[Malcolm Armsteen]

A ridiculous OTT reaction in my view..

Nope.
He's given an answer to this, and this sort of performative virtue signalling has no place any longer in the party.

It's made them into martyrs.

Bollocks did it.
Have a look at today's Mail Online to see who it has given ammunition to. The only people ckaiming martyrdom are the Cobynite scrag end.

[Oboogie]

Less than three weeks ago those seven MPS campaigned for, and were elected on a manifesto. If they so objected to that manifesto, the principled thing to do would have been to defect before the election. Voting against your own manifesto at the first opportunity is fraudulent, contemptuous of the electorate and Parliament.

[Youngian]

This was an SNP amendment. Supporting it was pure performative politics. It was never going to pass in a trillion years.

Indeed. I don’t know if the government had a word with the potential rebels to hold their fire as they’ll be a review along the line to find a more slight of hand way of lifting up the worse off. Makes their performative rebellion even less justified if they did and got what’s coming to them.
The last thing Labour needs now is tabloids screaming about handouts to benefit mothers with absent dads while hardworking families cut their cloth and forsake larger families. This is a subject that really riles a great many people who’d like to start a family but decide they can’t afford to.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I've just seen Apsana Begum MP interviewed on Sky.

Unimpressive, to say the least, she's bringing a spoon to an intellectual knife fight.

Tellingly, she said that she had been elected to 'campaign' not govern. The old Corbynite deformity.

Would be better to clear the SCG out, as we once did Militant.

[Oboogie]

Tellingly, she said that she had been elected to 'campaign' not govern. The old Corbynite deformity.

Wrong. She campaigned on Labour's manifesto, which she now says she opposes, to get elected to implement that manifesto in government. The clue's in the name ffs!
Performative, disingenuous, self-centred twat.

[Philip Marlow]

I’ve seen so many instance of ‘performative’ (with the odd ‘virtue signalling’ - God I miss the days when it was the preserve of smirking, reactionary pricks, before self-consciously moderate types had a go at gussying it up as respectable - thrown in) that I presume that a script has done the rounds, but my favourite reaction comes from the heart of the NEC…

Only the start you say? But then what follows? Bloody constraint? A bout of severe glaring? Being kicked up the arse very hard indeed until all concerned offer grovelling apologies, with resignation announcements to follow.

Seriously lads, a rebellion of seven. Not even including all of the awkward squad type left wing MPs you don’t like. Put your dicks away and relax.

[Arrowhead]

Not even including all of the awkward squad type left wing MPs you don’t like.

Indeed, that list of rebels is all the more interesting for those names who aren't on it - no Diane Abbott, no Clive Lewis, no Andy McDonald etc. I'm not sure I'd even heard of Imran Hussain until just now.

I suspect this sort of thing is part of the reason why the leadership dumped so publicly on Faiza Shaheen a few weeks ago i.e. they'd already identified her as probable pain in the posterior and decided they wanted her out of their hair instead.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This is what a massive majority is for, and why they campaigned as they did. Even if we assume all the Campaign Group rebels. That’s 30. Majority is 170.

I don’t see the Greens holding their current rural-urban coalition at all. But I think they can make hay with these suspensions. Why give them that?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

SNP set a trap. Dickheads fell for it. Said dickheads were warned but thought they knew better (that's where the virtue signalling comes in). Party discipline was exercised.

Where's the surprise?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I’ve seen so many instance of ‘performative’ (with the odd ‘virtue signalling’ - God I miss the days when it was the preserve of smirking, reactionary pricks, before self-consciously moderate types had a go at gussying it up as respectable - thrown in) that I presume that a script has done the rounds, but my favourite reaction comes from the heart of the NEC…

Only the start you say? But then what follows? Bloody constraint? A bout of severe glaring? Being kicked up the arse very hard indeed until all concerned offer grovelling apologies, with resignation announcements to follow.

Seriously lads, a rebellion of seven. Not even including all of the awkward squad type left wing MPs you don’t like. Put your dicks away and relax.

Offensively worded, but if I take your question as sincere what follows next is the permanent exclusion of the seven unless they recant - to loud cheers from the mainstream of the party who have suffered long enough from their stupidity - and the eventual proscription of the SCG.

[Tubby Isaacs]

SNP set a trap. Dickheads fell for it. Said dickheads were warned but thought they knew better (that's where the virtue signalling comes in). Party discipline was exercised.

Where's the surprise?

Falling into an SNP trap isn’t usually considered an offence worthy of losing the whip. You can only do this once. The 7 now have over 4 years to piss about and vote with the SNP and Greens as “the real alternative” and play to the base. And whatever Labour does on this, they’ll all claim victory. Sub optimal party management.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Oh FFS! It is if you vote against the whip on an effective vote of confidence!

[Abernathy]

It's almost as if some of the "magnificent " seven who voted against the party whip did not understand the nature of parliamentary governance.

