Too right say some Labour MPs, this is still a new-ish government and those elected on a Labour ticket ought to be more loyal.<\/p>\n
Others witness the spectacle with a wry smile.<\/p>\n
“They’re public executions!” one said. “It is quite something seeing them removed one by one from the various WhatsApp groups.”<\/p>\n
One suspended rebel said the 20-minute conversation with the chief whip was “frank but cordial”.<\/p>\n
One of the sacked trade envoys told me “I understand why they did it” but described it as “petty and a bit pointless”.<\/p>\n
They had each received a call from the prime minister’s political director Claire Reynolds, who, as it happens, is married to the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds.<\/p>\n
They were told voting against the government on welfare was incompatible with continuing as a government trade envoy.<\/p>\n
It is not lost on those who have been sacked as envoys that they are all minority ethnic and the government has Liberal Democrats as trade envoys too – who are not expected to vote with the government, but nonetheless they are expected to.<\/p>\n
“It is greatest sacking of a role with no salary I have ever known,” one told me.<\/p>\n
“Morale is already down in the dumps among the base, among members and councillors. How is this going to help?” another Labour figure said.<\/p>\n
“I can’t imagine Harold Wilson or Tony Blair doing this. It shows weakness and pettiness,” said a frustrated Labour MP still in possession of the whip.<\/p>\n
The prime minister has been stepping up the amount of time he spends with his MPs, having been bruised by accusations that he is too detached from them.<\/p>\n
He spent a couple of hours in parliament after Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday afternoon, and had lunch with a group of his colleagues.<\/p>\n
His MPs had expected this more softly softly approach, and greater outreach, to be the noticeable difference after the bumpy last few weeks.<\/p>\n
It turns out it is part of the approach, but only part.<\/p>\n
Sir Keir Starmer has to hope this splash of discipline helps soothe and calm his party, rather than relitigating these recent rows.<\/p>\n
Let’s see how that turns out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Too right say some Labour MPs, this is still a new-ish government and those elected on a Labour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-268598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114867131040727364","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}