Adam Boulton: Rebellion and reshuffle could hurt Starmer and Sunak – but something else is distracting voters
One of the most quoted pieces of folk wisdom is that “voters don’t like divided parties”.
The implication is that a political party which can’t keep its own house in order is unlikely to be trusted to run the country.
This month epic disunity has been on display in both the government and the opposition.
Bitter divisions have become almost routine among Conservative MPs, as they have dethroned and installed five leaders and prime ministers in just eight years.
Division in Tory ranks has undoubtedly been an electoral asset for Labour, helping to explain its massive lead in opinion polls. Now there are fears on the opposition side that heartfelt disagreements over the man-made humanitarian crisis in the Middle East could start pulling down Labour as well.
A new high pitch of vituperation in the Tory party was hit when the prime minister sacked his home secretary.
Suella Braverman slashed back at Rishi Sunak with a diatribe which included the phrases “uncertain”, “weak”, irresponsibility”, “magical thinking”, “betrayal” and “manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver”.
It was sharpened with the ominous wake-up call that Sunak was “rejected by a majority of party members during the summer leadership contest” and therefore had “no personal mandate to be prime minister”.
Two outspoken female Conservative MPs – Miriam Cates and Dame Andrea Jenkyns – added to the tension by asking for a ballot to express no confidence in Sunak.
Braverman lashed out at the PM in a letter published after she was sacked
Some 40 Tory MPs stirred up the internal party debate further by putting their names to a parliamentary measure paving the way to Braverman’s preferred cause of resiling from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer suffered the worst parliamentary rebellion since he was elected Labour leader in 2020.
Some 56 of his MPs defied the party whip to vote for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
As a result, 10 people were automatically sacked from his front bench team, although all the shadow cabinet remained loyal and kept their jobs.
The Labour revolt was a token gesture on a matter of principle. In practice, it could not change what happens in the Middle East.
Neither the Israeli nor Hamas leadership will take any notice of what the opposition in the British parliament is saying about their conduct of war. Especially since the ceasefire amendment, put forward by the SNP, was heavily defeated by 293 to 125.
In keeping with the dreadful death toll in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, the mood in the Labour Party is sombre but free of the mutual recriminations so prevalent in Conservative ranks.
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Jess Phillips quits Labour frontbench
Shadow cabinet members were making no secret of their distress at talented colleagues sacrificing potential future ministerial careers.
For senior figures it is not the first time they have confronted divided loyalties.
For example, in 2005 Tony Blair suffered a major defeat when the Commons rejected his attempt to introduce 90-day detention for terror suspects.
The punishment for some Labour rebels was five years’ purgatory for their ministerial ambitions.
In spite of his disciplinarian reputation, Starmer has not so far been so strict as Blair.
Four of the middle-ranking ministers who quit on Wednesday only got the chance to do so because they were reinstated after previously rebelling in October 2020 against authorisation for so-called undercover “spy cops” to break the law.
Labour’s revolt might have been bigger if members of the shadow cabinet did not have more than a whiff of general election victory and real power in their nostrils. Few want to miss out on a share in that.
They also know that it is important to send out the signal to the electorate that they are united and ready to share the burdens of office, including difficult decisions.
John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, put his finger on this in his media round on Thursday, repeatedly stressing: “We are behaving as we would in government, we are not a protest movement.”
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The New Labour government’s decision to go to war in Iraq has long haunted the party because of the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and its disastrous consequences in the region.
Ironically Starmer has now got his party into a similar state of agreeing to disagree on the current Middle East controversy – close to the Conservative position, but without the passion and internal party strife.
Back in March 2003, the vote to “use all means necessary to ensure the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction” was genuinely consequential.
Prime Minister Blair had committed to be bound by the outcome, even though he was not legally obliged to secure backing from parliament before entering a war.
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His government prevailed, by 412 to 125, only thanks to Tory party support. Eighty-four Labour MPs rebelled. Two ministers, Robin Cook and Clare Short, resigned from the cabinet.
Fallout from the Iraq invasion lay behind Labour’s move to the left in the 2010s.
