Government whips will be overestimating the number of Labour rebels over welfare cuts as a form of “expectation management”, Dame Harriet Harman has said.
Speaking to Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, the Labour peer and former deputy leader shed light on some of the dark arts that have traditionally been associated with government whipping operations – whereby MPs are encouraged to vote in line with the government.
Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are facing a looming rebellion over the chancellor’s decision to impose nearly £5bn worth of welfare cuts, as outlined in the spring statement on Wednesday.
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Dame Harriet said the “first thing” the government whips will be doing is suggesting that the rebellion will be larger than it is – so it looks less damaging when smaller numbers emerge.
“You’ll see floating around that there’s going to be 50 Labour MPs rebelling against their own government within a year of having been elected on a Labour manifesto,” she explained.
“And probably that’s because they think they’ll be considerably fewer than that. And they’re just setting the expectation.”
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Alongside this, Dame Harriet said there has always been talk about whips – who are responsible for enforcing party discipline – “blackmailing people with private information”.
She said that while this used to be the case when she was first elected as an MP in the 1980s, it would not be happening under the current government.
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However, she said the whips will have a “spreadsheet of every single one of the 411 Labour members of parliament because the whips’ job is to get the government business through”.
“They’ll be identifying those who think that they might be at risk of voting against or abstaining,” she said.
“And they will talk to them, and they’ll be reminding them that actually, they really need to be supporting the government and think about the good things the government’s doing – think about the waiting lists coming down in your area.
“Don’t destabilize the government when we’ve only just started, because you know you want to focus the minds of everybody in your constituency on the fact that things are getting better in some areas.
“So they’ll be saying: ‘You promised you’d be voting with the whip. How can you be breaking that promise?'”
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A number of Labour MPs have already expressed their concerns at the changes, particularly following the government’s own impact assessment which stated that around 250,000 families – including 50,000 children – could be pushed into poverty.
Debbie Abrahams, the MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth and the chair of the work and pensions select committee, said: “All the evidence points to cuts in welfare leading to severe poverty and worsened health conditions. How will making people sicker and poorer get people into jobs?”
And Leeds MP Richard Burgon added: “Making cuts instead of taxing wealth is a political choice, and taking away the personal independence payments from so many disabled people is an especially cruel choice.
“A disabled person who can’t cut up their own food without assistance, and can’t go to the toilet without assistance, and can’t wash themselves without assistance will lose their personal independence payment.”
