This evening, the Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft has resigned as a government whip over the disability benefit cuts. In a letter to Keir Starmer, she writes that she is quitting the frontbench ‘with a heavy heart’, adding:
Foxcroft’s resignation suggests that the rebellion over disability benefit cuts really is quite serious
I have wrestled with whether I should resign or remain in the government and fight for change from within. Sadly it now seems that we are not going to get the changes I desperately wanted to see. I therefore tender my resignation as I know I will not be able to do the job that is required or me and whip – or indeed vote – for reforms which include cuts to disabled people’s finances.
Foxcroft had been – as she pointed out in her letter – shadow minister for disabled people when Labour was in opposition, but was made a whip in government. She was almost certainly destined for higher ministerial office than this at some point. She is also known among colleagues to be someone who places a very high value on loyalty to a leader above everything else, so is by no means the sort of person you would expect to just quit the government on a whim.
Her resignation suggests that the rebellion over disability benefit cuts really is quite serious. While around 100 Labour backbenchers have publicly expressed concerns, ministers have been required to stay silent, and there is a rough law in politics that the number of public critics will end up reducing by at least half when it comes to who is prepared to rebel and vote against their own government. But as well as her own personal qualms about the cuts, Foxcroft will have been well attuned to the mood in the party as a whip, and will have known how difficult a job it would be to persuade many colleagues to go into the ‘aye’ lobbies.
Foxcroft won’t be joining them unless there are major concessions – which many MPs will still be expecting, given Starmer’s tendency to junk policies which become politically inconvenient. But it is significant that someone so close to the heart of the process has concluded that there won’t be any changes.
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