How Keir Starmer’s crackdown on his own MPs could backfire – and even help Jeremy Corbyn

The prime minister’s summer parting shot has sparked a mutinous mood in Westminster, warns Andrew Grice

The Labour Party will start the Commons summer recess next Tuesday in an unhappy place.

MPs were already drifting off from Westminster on Wednesday for their six-week break when Keir Starmer suspended four Labour MPs for disloyalty, with Diane Abbott to follow the next day.

“Parliament was already like the Mary Celeste,” one Labour insider told me. “Now the mood is mutinous.”

Starmer’s move shocked his MPs because he had taken a more conciliatory line immediately after the revolt over cuts to disability benefits. As my colleague John Rentoul argued, there is a strong case for saying he needed to restore his battered authority.

Removing the whip from four of the rebels was designed to limit future revolts looming over special education needs and, possibly, the two-child benefit limit. A free hit on welfare would have swelled the number of rebels. It was also an important nod to the silent majority of Labour MPs who supported the welfare bill; many felt angry that, after they defended the measure (sometimes through gritted teeth), the government pulled the rug from under them by filleting it to prevent a humiliating Commons defeat.

However, even some Starmer allies believe his disciplinary crackdown could backfire – and that it displays weakness rather than strength. One cabinet minister called it “small man syndrome” – not a reference to Starmer (5ft 8in) but to Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff, who chose Starmer to front his crusade to regain control of the party from the Corbynistas. Others blamed Starmer rather than McSweeney, saying he was wrong to target Rachael Maskell, one of the four, who is respected in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). “He [Starmer] is the school bully who beats someone up on the last day of term so they feel rotten for the whole summer,” one Labour insider told me.

Starmer has discovered that having a huge majority does not guarantee an easy life, as some colleagues expected in the euphoria of victory a year ago. There are only enough government posts for a third of Labour MPs. “It brings big problems,” one minister told me, noting that the newbies first elected last year are showing a surprisingly independent streak. “The PLP is a much more complex animal than we realised,” they said. I believe the prime minister needs to give the PLP more TLC and to reach out beyond the loyalists so he can isolate the 35 MPs on the hard left.

Abbott is a dangerous enemy to pick. She outwitted the party’s leadership the first time she was suspended for alleged antisemitism by refusing to stand down at last year’s election. But Labour’s legal department judged that the party should repeat its initial disciplinary action after she doubled down in a BBC Radio 4 interview on her previous remarks about there being different types of racism, while denying she is antisemitic.

Although the Labour grassroots loves Abbott, there appears to be less sympathy for her in the Labour high command this time. Some figures were puzzled why she decided to repeat comments for which she apologised in 2023, and wonder whether she was goading Starmer into suspending her again.

Although Labour whips talked Downing Street out of disciplining many more MPs over the welfare revolt, some Starmer allies suspect he is reaching for the playbook that served him well in opposition, when he defined Labour against the Corbyn left. They fear privately it might not work in government and, ironically, could make the breakaway socialist party planned by Jeremy Corbyn more viable electorally.

The new party’s on-off launch has been messy. It is striking that Corbyn allies such as John McDonnell, who was his shadow chancellor, have not jumped ship and see their future inside Labour. Breaking up is hard to do; some left-wingers want to stay, fight and turn the tables on Starmer. They describe the Corbyn project as “Jeremy’s old gang” and suspect it won’t fly.

However, opinion polls suggest the as-yet-unnamed party could attract 10 per cent of the vote. Not enough to break through under first-past-the-post but possibly enough to help deny Labour victory in a 2029 election, when five- or six-party politics will guarantee lots of closely fought contests.

If the Corbyn party and the Greens agreed a pact to fight different seats, as they might well do, Labour would have real cause for concern. The Corbyn party might also appeal to those 16- and 17-year-olds who exercise their right to vote under plans announced by the government on Thursday.

I think Starmer should be wary of fighting this particular war. His achievement in seeing off the Corbyn left was a remarkable one. But now he is prime minister, not leader of the opposition.

The voters want him to change the country, not his party; that box has been ticked. Too many internal battles will remind some voters of the Conservatives’ chaos, which he promised to end.

Starmer leads his country, not just his party. He needs to find a better defining purpose for his government than a forever factional war against the left.