A war-weary Ed Miliband broke with defence bipartisanship to inflict one of the major foreign policy setbacks of David Cameron’s premiership, by defeating the PM’s call to punish President Bashar al Assad militarily for the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
In 2015, Jeremy Corbyn, a prominent member of the Stop the War Coalition, was elected party leader.
In this decade Starmer has taken Labour in the opposite direction. His no-tolerance approach to perceived left-wing antisemitism resulted in the suspension of Corbyn and his close allies Diane Abbott and Andy McDonald, so disbarring them from standing again as Labour candidates.
Sir Keir Starmer faced a revolt from the frontbench but his shadow cabinet remains intact
The resignations over a ceasefire mean that there are now no members of the Socialist Campaign Group in Starmer’s campaign team.
It is possible that disagreement over Israel-Hamas could turn into a debilitating sore in the Labour Party.
It is more likely that internal arguments will be overtaken by events. Key UK allies, including the US and France, are pressurising Israel to show restraint while, by some analyses, it could complete its military objectives in a matter of weeks.
In her resignation letter, former shadow Home Office minister Jess Phillips spoke for many of the Labour MPs who backed the ceasefire amendment, saying “I must vote with my constituents, my head, and my heart” but she stressed she did not feel she was rebelling against Starmer.
Rebelling may make it easier locally for some of the 56 to retain their seats at the election.
Phillips will no longer serve as a shadow minister – but may more easily retain her seat
This could offset the handful of constituencies – such as in Bristol and Brighton – where Labour’s more moderate official stance could cost it support to the Greens.
In all, the impact of Labour’s disagreement has been modest so far.
Older, more centrist voters may be attracted by Starmer’s resistance to pro-Palestinian pressure. In polls taken since the conflict broke out, two-thirds of Muslim voters are continuing to support Labour and the party’s lead in voting preference is still around 20%.
Meanwhile Braverman’s histrionics and the consequent cabinet reshuffle have distracted public attention from Labour’s agonising over the marches and the ceasefire vote.
Sunak continued his awkward straddle between red wall and blue wall Tories by appointing both the socially liberal David Cameron and GB News’ Esther McVey, as an anti-woke “minister for common sense”.
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Tory MPs, including party officials and former cabinet ministers, are continuing to argue the toss openly with each other over a wide range of policy and personnel issues.
The voters appear to have registered the different levels of disunity in both parties.
An Opinium poll this month asked whether voters agreed or disagreed that the parties were united.
Labour’s ratings were down significantly from a month earlier, from a net positive of +12 to -8.
Unsurprisingly polling for the Conservatives, who are not divided over Gaza, changed less since October.
For them the damage of disunity has already been done elsewhere on other matters. The Conservative Party’s net disunity rating worsened by just three points this month to an Arctic chill of -43.
A man has admitted arson after a major fire at an MP’s constituency office.
Joshua Oliver, 28, pleaded guilty to starting the fire which destroyed the office of Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, at Vermont House in Washington, Tyne and Wear.
The fire also wrecked a small charity for people with very rare genetic diseases and an NHS mental health service for veterans.
The guilty plea was entered at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court on the basis that it was reckless rather than intentional.
Hodgson, who has been an MP since 2005, winning her seat again in 2019. Pic: Reuters
The Crown did not accept that basis of plea.
Oliver, of no fixed address, had been living in a tent nearby, the court heard.
Northumbria Police previously said it was “alerted to a fire at a premises on Woodland Terrace in the Washington area” shortly after 12.20am on Thursday.
“Emergency services attended and no one is reported to have been injured in the incident,” it added.
Drone footage from the scene showed extensive damage to the building.
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A spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service said: “Our prosecutors have worked to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings.
“We have worked closely with Northumbria Police as they carried out their investigation.”
Oliver was remanded in custody and will appear at Newcastle Crown Court on Tuesday, 14 October.
Sir Keir Starmer may end up regretting sacking Lucy Powell.
The former Commons leader, who has been described as “scrappy” and a “formidable” organiser with connections right across the Labour Party, will take on Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson in the race to replace Angela Rayner as deputy leader following her dramatic resignation from government.
