New ‘Rebel Alliance’ Anti Starmer Group Forming?

Right, so the number of Independent MPs has now grown by 7 thanks to Keir Starmer’s immoral suspension of his own MPs who chose to put lifting child poverty above his whims and the coercion of the party whips, making an unlucky for some, hopefully Starmer 13 Independent MPs currently sitting in parliament. 5 of the 6 originally elected Independent MPs have as we’ve already witnessed, formed a loose alliance I suppose is the best way to look at it, on several issues, most notably the issue of Israel and Gaza, resulting in this group being collectively referred to as the Gaza Bloc, but now, as 7 of Labour’s most progressive MPs join them as Independents, a letter to them signed by the five Gaza Bloc MPs, has got people postulating that this group could be about to grow, and if so, potentially could form what would be the fourth largest group in parliament, if they came together in a more formal way. So is this likely and are we seeing steps towards that?
Right, so Keir Starmer as we know has suspended 7 of his MPs for opposing his plans to keep kids in poverty because fundamentally he lacks the political will to lift them out of it. The money is always there, it is a choice, if we went to war tomorrow, we know it would be paid for after all do we not? And the deal allegedly is that their suspensions would be reviewed after 6 months and to my mind that means depending on how they vote, vote in accordance with Starmer’s amoral wishes, will depend if they get the whip back any time soon.
Starmer has gone hard and heavy with his use of the Party whip, he’s already behaving like a despot over 7 votes that went against him, when overwhelmingly he won the vote as everyone pretty much knew he would. If he’s going to carry on like that, carry on mounting whipping operations on anything remotely contentious, then parliament actually has a duty to step in, there are actually safeguards against the Prime Minister behaving like this, yet it will remain to be seen if the powers parliament has to intervene get used they can. The Party Whip is not something that can be used all of the time, otherwise why bother with parliament at all? This is a point made well in a thread by Ben Sellers who worked for former Labour MP Laura Pidcock, the most relevant part of which reads:
‘I get that people are not confronted with the details of Parliamentary democracy in their daily lives (we used to have Tony Benn to remind us, but he’s sadly gone) and the temptation is to see a government & party as a company, but it isn’t & there are good reasons why.
MPs have a number of factors to consider for each vote, including their party loyalty, the views & interests of their constituents & their own conscience. Starmer is trying to reduce that to loyalty towards the party leadership & a highly factional one at that.
Dangerous stuff. The whip is normally used to enforce discipline on frontbench MPs (Cabinet members & so on). It can still be brutal, but the idea is that those frontline MPs have chosen to be part of a collective responsibility - as Shadow or Government representatives.
To use it against backbenchers, especially over a single vote on an amendment is pretty draconian behaviour. Conventionally, backbenchers are seen as having more freedom & act as the conscience of the party, precisely because they can vote against the leadership.
This isn’t, as the man-boys of Starmer’s praetorian guard would have it, “gesture politics” but an important part of our Parliamentary democracy. If we think back to the Iraq War debates, did the 199 MPs who voted against Blair lose the whip? Of course not.
Starmer (as has been his style), has ripped up another democratic principle, for the sake of a factional victory & the erasure of the left from the PLP. It’s spiteful, vindictive & unjustifiable for anyone who respects democracy. Benn would be out, that’s for sure.’
It’s an excellent point raised there and it does lend itself to the belief that even if these MPs were handed the Labour whip back again, nothing would fundamentally change in the party they’d once again be part of; the same coercion, the same immorality would certainly face them again and again they’d be faced with a choice between doing what is right and just and fair and doing what Starmer wants which will almost certainly be the opposite.
And so the potential I suppose for these MPs to perhaps wake up to that reality, to how things are going to be now Starmer is in government and wants to get his own way, how this may be all of the time, despite him having that massive majority, despite him being able to weather minor dissent in his own ranks as this was on the two child benefit cap SNP amendment, if his fragile ego can’t handle even small rebellions over truly contentious issues such as this was, then is there any future for these suspended individuals in the Labour Party? Was this just an excuse for Starmer to enact further purges of the left from Labour so Labour becomes ever more another version of the Tory Party.
In which case is another future possible? Well a letter to the 7 suspended Labour MPs from the Gaza Bloc, the loose grouping of the 5 Independent MPs, Jeremy Corbyn, Shockat Adam, Mohamed Iqbal, Ayoub Khan and Adnan Hussain to these 7 might offer one. It read:
‘Dear Colleagues,
We thank you for standing up for your principles and voting to lift the two child benefit cap.
As we all know, lifting the cap would alleviate poverty for 1 million children, bringing 300,000 out of it entirely and another 700,000 out of deep poverty.
93% of impacted parents say the policy makes them less able to afford food. It is a matter of great shame that a Labour government, supposedly on the side of working class people, voted to block the scrapping of this inhumane, unfair cap last night.
It is beyond disgraceful that you have been punished for voting to alleviate child poverty. The decision puts party before country and displays a shameful absence of moral leadership. As Independent Members of Parliament, we welcome more members of parliament who are free to speak out against inequality and injustice without fear of repercussion from their party whip.
