From the start of Elon Musk’s onslaught, Sir Keir Starmer’s position in refusing a new national inquiry into the grooming and rape of girls across England has looked fragile. This weekend that position – and Labour’s parliamentary discipline – will be tested further. That’s because Labour are now away from the Commons, back among their voters.
Labour MPs who find themselves being harangued by angry voters might not be keen to stand up for the PM
One of the defining features of the new intake of Labour MPs is their localism. Most were selected by constituency Labour parties demanding total commitment to the local area and, where possible, a personal connection to the patch. Quite a few of the new intake can say they were brought up in or near the places they represent.
All of them have been elected in a climate that demands MPs act as tribunes of local opinion, responsive to the voters’ whims and preferences. “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays you instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion,” Edmund Burke said about MPs. He would not approve of today’s generation of representatives. But as pragmatic parliamentarians like to point out, Burke lost his seat after that speech.
Some Labour veterans worry that their younger colleagues have promised constituents too much of their time, with surgeries every week and coffee mornings every month, on top of the huge and relentless electronic mailbag. This desire to please and to be seen serving the local population means that starting today, many MPs will be back in their constituencies, meeting voters. If the row about a new grooming inquiry has reached broad public opinion, then those MPs will start hearing directly how unhappy some of their voters are about the Prime Minister’s line on that inquiry.
Tony Benn divided politicians into weathervanes and signposts; quite a lot of politicians today take pride in being weathervanes, moving with the prevailing winds.
If you want an early sign of how public opinion is moving Labour people, note Andy Burnham coming out for an inquiry, a move that will remind the PM of how much he dislikes the Mayor of Manchester, and remind the rest of us that Burnham doesn’t believe his political career will end in Manchester .
In the first six months of this government, Labour MPs showed a fair amount of discipline, especially over complaints about the (justifiable, in my mind) decision to reform winter fuel payments. But that was in the first, sunny months of a new administration. Now it’s January and cold and dark. The polls are grim and financial markets are restive. The seeds of doubt about Starmer and his Chancellor are starting to sprout. Reform is looking healthy and even the Tories are looking a bit less glum.
Overall, Labour MPs who this weekend find themselves being harangued by angry voters wanting to know why they opposed an inquiry into rape and sexual abuse might not be feeling wildly keen to stand up for the PM and his position.
My money is on the PM folding and agreeing to some sort of new inquiry. In many ways, it’s curious that he has resisted. Such an inquiry is likely to show that his own record on the issue as Director of Public Prosecutions is pretty good – while also noting that, for much of the timeframe involved, the government was led by a succession of Conservative PMs who did not order a full investigation. Take that charmless quote from Boris Johnson: “£60m I saw was being spaffed up a wall on some investigation into historic child abuse and all this kind of thing.”
If Starmer does change course and order that inquiry, it won’t, directly, be because of things people write online. It will be because of the conversations his MPs have in their constituencies this weekend.
Isabel Hardman, Natasha Feroze and campaigner Raja Miah discuss the prospect of a public inquiry on the latest Coffee House Shots podcast:
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