\n<\/p>\n
Four Labour MPs who lost the party whip in July for being \u201cpersistent rebels\u201d have had the sanction removed, the last of a series of penalised backbenchers to be allowed back into the fold.<\/p>\n
Neil Duncan-Jordan, Chris Hinchliff, Brian Leishman and Rachael Maskell spoke to the party\u2019s chief whip, Jonathan Reynolds, and were allowed to hold the whip again after a review of how they had behaved since the suspension, it is understood.<\/p>\n
The decision to strip the four of the whip came as a surprise and dismayed a number of their colleagues, who saw it as a heavy-handed attempt by Keir Starmer\u2019s Downing Street operation to impose discipline following a humiliating government climbdown on welfare reform the month before.<\/p>\n
All four MPs had been openly critical of several government policies. Maskell, the York Central MP, and Duncan-Jordan, who represents Poole, had spearheaded opposition to the cut to the winter fuel allowance and welfare reforms.<\/p>\n
Hinchliff, the MP for North East Hertfordshire, organised a rebellion over the government\u2019s flagship planning bill, voicing concerns about its effect on nature. Of the suspended MPs, all but Maskell are from the 2024 Labour intake.<\/p>\n
At the same time, party whips removed trade envoy roles from three other MPs who rebelled \u2013 Rosena Allin-Khan, Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Mohammad Yasin.<\/p>\n
In response to having the whip restored, Hinchliff said: \u201cI\u2019m pleased to have returned to the parliamentary Labour party and welcome the constructive discussions I\u2019ve had with the new chief whip in recent months.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs ever, my focus remains on serving the communities of North East Hertfordshire and contributing to Labour\u2019s historic mission to create a society that puts people and nature before profit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duncan-Jordan told the PA news agency: \u201cI\u2019ve been part of the Labour and trade union movement for 40 years, so I\u2019m pleased to have had the Labour whip restored today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll continue working hard for my constituents in Poole and standing up for Labour values \u2013 tackling poverty, raising living standards and building a fairer society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maskell said she was \u201cLabour to the core and will always stand up for Labour values\u201d, after having the party whip restored.<\/p>\n
The MP told the PA news agency: \u201cI will continue to work hard for my constituents in York as their Labour and Co-operative MP.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2024, shortly after the general election, seven other Labour MPs lost the whip for supporting an amendment to the king\u2019s speech calling for an end to the two-child benefit cap, which has been blamed for a rise in child poverty.<\/p>\n
Four of these, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain and Richard Burgon, had the whip restored in January and February. Two others, John McDonnell and Apsana Begum, had it reinstated in September.<\/p>\n
The last of the seven, Zarah Sultana, has cut ties with Labour and is attempting to launch a new leftwing party alongside Jeremy Corbyn, who was re-elected in 2024 election as an independent.<\/p>\n
Sultana is among a handful of other MPs elected last year on the Labour ticket who are still sitting as independents, including Diane Abbott.<\/p>\n
In July this year, in a separate case to that of the four other MPs, Abbott was suspended for a second time after saying she did not regret her past remarks on racism, which had cost her the whip for a long period in the last parliament.<\/p>\n
Abbott had said people of colour experienced racism \u201call their lives\u201d, which was different from the \u201cprejudice\u201d experienced by Jewish people, Irish people and Travellers. She was re-suspended for telling the BBC that her comments \u201cwere factually correct, as any fair-minded person would accept\u201d.<\/p>\n
The other former Labour MPs sitting still as independents are Rosie Duffield, who resigned from the parliamentary party a few months after the election; Andrew Gwynne, who was sacked as a minister and lost the whip after the emergence of offensive messages in a WhatsApp group he was part of; and Dan Norris, who was suspended after he was arrested on suspicion of rape and child sex offences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four Labour MPs who lost the party whip in July for being \u201cpersistent rebels\u201d have had the sanction removed, the last of a series of penalised backbenchers to be allowed back into the fold. Neil Duncan-Jordan, Chris Hinchliff, Brian Leishman and Rachael Maskell spoke to the party\u2019s chief whip, Jonathan Reynolds, and were allowed to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[134,414,2363,18791,1538,559],"class_list":{"0":"post-32591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-labour","9":"tag-mps","10":"tag-rebel","11":"tag-remaining","12":"tag-restored","13":"tag-whip"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}