We look forward to working closely with you as you represent your constituents more effectively than ever as Independent Members of Parliament.
As the two major parties fail to defend the bold changes this country desperately needs, we will be there to offer a real alternative – and to defend a society that cares for each other and cares for all.’
It’s certainly a rolling out of the welcome mat to a group of MPs who were loyal to the Labour Party when Corbyn was leader, who voted for the right reasons, I don’t think anybody can condemn any MP who voted to bring children out of poverty, if you are condemning them for that you’ve got issues and if you’re condemning them for not showing loyalty to Labour instead, what exactly about this warranted such loyalty anyway? It was a sick thing to do to impose a three line whip on an issue so contentious and which Starmer was already certain to win? This vote was so much more an immoral opportunity for Starmer to rid himself of lefty MPs, so where was his loyalty to voters who elected these 7 now Independent MPs as Labour MPs? Where is his respect there for that?
Coming back to the letter though, it has got commentators postulating about the potential for a much larger Independent bloc of MPs, who are after all, all freshly elected, safe in their seats for the next 5 years, where they are now much more free to vote as they desire, no whip for them unless they really want to get back into Labour after how they have been treated and how it is now being led. That of course remains to be seen, but what if they did form a new grouping, a kind of opposite version to Change UK, where instead of being an entity that opposed Corbyn and opposed his anti establishment politics and desire for change for the country, they form a group, not necessarily a party, but a group, opposing Starmer in the same way. Now, unlike Change UK, this group would already consist of 5 MPs, who have already proven they can win an election and given they support what is right and just and fair, are far more in tune with the needs of their constituents and that of the country. How official a group must be to count as an individual entity I don’t know. Certainly at local council level, Independent groups are commonplace, but we don’t see that in parliament as a rule. This General Election, thanks to social media, that’s to community organising, thanks to crowdfunding, such campaigns have bucked the trend and been successful, yet still I’m unsure whether they would be entitled to short money to run their offices as a group, or whether they only get treated as individuals, whether that would change with a more formal arrangement and if so would that have to be a new party?
In fact another facet to that line of thinking is the news recently that Starmer was looking to eradicate Independent MPs and candidates going forwards, to freeze the people out of people powered politics, forcing party politics upon us all by law, on the grounds of all the nonsense abuse stories disgruntled Labour losers, former MPs, like Jonathan Ashworth, who seems to be on TV more now he isn’t an MP than when he was, again Starmer’s immorality and control freakery coming out if such an antidemocratic move were to be made, but shoring up and firming up their position in parliament, these Independent MPs could protect themselves from that with a more solid arrangement. It would tickle me no end and I’ve no doubt plenty of other people too, if Starmer’s authoritarianism ended up creating a Corbyn led – in part at least – party that so many people had for years since he was suspended by Starmer, since he set up the Peace and Justice Project, hoped he would. The irony would be hilarious and actually as we saw with The Collective endorsed parliamentary candidates, such an arrangement could organise and group together candidates who would be eliminated under such legislation, to be able to continue their campaigns to seek election in 2029, especially with so many Labour seats so vulnerable, with such small majorities and if they get their act together sooner rather than later, they can set about enthusing and inspiring voters who in record breaking numbers didn’t bother to vote this time around.
With potentially 7 new members of this Independent Group now, Independent MPs now form the 4th largest parliamentary group, behind Labour the Tories and the Lib Dems. I also wouldn’t rule out an alliance with the 4 Green MPs necessarily here either, though on a more informal arrangement, what’s called a technical group.
Now some might sneer at this whole concept, not just because it is largely spitballing and conjecture at this point, on one hand because already there have been interviews with MPs such as Zarah Sultana who has said she hopes to have the whip restored, but you lost it because you voted in the interest of your constituents, and unless you stop doing that in effect, the whip isn’t coming back, so this is perhaps a road that some of these MPs must travel to realise there may be no way back for them. But also some jeering has come because such a group would be irrelevantly small as someone criticising this concept called it. You miss the point. Here will be a group of MP’s who would symbolise the moral compass that Starmer’s Labour not only spurn but actively punish MPs in their party for showing. They will be an ongoing source of actively holding Labour accountable for what it says and what it does. Frankly when it comes to voting, Starmer’s Labour has such a huge majority that for the next 5 years, there will be little that can be done to stop them from doing whatever they like, but having some MPs call them out for it, point that out, along with independent media like this channel amplifying that, well, Starmer can enjoy his next 5 years, but if he doesn’t show some intent to try and make people’s lives better over that time, it’s going to be exposed bit by bit, every single day. I sincerely hope these 7 newly Independent MPs, realise they actually have more power outside of Starmer’s perversely huge majority, than they had within it.
Meanwhile, on the subject of booting out and banning Independent MPs and candidates, if you hadn’t heard about these plans I can’t say I’m particularly surprised, so check out this video recommendation here for more on that story, and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.