The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg writes, Who is in charge? The prime minister's authority is in question again:
"This government should be walking on water, there should be nothing it can't do," a Whitehall insider suggests, given the rows and rows and rows - and yes, rows - of Labour MPs who line up behind the prime minister every Wednesday.
But, by booting out a small band of backbenchers this week, Sir Keir Starmer's put the question of his authority back on the table.
Answering the question of who is in charge isn't so simple after all.
This government has a "backbench they - and we - are surprised to discover they can't control," says one senior official.
For those who want to understand politics, power and parliament, there is much to unpack here. And it goes to the heart of what parliamentarians are for.
“Behave, or else" is not a viable strategy. This will develop badly for Labour.
The incentives at play
First, consider the underlying assumption: that MPs are there to be controlled, to do the will of the Government automatically.
I have said it before and I will say it again: MPs go to the considerable trouble of entering the Commons so they can influence public policy. Of course they do. Prime ministers can give them that influence or suffer them taking it by political force.
It might well be convenient for prime ministers, ministers, special advisers and officials if Parliament sat there happily rubber stamping whatever Government decided. Perhaps that is why political and civil service leaders so often assume a party leader has authority over their MPs. As one wise official once said to me,
Officials and power are like the public and their diet: they enjoy meat but they do not wish to look inside the abattoir.
Of course, officials are bound by the Civil Service Code to be politically impartial. This is widely interpreted as requiring them not to do anything “political”, which is a problem when governing is an inherently political act. Better to require the civil service to be non-partisan: they will always work to deliver the Government’s policy.
A good example of that is the Parliamentary handling plan for a government bill. Such plans will set out, down to individual MPs and Lords, what risks arise and what messages ought to be communicated to whom. They can be a great thing to behold and though they may be non-partisan – regarding all parliamentarians equally as assets or liabilities – they are certainly political. Officials do politics when they must, but it is undoubtedly tiresome for them to be drawn into the abattoir.
Meanwhile, MPs are plagued by the demands of voters. Voters who support them. Voters who oppose them. Voters who may or may not support them at the election. Voters on social media! Voters by email, in a tidal wave every day!! Voters writing to the local newspaper!!! So many voters…
What is an MP to do? As I have written before, society is a pressure cooker and MPs are the safety release valve. And pressure is immense, especially on the newly elected.
And what do MPs want? Why do they do it? Yes, to be ministers but also to be re-elected to have the chance to continue to wield the influence and power they crave.
MPs want to survive, day by day and at the next election. That inevitably means a tension between their own judgement of what is right for their electors, their party’s demands and possibly their own conscience.
The recent welfare rebellion brutally illustrated what happens when a political party in government assumes it has authority to demand MPs vote for what they and their voters despise.
After a year of iron discipline imposed by Labour Whips willing to throw MPs out of their party over policy matters, eventually Labour MPs laid on a rebellion so large the Whips could not possibly throw them all out. It has become a power struggle between the leader and the MPs who provide his legitimacy. That is serious.
Why “the Whip” matters
“The Whip” is a shorthand for MPs’ party affiliation. If the Whip is withdrawn, that means the MP has been thrown out of their party.
MPs continue to hold their seat when the Whip is withdrawn because in law they are elected in their own right as individuals, even when they are “the Labour/Conservative/whatever party candidate”. This is an extremely important safeguard against a political party going badly wrong, as I set out in a speech in Sep 2020 (Hansard, YouTube1):
I am afraid that we do need to consider very serious contingencies. If one wished to replace a party of government with another because it had so changed beyond recognition, perhaps because a segment of society genuinely feared for their lives if it came to power—that is what happened—one would have to smash the party with sustained pressure and velocity, with meticulous plans and detailed knowledge of every Member of Parliament and when they would leave their party, what they would say, what they would do and with whom.
And,
surely this House is about nothing if it is not about restraining power. … it is because of the dread power of the state, or the dread power of a party gone wrong, that I say to my hon. Friend and to his voters [MPs ought not to lose their seats when they lose the whip].
Almost no one is elected in their own right as an individual independent MP. It takes party affiliation, a popular cause or celebrity to get a candidate over the line. So for most MPs, to lose the Whip means to cease to be an MP at the next election.
That is why the Whip matters and why withdrawing it is the ultimate act of discipline.
That is why it would not normally be used for ordinary policy votes: it is too serious and therefore too likely to result in blowback. Conventionally, an MP would only lose the whip for rebelling on a matter which implied no confidence in their own party to govern, like a motion of no confidence in the government or the King’s Speech.
