Starmer suspends seven rebel MPs including McDonnell over two-child benefit cap vote
Starmer suspends seven rebel MPs including McDonnell over two-child benefit cap vote
Show of strength by new Labour prime minister after work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said the government had to do ‘the sums’ before it could commit to abolishing the limit
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They haven't been suspended for voting for the policy, because it wasn't a vote on the policy.
They've been suspended because they voted for an opposition party's amendment to the King's Speech. If you're in the governing party but are voting against your own party's agenda, what else do they expect to happen?
I think this is key - it's early days and the new government are still figuring out the size of the mess they've been left with. What they've announced so far are the big policies that they've done their sums on in advance. Scrapping the cap will require them to find a bullion quid from somewhere and that might take time. I have to assume the SNP amendment was at least partially them messing with Labour as they knew it wouldn't get through.
The whole point of these amendments is to just shit on the government and try and make a political point. "Look, this new government voted against taking kids out of poverty!" and all that disingenuous shite.
Indeed - it's political trolling. I seem to recall them doing the same a while ago under the Tories.
I guess that would explain why the Scots sent Labour to parliament instead this time
That's true, it is quite crude of the SNP to try to trip up the party that is clearly closer aligned to its interests.
They want Westminster to be disfunctional. That's the path towards independence. They're actively opposed to progressive wins. This goes both ways BTW, Labour won't ally with them either. Structurally adversarial politics is crap. Only electoral reform will make it possible for natural allies to actually work together (on the issues where they align).
I believe the cost of removing the cap is estimated to be 3.5 billion quid
Ouch
Very true. Also worth noting that they all won election on the policy of not repealing the limit. It's not like this came out of left field!