What next for Labour MPs from the party left? Isolated, dispossessed of high office and their policy platform jettisoned — they languish in the political wilderness. Commons socialists, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, have been banished from the parliamentary party, while others lose out in MP-on-MP selection contests for new seats created by the Boundary Review. Nor is there much hope of new recruits; prospective left-wing parliamentarians have found themselves exorcised from MP selection lists on grounds of “due diligence”.
Starmerism is increasingly interpreted as an existential threat on the Labour left. Constant paranoia afflicts those yet to succumb to Sir Keir’s reaping scythe.
But under such concerted siege, John McDonnell, the veteran left-winger, now seeks to take a stand. He tells the BBC that supporters of Sir Keir Starmer are “drunk with power” and conducting a purge of the Labour left’s ranks. Conspicuously quiet since Jeremy Corbyn was barred from standing as a Labour candidate, McDonnell’s commentary followed news that Neal Lawson, director of campaign group Compass and a stalwart of the soft left, had come under official investigation on the threat of expulsion by the Labour party. Lawson is accused of tweeting approvingly of a deal between the Greens and Lib Dems in Oxford to turf out incumbent Labour councillors.
“If you stumble, these are the people that will come for you”, McDonnell argues. In putting his head above the parapet, the former shadow chancellor must have calculated he was risking his future as a Labour MP. The central party’s “due diligence” processes are so scrupulous that, if McDonnell was a budding MP candidate, such comments would undoubtedly bar him from a selection shortlist.
The fallout of the Neal Lawson episode, like intra-party controversies before it, has hence been deeply factional. After successfully enervating his left flank, Starmer’s critics argue his authoritarianism is creeping slowly rightwards. The Labour leader’s war on his party is, in this reading, unfinished and, in turn, escalating on its “soft left” elements.
In the end, the factional fallout can be interpreted as a feature, not a bug, of Starmer’s approach to party management. The more the leadership’s intra-party opponents howl, in full view of the public, the more the ghosts of populisms past are exorcised from the electorate’s memory.
So as Starmer turns on the soft left, the position of Labour’s socialist MPs, and McDonnell in particular, grows evermore precarious. But as the last Corbynite — with both Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn suspended — McDonnell may be beginning to view himself as a standard bearer for Labour’s beleaguered left wing.
Indeed, McDonnell’s continued presence as a Labour MP might make him the natural leader of a Starmer-critical “awkward squad”. And such a grouping of left-wing MPs, in spite of Starmer’s intra-party activism, may just be limbering up.
The ‘anti-boycott’ bill rebellion
One episodic illustration of this was the recent House of Commons vote on the controversial economic activity of public bodies (overseas matters) bill, also dubbed “the BDS bill” and the “anti-boycott Bill”.
McDonnell was a lead opponent of the legislation, put forward under the name of communities secretary Michael Gove, which seeks to prevent public bodies from engaging in political boycotts of foreign states. The bill is mainly aimed at the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, which campaigns for organisations to cut economic ties with Israel in protest over its treatment of Palestinians.
In her contribution, Dame Margaret Hodge described the bill as a “political trap” and accused Gove of “putting crude party political interests above the public interest”. Sections of the Labour Party have made no secret of their passionate support for the Palestinian cause. But while the debate was highly politically charged, the bill passed its second reading easily by 268 MPs to 70.
Labour MPs were initially whipped to block the bill by way of an amendment put forward by shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy. It cited concerns that the bill might also stop councils boycotting other countries such as China or Russia. Critically, it did not mean Labour was backing BDS; in fact, in an interview with Jewish News in the lead-up to the vote, Nandy stressed the party’s support for a ban on Isreal boycotts.
In the final vote on the bill, Labour MPs were ultimately whipped to abstain. But this did not stop figures on the party left defying their leadership. In full, the rebel Labour MPs were: Apsana Begum, Dawn Butler, Barry Gardiner, Ian Lavery, Andy McDonald, John McDonnell, Ian Mearns, Grahame Morris, Mick Whitley and Beth Winter. (Labour left MPs Zarah Sultana and Bell Ribeiro-Addy had confirmed that they were paired for the vote and would have voted against it had they not been. Independent former Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Claudia Webb also voted against).
On the one hand, the vote indicates how enfeebled the Labour left in Parliament is at the moment. Despite sustained criticism in the debate leading up to the commons division, in all only 12 Labour MPs intended to defy their party. Moreover, Mick Whitley and Beth Winter, two of the naysayers, have recently been routed by Starmer loyalists in selection battles for new seats created by the Boundary Review. Gove’s bid to “trap” Labour, therefore, had merely succeeded in underlining how strong Keir Starmer’s grip is on his party right now.
But the BDS rebels, which form the rough outline of a Starmer-critical “awkward squad”, arguably store up trouble for Keir Starmer down the line. For if Labour does win the next general election, such MPs could act as an impediment in an otherwise tightly run Westminster operation. Right now, they may be fearful that mass rebellion could lead to mass suspension; but if they are canny with their activism pre-election — post-election, faced with a full five-year term and a Starmer-led government, they could emerge as significant players.
McDonnell himself is a veteran of “awkward squad” politics. Chairman of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs during Tony Blair’s tenure as Labour leader, he consistently warned New Labour ministers not to push through legislation against the wishes of left-wingers. He defied the whips 153 times in Tony Blair’s second term, and following the 2005 general election, when Blair’s majority was reduced to 66, he told the Independent: “I think they are in trouble on a range of issues. They are going to have to negotiate with us. People have been harangued on the doorsteps, not just about Iraq but about all of the New Labour programme”.
But, McDonnell aside, there is also a distinctly new feel to Starmer’s “awkward squad”. Indeed, a crop of young socialist women of colour such as Zarah Sultana, Nadia Whittome, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Apsana Begum, who were politicised by events like the Iraq war which McDonnell opposed under Blair, feature centrally among Starmer’s problem MPs. They have been likened to the rebel left-wingers known as “the Squad” in Joe Biden’s US Democrat party.
In this way, Starmer’s “awkward squad” — shaped by what sociologist Keir Milburn calls “Generation Left” — will be very different to those of New Labour yore.
What’s ahead for the ‘awkward squad’?
At the next election, it is clear Keir Starmer wants a fresh intake of moderate Labour MPs to help determine the ideological texture of the Labour party post-2024.
The awkward squad amassing today, therefore, will likely be very similar to that formed after the next election. There may be a few more left-wing recruits (such as Faiza Shaheen, Chingford and Woodford Green; Chris Webb, Blackpool South; and Connor Naismith, Crewe and Nantwich), but it is those BDS rebels who will the be ones to watch as Starmer looks to implement his plan for government. And the particular pique of anti-Starmer positioning this week may be a signal of what is to come for Sir Keir.
Ultimately, how much attention Starmer has to pay to his “awkward squad” will, in the end, depend on whether he secures a sizeable majority and avoids a perilous hung parliament scenario. But figures like John McDonnell, buttressed by upcoming young left-wing MPs, will battle to make their mark in any case.
