The Commons: Defections Don’t Always Destroy
Christopher Furlong
To govern the country, you must first govern your party. As Keir Starmer attempts to manage the potential threat of Farage and Reform, a rebellion amongst his own backbenchers seemed to shake this government more than any other event this parliamentary session.
Since Starmer took over the Labour party from Jeremy Corbyn, his predecessor has been a barb in his side. The whip was removed from Corbyn in 2020, who then emphatically won his seat of Islington North as an independent in 2024. Now, the face of the British left has been joined by another ex-Labour MP.
Zarah Sultana had been an MP for Labour since 2019 up until July 3 when she resigned from the Labour party. The whip had been removed since July 2024 when she was one of seven Labour MPs who voted for the two-child benefit to be scrapped.
Recent welfare policy appears to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Sultana. In statement posted on social media, Sultana said: “Poverty is growing, inequality is obscene, and the two-party system offers nothing but managed decline and broken promises.
“A billionaire-backed grifter is leading the polls, because Labour has completely failed to improve people’s lives.”
After Starmer was forced to U-turn on his plans to cut Personal Independence Payments (PIP) to get his welfare bill through many of his opposition were pontificating about his resignation. A total of 49 MPs rebelled against Starmer’s welfare cuts even after he made concessions to win many of them over. The decision to reverse plans to raise the threshold for claiming PIP is estimated to the cost an extra £2 billion according to The Times. An estimated 430,000 future PIP claimants were predicted to lose £4500 a year.
It is worth remembering that this is the benefit of Starmer’s majority. Tony Blair who had a majority during his first two terms comparable to Starmer’s was able to weather the storm of many of his own MPs rebelling against him. Famously, in a vote regarding the Iraq war 121 Labour MPs went against the Government. Blair suffered rebellions over plans on the NHS, education and anti-terror measures.
However, instead of utilizing this majority to put through legislation, Starmer appears to be attempting to keep everyone happy. This has resulted in him being percieved as weak and fickle. Leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch described Starmer’s U-turn as “utter capitulation” and that “Labour’s welfare bill is now a total waste of time.”
Nigel Farage said: “The whole thing needs to be looked at again. It is unfair to taxpayers, and it is bankrupting our country.”
With MPs dissatisfied with his bill despite concessions, and Starmer facing criticism from the right for not going far enough, he risks being stranded in the political centre with no clear base of support
Corbyn and Sultana’s new party has got off to a shaky start. Rumors swept through the media that Corbyn was unhappy with the public way that Sultana announced the new alliance. Corbyn played coy, saying they were talking things over and looking at alternatives, but leaks showed that he was disappointed with the way it was disseminated.
The current independent alliance that Sultana is joining includes 5 MPs, among them Jeremy Corbyn, who defeated Labour candidates running on pro-Gaza platforms. This is the same number of MPs as Reform and has the potential to rob Labour of more MPs and seats. Corbyn experienced a separatist movement himself during his premiership in 2019. Seven MPs, most notably Chukka Umunna, once a rising star of centrist Labour, started a party known as The Independent Group. The group left the Labour party over fears that the party had become “hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left.”
The Independent Group, however, effectively disbanded after just 10 months, as none of its members retained their seats in the 2019 election. However, 18% of Britons are already considering voting for a new party led by Jeremy Corbyn, according to YouGov. Despite angst within the Labour camp over keeping their MPs on side, Sultana’s decision was not followed by any other defections, perhaps signaling a commitment to Starmerism or an awareness of the shaky leadership experienced by many MPs under Corbyn.
For now, Sultana’s defection hasn’t caused as much trouble for the Labour party as initially expected, but it serves as a clear warning to Starmer that losing MPs is a real possibility. If Corbyn becomes louder, Starmer could begin to see a trickle of defections, similar to what has taken place with Tories bedhopping to Reform.
After Lee Anderson’s defection from the Conservative Party to Reform UK in March 2024, Reform picked up pace and got results at the ballot box that have propelled them into all but official opposition. More than 60 councillors who ran in local elections in May were former Conservative councillors. The ex-Conservative Party Chairman, Jake Berry, who presided over Liz Truss’s premiership, defected to Reform last week. Berry, who lost his seat in the 2024 election, said that the Conservatives had “abandoned the British people.”
In The Sun, he wrote: “It didn’t start with Labour. The Conservative governments I was part of share the blame.
“If you were deliberately trying to wreck the country, you’d be hard-pressed to do a better job than the last two decades of Labour and Tory rule.”
Defections are nothing new in Politics. Since Oswald Moseley left the Labour Party to become Britain’s most famous fascist and Winston Churchill buffeted between parties, they have become commonplace in the arena of Westminster. Many of them end up being inconsequential, reminders of an individual’s five minutes of fame, and rarely define a Prime Minister. Starmer will want to keep it this way, but whether he tries to appease everyone or show faith in his convictions will be what hangs over him as he heads into the Parliamentary recess.