Has Labour's rebellion weakened Keir Starmer?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 November 2023
⏱️ 41 minutes
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Summary
Jess Philips - one of the 8 frontbenchers who voted against the Labour whip last night - gives her first interview to us since resigning last night from her position as Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding- to 'vote with her constituents and her heart'.
Will this damage party morale and weaken Keir Starmer?
Or will it show a different side to the politics of disagreement?
Also, Rishi Sunak is undaunted by yesterday's excoriating judgmenet from the Supreme Court, making his Rwanda plan unlawful. He's got a new plan though don't worry! But will it actually get off (quite literally) the ground?
Editor: Tom Hughes
Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus
Social Media Editor: Georgia Foxwell
Video Producers: Jack McKay & Arvind Badewal
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.9 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.6 | Order. Order. |
| 0:19.3 | The eyes to the right, 125. the nose to the left, 293. |
| 0:27.1 | A few ooze and ours, because that was the Commons vote last night, which showed that a considerable number of Labour MPs had rebelled against Kirstama on the motion |
| 0:41.1 | of whether there should be a ceasefire in Gaza, not the Labour leader's position. He wanted |
| 0:48.2 | a humanitarian pause. The SMP called for a ceasefire and dozens of Labour MPs voted with the SMP on that. |
| 0:58.1 | I guess one of the questions is whether Kirstama, who knew that there would be a substantial rebellion on this, |
| 1:04.3 | had to whip that vote, had to, in other words, tell his MPs that they had to vote a certain way. |
| 1:12.8 | In the end, he came down on the side of what he calls leadership. He wanted to make clear his position not to call for a ceasefire, |
| 1:18.8 | and if people in front bench, junior ministerial positions, vote against it, they would lose |
| 1:25.6 | their jobs. So the headlines this morning are damaging rebellion. |
| 1:31.1 | But has it really been that damaging? Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:38.4 | The news agents. It's John. It's Emily. Oh, and it's a frog. |
| 1:45.1 | It's John, it's Emily, and a frog in the throat of Emily Maitlis that was uninvited. |
| 1:50.6 | We've got to start with last night, the vote in the Commons, and potentially the headlines, |
| 1:57.4 | catastrophic for Kiyah Stama. |
| 1:59.8 | Of course, catastrophic in the context of what had just happened to the |
| 2:04.1 | government in the Supreme Court, which we're going to come on to later in the podcast. |
| 2:08.8 | More than a quarter of his MPs voted against the Labour whip, i.e. Keir Stama says, |
| 2:15.9 | I want you to do this. More than 50 MP said, I'm not going to do it. |
| 2:20.3 | On the face of it, that looks a rebuff for Kirstama. But I'm not sure it was. |
... |
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