
Which three Labour MPs have been suspended and why?
The move comes after a vote in Parliament over the planned – and controversial – welfare reforms earlier this month.
Sir Keir's welfare bill passed by 335 votes to 260 after last-minute changes to the proposal to have it approved after uproar over the plans to cut Universal Credit and Pip payments.
Despite the changes, some MPs rebelled in the final vote, and they have now been suspended.
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The Labour leader has reportedly suspended three first-year MPs – Neil Duncan-Jordan, Brian Leishman and Chris Hinchliff.
Mr Duncan-Jordan and Ms Leishman confirmed the suspension.
Mr Hinchliff's suspension was first reported by The Times.
The suspension means the trio have 'lost the whip' after they voted against the government's planned welfare reforms on July 1.
MPs who belong to a party are expected to vote in Parliament as the party leadership desires.
The MPs are now expelled from the Labour Party as disciplinary action.
However, expelled politicians can continue as MPs, but they no longer have to follow the party line during voting.
Mr Duncan-Jordan, an MP for Poole, said after the news emerged: 'Since being elected, I have consistently spoken up for my constituents on a range of issues, including most recently on cuts to disability benefits.
'I understood this could come at a cost, but I couldn't support making disabled people poorer. More Trending
'Although I've been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party today, I've been part of the Labour and trade union movement for 40 years and remain as committed as ever to its values.'
Meanwhile, Mr Leishman, who represents Alloa and Grangemouth, said: 'I wish to remain a Labour MP and deliver the positive change many voters are craving.
'I have voted against the Government on issues because I want to effectively represent and be the voice for communities across Alloa and Grangemouth.
'I firmly believe that it is not my duty as an MP to make people poorer, especially those that have suffered because of austerity and its dire consequences.'
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The National
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Backbench MPs should remain loyal to constituents, not parties
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'. 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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.