Opinion

Brian Feeney: Resignation of Labour MPs has only produced an unwanted distraction

Brian Feeney

Brian Feeney

Historian and political commentator Brian Feeney has been a columnist with The Irish News for three decades. He is a former SDLP councillor in Belfast and co-author of the award-winning book Lost Lives

Labour MPs (left to right) Chris Leslie, Mike Gapes, Ann Coffey, Luciana Berger, Angela Smith, Chuka Umunna and Gavin Shuker announce their resignations during a press conference at County Hall in Westminster, to create a new Independent Group in the House of Commons 
Labour MPs (left to right) Chris Leslie, Mike Gapes, Ann Coffey, Luciana Berger, Angela Smith, Chuka Umunna and Gavin Shuker announce their resignations during a press conference at County Hall in Westminster, to create a new Independent Group in the Hous Labour MPs (left to right) Chris Leslie, Mike Gapes, Ann Coffey, Luciana Berger, Angela Smith, Chuka Umunna and Gavin Shuker announce their resignations during a press conference at County Hall in Westminster, to create a new Independent Group in the House of Commons 

It had been predicted for a long time, but when it finally happened on Monday only seven MPs left the Labour party and none of them a household name. People have been comparing the split to the SDP in 1981 when the so-called ‘Gang of Four’ broke with the Labour party set up their own party.

What a difference though. Monday’s lot are a charisma-free zone compared to the founders of the SDP. As Tim Roache of the GMB union said: ‘They’re hardly ‘The Magnificent Seven’. Roy Jenkins in the 1960s had been one of the great home secretaries, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, then President of the European Commission. Shirley Williams, David Owen and Bill Rodgers were all distinguished figures in British politics, former Cabinet ministers.

Monday’s lot have no leader, no policy, no party and different stated reasons for leaving the Labour party: anti-semitism, failure to support a second referendum, unilateral British nuclear disarmament – what, in 2019?

Chukka Umunna, sounded as if he wanted to set up a party, but the others didn’t. They haven’t even decided whether to apply for public money as a group in parliament. They only point they have in common was antipathy of Jeremy Corbyn.

By contrast the Gang of Four all left the Labour party in 1981 a) because they opposed unilateral nuclear disarmament, an issue forty years ago, and b) they opposed withdrawal from the European Community as it was then, both policies passed at the January 1981 Labour party conference. They set out their position and plans to achieve their objectives. Twenty-eight Labour MPs eventually joined the SDP. The SDP had everything going for them in 1981 and rode high for a couple of years before vanishing in a puff of smoke but not before helping to get Thatcher re-elected in 1983. They failed in their aims. They merged with the Liberals and then became the Lib Dems.

Monday’s lot, the Independent Group, as they call themselves, are going nowhere. None of them will be re-elected. Not a single major figure in the party supports them. Centrists, as they call themselves, even Blairites, have all deplored their move. People like Yvette Cooper, who you might expect to share their views, have stayed put.

Their critics are correct in two points. Choosing this moment to leave, when the Conservatives are tearing themselves apart, some even plucking up the courage to attack Rees-Mogg and his ERG crazies as a party within a party who should join UKIP, takes the pressure off Theresa May and her fictional negotiations with Brussels. They give her a line of attack. Secondly, their departure will hasten the deselection of other Labour MPs hostile to Corbyn, but staying in the party to fight their corner. The enemies of those MPs will step up efforts to get rid of them because they are viewed as disloyal and likely to resign before a general election.

The seven dissidents have produced an unwanted distraction at a crucial juncture with 37 days to go to Brexit. They’ve asked other MPs to join them so, the only question journalists will ask Labour MPs now is whether they agree with the seven and whether they’re thinking of resigning. The net result of that turmoil will be to hand the next election to the Conservative party, a party as deeply divided as Labour but with the hypocrisy to hang together.

You might think it’s bad for here if the Conservatives win another election because they’ve been making exactly the same mistakes they made all through the Troubles. They’re more culpable now because they have the Good Friday Agreement as a manual for good practice but then none of them has read it.

However, the evidence of the past two and a half years is that it would make no difference to this place if Labour won an election. The behaviour of Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer about the backstop and their blandishments to the DUP have been nauseating. Why on earth give any credence to the silly DUP nonsense about constitutional implications of the backstop when Starmer knows it’s not true and Corbyn knows the DUP loathe and despise him with good reason?