As Malcolm has pointed out several times, defying the party whip in a King's Speech debate is a very serious matter. It is, in effect, a matter of confidence in the government on whose manifesto you campaigned and got elected to the parliament in which you sit, and vote as part of a political group. The disciplinary action taken simply reflects that.

The political implications for the success or failure of this Labour government of this sort grandstanding chicanery are manifold, and potentially very serious.

You can speculate about whether these suspensions represent the final part of Kid Starver's grand plan to rid Labour entirely of its Trot cranks all you like. I don't think it is, but if it is, it would be very welcome, IMO.

[Oboogie]

I’ve seen so many instance of ‘performative’ (with the odd ‘virtue signalling’ - God I miss the days when it was the preserve of smirking, reactionary pricks, before self-consciously moderate types had a go at gussying it up as respectable - thrown in) that I presume that a script has done the rounds, but my favourite reaction comes from the heart of the NEC…

Only the start you say? But then what follows? Bloody constraint? A bout of severe glaring? Being kicked up the arse very hard indeed until all concerned offer grovelling apologies, with resignation announcements to follow.

Seriously lads, a rebellion of seven. Not even including all of the awkward squad type left wing MPs you don’t like. Put your dicks away and relax.

For demanding that the Government breaks a manifesto promise so soon after being elected on it, Starmer would be more than justified in expelling them and good riddance. You may regard lying to the electorate as no big deal, but the evidence is that the public had enough of it from the Tories and Farage. It ought to be a breach of Parliamentary standards but sadly Johnson et al have proved being a lying cunt is acceptable in Westminster.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Oh FFS! It is if you vote against the whip on an effective vote of confidence!

It wasn’t a confidence vote. The government announces if it is. They didn’t.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

>sighs<

The vote on the King's Speech, seeing as it sets out the government's whole plan for the parliamentary session, is always a confidence vote. How could it be anything else?

And it has always been considered so.

Straws clutched, let's move on.

[davidjay]

Back in opposition first chance they got...

[Abernathy]

Emma Lewell-Buck, Labour MP for South Shields, who had put her name to a rebel amendment, said she did not vote against the government (but abstained) because "none of the votes taking place tonight would have resulted in scrapping the cap".
In a social media post , she said: "There will be an Autumn Budget soon and I know myself and other colleagues will be working constructively with the Government to make scrapping the cap part of it."

Which is the right attitude. You want something different to happen, then you work with the government to try and make it happen, rather than petulantly throwing your toys out of the pram in a pointless rebellion.

You might have hoped that members of parliament, particularly those who have been there for decades, would have some idea about how politics actually works.

Withdrawal of the whip is exactly right, and no less than these posturing "considerably more socialist than yow" disruptors deserve. Jeremy Corbyn notoriously voted against the Labour whip more than 400 times when the Blair government was in power, and Blair made the mistake of not acting forcefully to curb this nonsense, because he had a large parliamentary majority, As we know, Corbyn subsequently went on to lead the Labour Party to the brink of political extinction. Very pleasing to see that Keir Starmer is not prepared to repeat Blair's error.

[Philip Marlow]

Not even including all of the awkward squad type left wing MPs you don’t like.

Indeed, that list of rebels is all the more interesting for those names who aren't on it - no Diane Abbott, no Clive Lewis, no Andy McDonald etc. I'm not sure I'd even heard of Imran Hussain until just now.

I was definitely expecting Abbott, and was wondering about Nadia Whittome.

I had gathered that expulsion was the implied next step referred to in that tweet; not sure about the others, but I know there were rumblings about having Sultana deselected (then again, I initially heard about them via Lee Harpin on twitter, so…y’know…whole bag of salt and that). As regards Begum, I’d be tempted to say ‘Come ahead, weirder and more deranged people have spent the past few years giving it their very all’ but I suppose the actual leadership of the party constitutes more daunting opposition than her ex and some of his local cronies.

Although…

Now it strikes me that the likeliest explanations for the allegation she makes at the end are

a) She’s lying. In which case consequences should definitely follow.
b) She’s telling the truth, in which case consequences should also follow, just not for her.

[Abernathy]

Not sure what "consequences" you are alluding to in either case. Also not sure what she was actually talking about. The presenter seemed to say "They offered you support in respect of bills that you may have around that particular issue if you voted with them?", to which she replied "Yes".

Bills? What bills?

It's fairly well known that in any parliamentary party, not just Labour, whips offer pastoral support to their members, as well as trying to enforce party discipline. It's not all tarantula spiders and actual bull whips. So, not really unusual that Begum should have had help from the party in dealing with an abusive former partner, particularly as he was standing against her in a generally rather nasty election campaign, which was of course not confined solely to Poplar & Limehouse. Nor that such support should have been mentioned in the context of persuading an MP not to vote against the party whip.

I'm really not at all sure why Begum should be clutching her pearls at this.