I was a Labour MP throughout the Blair and Brown governments. I had my differences with them. Sometimes those differences were so profound that I voted against the government in the House of Commons – for example over the invasion of Iraq and over the extension of detention without trial.
My votes on those issues and what I said on a number of others were not popular with the Labour establishment at the time. They probably did nothing to help my career. On occasion I was also on the receiving end of some pretty brutal media briefing by Labour spin-doctors.
It wasn’t always pleasant. Power was highly centralised in Labour at that time. Nobody could have accused the Labour leadership for being a push-over for occasional rebels like me.
Never, however, did the powers that be attempt to assert their authority by suspending the party whip from MPs who acted on sincerely-held policy differences. That was not a sign of weak leadership. It was the opposite. The Blair and Brown leaderships had the confidence to know that knee-jerk recourse to discipline was not a smart approach to party management. Winning loyalty is different from demanding obedience.
What a contrast with today. After just a few weeks in government, seven Labour MPs lost the whip for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap – a rule that Labour had opposed when it was introduced by the Conservative government. Now, a year later, disciplinary action has again been taken against some of the Labour MPs who voted against the Labour government’s welfare reform bill.
I say “some” because 47 Labour MPs voted against the bill. Only seven have been disciplined. No official reason has been given for the selectivity. Instead, Party management sources have briefed – off the record – that only those who have been “persistent” in their opposition to the government’s plans have been disciplined. It looks like the Labour leadership recognised that kicking 47 MPs out of the Parliamentary Labour Party would have put too risky a dent in Labour’s majority. So they decided to make an example of the few as a warning to the rest. As Claude Rains said, as the Vichy French police chief in the film Casablanca, the order went out to “round up the usual suspects.”
It remains to be seen how such a crass attempt at collective intimidation will go down with Labour MPs – those who voted with the government as well as the 47 who rebelled this time.
But there is another aspect to this story that may turn out to be even more telling about the character of the current government. It is about double standards.
While most of the headlines this week have focused on the withdrawal of the whip from four Labour MPs, three others have been sacked by the government as UK trade envoys because of their votes against the welfare reform bill. The MPs concerned are Rosena Allin-Khan (Trade Envoy to South Africa), Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Trade Envoy to Ghana) and Mohammed Yasin (Trade Envoy to Pakistan).
The government’s website describes the Prime Minister’s trade envoys as providing “international trade and investment support to ministers.” It goes on to say that “Membership of the programme is cross-party from both the House of Commons and House of Lords. The role is voluntary and unpaid.”
The fact that trade envoys are appointed cross-party, therefore, begs the question why three of them have been sacked for internal Labour Party management reasons.
If, for whatever reason, however, adherence to government policy on issues unrelated to their trade role is now mandatory for trade envoys, logically this should apply across the board.
The reality is very different. Instead, ministers have displayed blatant double standards.
Independent peer and former Labour MP, Lord Ian Austin, holds the official position of Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Israel. You might have thought that the horrors taking place in both Gaza and the West Bank would demand particular sensitivity from anyone engaging with Israel’s government on behalf of the UK. Apparently not when it comes to Lord Austin.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently suspended new trade talks and launched a review into a pre-existing high-level strategic cooperation roadmap with Israel, in response to its actions in Gaza that he described as “monstrous and extremist.”
Within a week of Lammy’s announcement, however, Lord Austin was in Israel on an official and highly publicised visit to boost trade and commercial links.
Shortly before that, he was quoted in the Daily Telegraph as describing the prospect of UK trade sanctions against Israel as “self-harming and morally wrong.”
Lord Austin has a track record of defending Israel against criticism which goes back many years. It makes you wonder why ministers thought him suitable for the post of trade envoy in the first place. Still, he is entitled to his views as an individual. But it is something else for him to use his official position as trade envoy to promote increased trade at the very time the UK government is reviewing trade links in response to Israel’s deepened occupation of the West Bank and the carnage taking place in Gaza.
Lord Austin’s actions have prompted numerous calls for his removal as the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Israel. All have either been ignored or rebuffed by government.
In short, the same government that has summarily dismissed three trade envoys over a purely domestic policy, is still happy to leave in post somebody who openly undermines UK trade policy in relation to one of the biggest humanitarian crises facing the world today.
It smacks of double standards and an amorality that I, for one, cannot square with the values that are at the core of what it means to be Labour.
