Six Labour MPs defy party whips to vote for Johnson’s Brexit bill
Six Labour MPs defied party whips to vote for Boris Johnson’s EU withdrawal agreement bill on Friday, and more than 30 stayed away.
Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, winding up the debate on the second reading of the bill, said last week’s decisive election result “doesn’t mean the deal negotiated by the prime minister is a good deal: it isn’t”.
But Emma Lewell-Buck, the Labour MP for South Shields, said she would support the bill “with the heaviest of hearts”, adding: “I don’t want to oppose for opposition’s sake. We need to build consensus and stop the combative nature of this debate.”
Those who did not vote in either lobby included Labour frontbenchers Ian Lavery, Andrew Gwynne, John Healey and Jon Trickett.
Healey and Trickett were among those who expressed scepticism at this week’s shadow cabinet meeting about whether Labour should continue to oppose Johnson’s bill, the Guardian understands.
In a statement on his website published shortly after the vote, Healey said: “In a Brexit referendum and a Brexit election the public have now been clear, and so should Labour: our fight must be about the type of
Brexit and the huge difference between Labour and Conservative visions of our economy. Any question about whether Brexit goes ahead has been closed.”
Johnson won a thumping Commons majority at last week’s general election by promising to “get Brexit done”, and his manifesto included the promise of taking the next step towards leaving the EU before parliament’s Christmas break.
Lewell-Buck was joined in the aye lobby by Labour colleagues Jon Cruddas, Grahame Morris, Toby Perkins, Sarah Champion and Rosie Cooper.
Labour has wrestled ever since the Brexit referendum with how to show that it respected the result, while satisfying its half-million members, the overwhelming majority of whom are pro-remain.
Starmer, who helped to push his party towards adopting a policy of holding a second referendum, told MPs that, as a result of the general election result, “we will have left the EU within the next six months. Whatever side we were on, or no side at all, the leave/ remain argument goes with it”.
MPs were voting on the second reading of the bill – in effect, signalling that they are willing in principle for it to proceed. It passed by a majority of 124.
Several prominent Labour frontbenchers who had previously warned about the risks of the party being seen to block Brexit obeyed the whip on Friday and voted against Johnson’s deal.
These included the potential leadership candidate Rebecca LongBailey, and deputy leadership contenders Richard Burgon and Angela Rayner.
In total, 162 Labour MPs voted to oppose the bill: 32 short of Labour’s complement in the new parliament of 202 MPs, once the six who voted for the bill and the two tellers who count the votes are taken into account.
Labour whips estimated that approximately 20 of the MPs who failed to vote against had deliberately decided to defy the leadership and abstain – with others either paired with Conservatives, or were given permission to be absent.
No disciplinary action is expected to be taken immediately against frontbenchers who disobeyed the whip – and parliament is now in recess until 7 January, when MPs will continue their scrutiny of the withdrawal agreement bill.