Starmer’s absolutism
The conventional formulation of the hierarchy of an MP’s proper loyalty is "country, constituency, party" – and quite right too. But by stripping MPs of the Whip over ordinary policy votes, the Labour party is inverting that hierarchy. Keir Starmer is insisting on party first.
Having suffered a major transfer of power to his back benches, Starmer is now trying to recover authority by booting out a handful of people as an example to the rest. It is a classic authoritarian tactic.
What Starmer and his lieutenants want is absolute, untrammelled power. Of course they do. It is what politicians usually want. And that is why constitutions are so frequently constructed to prevent them having it. It is why executive, legislative and judicial branches of government are often separated and it is why legislatures have two houses, with different methods of appointment to them.
History has shown how dangerous absolute, concentrated power can be. Great battles have been fought to prevent it. Our un-codified constitution may not include the separation of executive and legislature but it certainly includes safeguards. Alas that some of those safeguards rely on certain figures doing the right thing when it counts. For example, the Speaker of the Commons must not skew the business to favour their own opinion. And the Prime Minister must not throw people out of their party for mere disagreement on policy.
Happily, away from the glare of the cameras, in my experience many MPs do appreciate their role as parliamentarians, with a duty to resist absolute power. That duty is not retail politics, but serious MPs take it seriously. And though socialism routinely begets monstrous tyranny, there does seem in the Labour party to be a decent tradition of standing up to power, not least among the trade unions.
Now that Labour MPs can see plainly that their Prime Minister is willing to pick them off a few at a time to coerce the rest into obedience, they have to answer a simple question: will they tolerate it or not?
How Labour MPs might respond
Labour MPs might decide that after all they are willing to submit without limit to the authority of the Labour party in power: to vote for anything Keir Starmer wants to do, even if it means repudiating their own long-held views and betraying the expectations of their voters. Even if it means voting for “austerity”: as the BBC’s Laura K points out, the markets have power too… Labour MPs will be asked to do so again.
The rediscovery of a bovine spirit of obedience among Labour MPs does not seem very likely. Their voters will still be there, expressing their views forcefully. MPs will retain the same outlook and beliefs. They have little hope of promotion. And have apparently begun already to think they have nothing to lose…
So, much more likely is that for reasons of personal conscience, electoral pressure and conceivably commitment to high principle – the idea that Parliament should restrain absolute power – Labour MPs will respond to a few of them being picked off as an example to the rest.
If they choose to assert their right to vote as they think in the best interests of their voters against their party, when they think their party is out of line, then they will have to do so in considerable numbers. They know this: they have done it once already.
In claiming absolute authority, the Labour party is playing with fire. Labour MPs know how to mobilise a workforce against a tyrannical boss: it is what trade unions are made to do. Labour MPs will likely choose another show of irresistible force.
A checklist for the aspiring Labour parliamentarian
Here’s a checklist for Labour MPs who wish to be more than lobby fodder, who perhaps aspire to be parliamentarians in their limited remaining time:
Recognise the justice of your cause: MPs in rebellion are a bulwark against unaccountable power. You are in the right. Go for it.
Note the source of your power: the government only gets its business if you vote for it. The Government only falls if you don’t. Here rests your power.
Select and maintain your aim: Labour MPs shall not lose the Whip for policy votes and the Prime Minister shall govern by consent, with respect for the fact that power flows to him from the public via their representatives. Party is not all.
Accept polarity: resolve that this will be a fight, one over a protracted period in which multiple members will lose the Whip, temporarily. Members can be on one side or the other. And it goes on until it ends.
Be clear about victory: a fight like this must end well so have an exit strategy. It is over once the Labour Leader and Whips have agreed that no MP shall lose the Whip for a policy vote or seeking to procure support on a policy vote.
Build your team: mobilise more Labour MPs than are strictly necessary for victory, preferably many more: people will fall away and you must win anyway. That team must be infused with the righteous spirit of the campaign and willing to pursue it to a conclusion, however unpleasant things may become.
Set boundaries: decide what is off limits. Presumably Labour MPs will not wish to go to a general election, so even those who have lost the Whip will be supporting the party to which they wish to return in any confidence vote. Agree not to have wildcat rebellions: act as one coherent force.
Communicate clearly: the leaders of the group should tell the Labour Whips what they face. This requires courage, but it is an indispensable act of good faith which will enable recovery after the battle is won. The Chair and a few others should see the Chief Whip and plainly state the aim, the methods and the scale of the insurrection. Give the party machine the opportunity to concede gracefully.
