In a bolshy defence of Gordon Brown, David Aaronovich coins an amusing alternative to the phrase “awkward squad”:
It isn’t just the 20 licensed super rebels, specific only to Labour (the Tories don’t have this hard core of perpetually oppositional MPs who get in on the party’s coat-tails and then spend all their time trying to defeat it)
The rise of these rebels is an interesting development in British politics. The phenomenon of these rebellious MPs seems to have occurred as a side-effect of New Labour’s sizeable majority from 1997-2005: The large majorities gave the Blair Government a feeling of invincibility, which emboldened it to make unpopular policies it might not otherwise have attempted… thereby prompting rebellion. Additionally, it also meant Labour MPs could rebel on principle without bringing down the Government. However, as Aaronovich points out, this has changed in the Brown-era, and these rebels threaten to destabilise a Labour Government. People should know exactly who they are - so we can help or hinder them as we see fit.
As a lunch-time example of citizen-journalism, could we conspirators and contributors and commenters compile a list of who these Super Rebels might be? It strikes me as the sort of recieved wisdom that it would be useful to record in one place. May we have suggestions in the comments, please? I will update this post when we have a long-list. Thanks.
I would guess that many of these “super rebels” are fairly long-standing MPs, so to accuse them of “getting in on the party’s coat-tails” seems rather unfair.
You could argue that the rise of the ’super-rebel’ reflects the reality of a party that has rapidly shifted it’s ideological position. Most of the rebels are older MPs with a firm belief in what might be termed ‘traditional labour values’.
Didn’t the Tories under Major 1992-97 have a similar gang of about 20 MPs, mostly long-serving old-timers, who voted against half the things his government proposed (especially Yerp)…?
The best way would probably to use the Public Whip site and find out how many times each MP has rebelled.
Actually, there’s a list here of MPs sorted by rebellion %age.
#4: Quite right. John Major’s “bastards” list, anyone? George Gardiner, that chap who used to wear outrageous stripey blazers, Teresa Gorman et al. Labour’s always had that fringe, too - the tendency to reduce the power of constituency parties to choose their own candidates has probably decreased the percentage of persistent rebels.
As long as they defeat the govt on 42 days I’ll be happy!
Here’s the list according to Question That:
Jeremy Corbyn Islington North Lab 23.9% 74.8%
John McDonnell Hayes & Harlington Lab 22.9% 62.1%
Kate Hoey Vauxhall Lab 22.3% 50.8%
Alan Simpson Nottingham South Lab 18.6% 60.1%
Kelvin Hopkins Luton North Lab 14.6% 85.8%
Lynne Jones Birmingham, Selly Oak Lab 14.1% 75.2%
Robert Marshall-Andrews Medway Lab 13.8% 52.6%
David Drew Stroud Lab 11.6% 79.5%
Mark Fisher Stoke-on-Trent Central Lab 11.2% 72.5%
Glenda Jackson Hampstead & Highgate Lab 10.9% 52.6%
Mike Wood Batley & Spen Lab 10.0% 51.7%
Kenneth Clarke Rushcliffe Con 8.9% 54.8%
Austin Mitchell Great Grimsby Lab 8.7% 44.8%
David Taylor North West Leicestershire Lab 8.6% 87.4%
Frank Field Birkenhead Lab 8.4% 65.1%
Ian Davidson Glasgow South West Lab 7.9% 76.2%
Paul Flynn Newport West Lab 7.6% 64.6%
Ian Gibson Norwich North Lab 6.7% 87.6%
Diane Abbott Hackney North & Stoke Newington Lab 6.4% 67.9%
Roger Godsiff Birmingham, Sparkbrook & Small Heath Lab 6.4% 59.3%
Dennis Skinner Bolsover Lab 6.0% 95.1%
Gordon Prentice Pendle Lab 5.7% 82.8%
Linda Riordan Halifax Lab 5.3% 79.4%
Katy Clark Ayrshire North & Arran Lab 5.3% 87.4%
But the 20th on the list, Katy Clark, only rebels 5% of the time. That’s pretty pathetic. I think Aaranovitch is exaggerating.
Though it’s probably not the simple %age so much as the perceived importance / nature of the issue(s) in each case.
When did Ken Clarke join the People’s Party? I think we should be told.
Ken Clarke has always been pretty cool, for a Tory.
The biggest factor in the rise of the Super Rebels is that New Labour still needs these people. It can only afford to lose so many traditional Labour voters before it will lose seats, and the rebels help persuade such voters to stick with the party and hope for the best. Start driving such MPs out of the PLP, and you’ll end up losing your majority at the next election. This compelled Blair to tolerate serial rebels throughout his premiership (and it certainly made a difference in 2005 - without the rebels offering a token of True Labour, there’d have been Blaenau Gwents across the country) and Brown will do the same unless he’s an idiot.
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