Ms Powell’s presence on the ballot paper, confirmed on Thursday night after she won the backing of 117 MPs, turns the internal battle into an effective referendum on the prime minister’s leadership, at a time when the mood in the party likely reflects the wider mood in the country.
The Manchester Central MP, who previously served as an aide to Ed Miliband, was part of a contingent of North West MPs who were sacked in last week’s reshuffle.
Sky News understands that Ms Powell asked the prime minister three times why she was being removed from her post – but did not receive an answer.
She has emerged as the backbenchers’ candidate, in contrast to Ms Phillipson, the loyalist education secretary, who is seen as Number 10’s choice. It is a label that may prove to harm rather than help the cabinet minister’s chances.
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After her place on the ballot was confirmed, Ms Powell called for a “change of culture” in Downing Street.
“We’ve got a bit of a groupthink happening at the top, that culture of not being receptive to interrogation, not being receptive to differing views,” she told The Guardian newspaper.
Allies of Ms Powell say it is her ability to engage with MPs and network that has landed her on the ballot paper, and she is also a beneficiary of the prime minister’s poor handling of his own party, evidenced by the way he handled the reshuffle – not to mention other mishaps over the past year regarding winter fuel payments and welfare.
‘Inept people management’
Many of the ministers who were sacked expected to receive a phone call from Sir Keir himself, but Sky News understands they instead received the news through either Darren Jones, his chief secretary, or Jonathan Reynolds, the former business secretary who was himself demoted to chief whip.
One minister who spoke to Sky News said it was not Sir Keir who told them they were being sacked.
“It’s inept people management that is going to come back to bite him,” they said.
“There’s a lot of people who see this deputy leadership contest as an opportunity to reinforce that point.
“People need a way to air their concerns, and if the debate is shut down because there isn’t a contest, it will just explode later on at a much higher volume.”
Labour insiders say Sir Keir’s lack of personal touch has fuelled “resentment and revenge” in the PLP that will directly benefit Ms Powell – with one saying Sir Keir had turned her into a “martyr”.
They draw parallels with the government’s mishandling of internal splits over Gaza which resulted in a large rebellion while in opposition, and more recently the uproar over welfare cuts that was only minimised when Ms Rayner was brought in to bridge the gap with MPs.
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Karl Turner, the Labour MP for Hull East, told Sky News he believed that sacking Ms Powell actually strengthened her chances in the race.
“Lucy Powell will, I am sure, prove to be the most popular candidate amongst ordinary members once the contest is opened up because members will see her as not being the choice of Downing Street,” he said.
“I have no doubt that Keir Starmer saved the Labour Party from itself not too many years ago, but I am worried that we are in danger of losing the entire Labour movement unless we change stance, fast.”
He added: “I’m supporting Lucy Powell because I know she will be the shop steward for the PLP. Lucy is fearless and will speak truth to power without fear or favour. We must act fast as a political party and absolutely must not allow this deputy leadership contest to become a referendum on the prime minister’s premiership.”
Another backbencher summed up the contest as a chance to give Sir Keir “a bloody nose”, while a separate source said removing Ms Powell was “utterly egregious”.
“It’s given Andy Burnham the biggest energy boost.”
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Andy Burnham on deputy leader race
As well as mobilising the PLP, Ms Powell’s sacking has fuelled speculation of a comeback for Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester who is her close friend and has long been known to harbour leadership ambitions.
There is speculation that should a Manchester MP stand down, Mr Burnham may be inclined to run in the ensuing by-election.
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Mr Burnham has not given any indication that he is planning to run again for parliament but has also not ruled out a return to Westminster in the future.
Such a scenario would present the ultimate crisis for Number 10 – long suspecting the openly critical mayor has designs on the prime minister’s job.
Number 10 would be forced to choose between allowing Mr Burnham to run in the by-election and thus make it easier for him to launch a potential leadership challenge, and blocking him from the ballot paper and risk gifting the seat to Reform, while causing an outcry among MPs.
Some have been at pains to point out that this deputy leadership contest is not about the heart and the soul of the Labour Party – and Ms Powell has stressed her time serving in government – it is about Sir Keir’s leadership.
As one union source put it: “If Lucy can run this as a referendum on the direction of the government, she’d win.”