Be courageous: the Leader, Whips and special advisers will not choose the sensible course of giving MPs what they quite reasonably want: influence over policy. Instead, they will try to win through power, hoping that in a war of attrition, Labour MPs will fold once they see their fellows losing the Whip.
Keep fighting: Labour MPs will be picked off in their fours and fives, their tens and dozens. Nasty things will be said. Horrible briefings will be given. Go on.
Stay resolute and in good faith: a moment will approach of maximum pressure and leverage as the Labour majority diminishes to zero: it is in that moment you win. Let the Whips lose their majority, always making it clear that former Labour MPs wish to return to their party and will keep it in office in confidence votes.
Be civil, reject hostility: being rude helps no one. Insist on the right, including in your own conduct.
To Labour MPs reading this: good luck to you. Follow this formula and win. Much depends on you if Parliament is to be the respectable source of a prime minister’s accountable power and a bulwark against absolutism. Fail and anything goes.
Conclusion
If “war is a continuation of politics by other means,”2 then politics is war minus the shooting. Expect it to be unpleasant.
Keir Starmer is unreasonably insisting on absolute party discipline, probably in fear of the kind of operations I would run when I felt there was no other choice. Ironically, the excessive political brutality Labour is using is likely to procure the object of all their fears. As so often with the socialists, their methods defeat their ends.
There is a better way to lead MPs, one more consistent with a healthy democracy. I set it out here.
Further Reading
The tension between loyalty to party, constituents and conscience is an old one. See for example:
Neither of these is or ever will be very popular with voters. Voters, like Prime Ministers, think they should always have their own way…
Carl von Clausewitz, a famous military theorist.
Have you offered your services as a consultant to disaffected Labour MPs?!!
Sorry Steve, I don't buy it. You've been pushing this argument for years and it makes no sense.
> Almost no one is elected in their own right as an individual independent MP.
Correct. The British public overwhelmingly prefer to vote for parties and platforms, not people. Therefore the law is out of step with what people want as made clear via their voting habits, and so the law should be changed. Losing the whip should always trigger an immediate election.
This archaic bit of law isn't a bulwark against totalitarianism. Far from it. People don't like sudden elections anyway, so if a totalitarian government started kicking MPs out for not going along with their evil plans those MPs could run as independents and explain what is happening to the voters, then go right back into Parliament. Independents who stand for something clear and locally popular can win without party affiliation, as Jeremy Corbyn shows.
The current arrangement is a major risk for totalitarianism and encourages malignant power-seeking behavior by MPs. They can pledge allegiance to a coherent and popular party platform before the election and then immediately do the exact opposite afterwards, without any penalty whatsoever. You assume that MPs are motivated by winning the next election, but that's not true. For many MPs they are clearly motivated by power above all else, and if they can sabotage the next government and impose a minority opinion, then the risk of losing their job in a few years is easily worth it to them. Especially as once they decide they don't care about their voter's will anymore, they can just abuse their power to stay in place forever.
Example: although you paint rebellion here as almost always a morally just cause, the most critical rebellion in recent years involved blocking the government from leaving the EU. Parliament attempted to take over the government and force it to do the opposite of what those MPs ran on, with BoJo unable to do anything about it at all. When he was eventually saved by the delusional stupidity of the Lib Dems ALL the rebels lost their seats, showing exactly what the British public actually thought of them. They were pro-totalitarian rebels, didn't care about stabbing voters in the back if they could sabotage the exit process, and it's a major weakness in the British constitution that they couldn't be immediately disposed of.
The Labour rebellions are likewise unjust and immoral. The Labour Manifest promised fiscal discipline and no tax rises. The MPs ran on that platform and used it to gain election. To Kier Starmer's very minor credit, he did actually make a weak attempt at some sort of left wing version of fiscal discipline. He was then stopped by rebels doing the same thing as the Dominic Grieve's of the world did: reneging on their promises to their voters.
Starmer should show no mercy. With whatever is left of his majority he should pass a law that triggers automatic by-elections if the whip is withdrawn, then withdraw it from every single rebel. If their positions are really some brave stand against the authoritarian platform that they, er, supported just a year ago, then the voters will return them to Parliament and they don't need to be "rebels" anymore. If - as we might suspect - they are actually far to the left of the nub of the population that voted for them, then they will lose. That is democracy in action.