsurprisingly, thought he would therefore be on safe ground when he vocally supported the workforce. Alas, that, plus his stance on welfare reform, meant he would instead get his jotters. Without warning.
He said, thereafter, that he hadn't been elected to make people poorer. He also ­argued that he'd been elected 'to be a voice for my constituents across [[Alloa]] and [[Grangemouth]]'. Not, it seems, if that voice fails to chime with the latest stance of his leader. Anas Sarwar's silence on this matter, at the time of writing, has been positively deafening.
READ MORE: 55 arrested in Westminster as protests grow over Palestine Action ban
The [[Alloa]] and [[Grangemouth]] MP says that the Scottish Labour leader has not been in touch since a WhatsApp message last January. You might have thought he'd pick up the phone over Grangemouth at least, if not over the latest party row which saw one of his own Scots Labour representatives publicly humiliated.
However, Leishman says he still ­supports Sir Keir's leadership and 'I will be out campaigning to get Scottish Labour candidates elected for Holyrood next year. I'll be doing everything I ­possibly can to get Anas into Bute House'. Each to their own and all that.
Also interesting is the role and function of MPs of all parties. They don't have a statutory one, but they do have a code of conduct based on seven principles of 'selflessness, integrity, objectivity, ­honesty, accountability, openness and leadership.'
However, the code also acknowledges the challenges faced by MPs when the needs and views of their constituents come into conflict with those of the party whose rosette they sported on ­election night.
Or, as the code puts it: 'As members of a political party, MPs are expected to ­support and promote the policies and principles of their party. However, this should not come at the expense of their duties to their constituents or the wider public interest.'
So let's suppose that the chap ­representing the workforce at ­Grangemouth was doing little more than exercising his duty to his constituents and the wider public interest. Not even to ­mention demonstrating integrity objectivity, and accountability.
The code does understand the ­complexity of the MP's role in a way their parties may not: 'At times a constituent's demands may conflict with party policy and your MP will have to decide where their first loyalty should lie.'
And woe betide any MP if their first loyalty is not to their party, it seems. Thus far, the people who found themselves minus the Labour whip were, to a man and woman, all demonstrating their ­commitment to what used to be thought of as traditional Labour values.
For other quite mouthy MPs like the usually admirable Jess Phillips there was instead a plea for party unity and a respect for party discipline. So says the MP who resigned from the Labour front bench in 2023 over the carnage in Gaza, having backed an SNP-instigated vote on a ceasefire.
Then she said: 'On this occasion, I must vote with my constituents, my head, and my heart which has felt as if it were breaking over the last four weeks with the horror of the situation in Israel and ­Palestine.'
This time, the tune seems to have changed and she says: 'Constantly taking to the airwaves and slagging off your own government – I have to say, what did you think was going to happen?'
Maybe, Jess, they hadn't ­realised voting for the wider public interest shouldn't be a hanging offence in a party which once described itself as 'a broad church'. Or, as Abbott wrote on a ­social media post: 'Silencing dissent is not ­leadership. It's control.'
But voting with your constituents, your head and your heart is not apparently an option for others whose inner voice tells them their party has simply got it wrong. Angela Rayner, one time darling of the ­Labour left, confined herself to saying that the Abbott situation presented 'a real challenge for the party' (sure is)!
READ MORE: The Chancellor's words don't line up with her actions
Rayner is an enigmatic case in point. She was, after all, a prime mover in ­getting the party to admit Abbott as a Labour candidate after her last long suspension.
Labour's very own working-class w­oman has obviously decided that she can exert more influence as a deputy leader than a serial rebel with a number of causes. You might think that she had rather more in common with Abbott than, for instance, the current Chancellor. But for heavens sake, don't say so out loud if you have a Labour Party card about your person.
The moral of this latest debacle is that if you get elected to parliament as a Labour candidate, please be sure to check in your conscience at the door. It has no place in the chamber these days.