The Conservatives have urged Sir Keir Starmer to publish all concerns raised by the security services about the appointment of sacked US ambassador Peter Mandelson.
Shadow cabinet office minister Alex Burghart said his party would push for a vote in parliament demanding the government reveal what issues the security services had in relation to Lord Mandelson’s relationship with the disgraced sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
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Peter Mandelson was sacked as the UK’s ambassador to Washington on Thursday. Pic: PA
It comes after Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates revealed that Number 10 appointed Lord Mandelson to the Washington role despite the security services’ reservations about the move.
Mr Burghart said material from the security services is not usually made public, but that a substantial amount of information was already in the public domain.
He told Sky News Breakfast: “What we’re going to do is we’re going to try and bring a vote in parliament to say that the government has to publish this information.
“It will then be up to Labour MPs to decide whether they want to vote to protect Peter Mandelson and the prime minister or make the information available.”
Mr Burghart said he had spoken to Labour MPs who were “incredibly unhappy about the prime minister’s handling of this”, and that it would be “very interesting to see whether they want to be on the side of transparency”.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said she believed Lord Mandelson’s appointment revealed that the prime minister “has very bad judgment”.
“It looks like he went against advice, security advice and made this appointment…and what we’re asking for is transparency.”
The Liberal Democrats have also called for parliament to be given a role in vetting the next US ambassador.
“I think it will be right for experts in foreign affairs on the relevant select committee to quiz any proposal that comes from 10 Downing Street, and so we can have that extra bit of scrutiny,” the party’s leader Ed Davey told broadcasters.
The former UK ambassador to France, Lord Ricketts, said the government should not be “rushing into an appointment” to replace Lord Mandelson.
“I would urge the government to take their time, and I would also make a strong case to the government to go for a career diplomat to steady the ship after this very disruptive process,” he said.
Labour MP Chris Hinchcliff posted on X that the former US ambassador should also be removed from the House of Lords.
Nigel Farage said Sir Keir’s decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US was a “serious misjudgement” by the PM.
“We don’t yet know what the intelligence briefings would have said, but it looks as though Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s right-hand man, and the prime minister, ignored the warnings, carried on,” he said.
“He was then reluctant to get rid of Mandelson, and he’s now left himself in a very vulnerable position with the rest of the parliamentary Labour Party.
“It is about the prime minister’s judgement, but it is also about the role that Morgan McSweeney plays in this government.”
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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage says Keir Starmer ignored the warnings about Lord Mandelson.
The timing of the sacking comes ahead of Donald Trump’s state visit next week, with the US president facing questions over his own ties with Epstein.
The prime minister sacked Lord Mandelson on Thursday after new emails revealed the Labour grandee sent messages of support to Epstein even as he faced jail for sex offences in 2008.
In one particular message, Lord Mandelson had suggested that Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty told MPs.
The Foreign Office said the emails showed “the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment”.
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Downing Street has defended the extensive vetting process which senior civil servants go through in order to get jobs, which has raised questions about whether or not they missed something or Number 10 ignored their advice.
The prime minister’s official spokesman also said yesterday that Number 10 “was not involved in the security vetting process”.
“This is managed at departmental level by the agency responsible, and any suggestion that Number 10 was involved is untrue,” he told reporters.
Asked repeatedly if any concerns were flagged to Downing Street by the agencies that conducted the vetting of Lord Mandelson, he did not dismiss the assertion, repeating that Number 10 did not conduct the vetting.
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Speaking to Sky News this morning, Scotland Secretary Douglas Alexander said his reaction to the publication of the emails was one of “incredulity and revulsion”.
He said he was “not here to defend” Lord Mandelson but said the prime minister “dismissed” the ambassador when he became aware of them.
The cabinet minister said Lord Mandelson was appointed on “judgement – a judgement that, given the depth of his experience as a former trade commissioner for the European Union, his long experience in politics and his policy and doing politics at the highest international levels, he could do a job for the United Kingdom”.
“We knew this was an unconventional presidential administration and that was the basis on which there was a judgement that we needed an unconventional ambassador,” he said.
Mr Alexander added: “If what has emerged now had been known at the time, there is no doubt he would not have been appointed.”
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