Labour has no room for four MPs after Brexit trade bill vote, says head of pro-Corbyn group

Momentum’s national coordinator has in effect called for the deselection of four Labour MPs who voted with the Conservatives on a Brexit amendment , arguing there was “no room” for them in the party.

Laura Parker, the leader of the pro-Corbyn pressure group, accused Kate Hoey, Frank Field, John Mann and Graham Stringer of having “stood in our way” as Labour tried to bring down the government in a vote on the trade bill that was won with a majority of six on Tuesday night.

Parker said their actions were a “betrayal of millions of Labour voters” and added: “Labour is once again a socialist party that works for the many, not the few and there is no room for Labour MPs who side with the reactionary Tory establishment.”

Senior Labour figures are understood to be exasperated by the four, who consistently vote with the government on Brexit. At one point while voting was taking place after the debate, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, spoke to Hoey, Field and Stringer in the Commons chamber.

The attempt to change their minds proved fruitless. One of the MPs is understood to have told McDonnell that the Conservatives would tear themselves apart over Brexit anyway and that their actions did not matter.

In response to Parker, Field said he voted with the government in line with the “millions of Labour voters and two-thirds of Labour constituencies who voted leave, people who often feel their voices are ignored in Westminster”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Frank Field said he had voted in line with ‘millions of Labour voters and two-thirds of Labour constituencies who voted leave’. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

Party members are also being encouraged to sign a round-robin letter explicitly calling for the four MPs – plus the Luton South MP Kelvin Hopkins – to “never again be allowed to run as Labour candidates”. It adds: “We call on Labour members and their representatives to use all available means to ensure that they are deselected.”



Hopkins, who has had the whip withdrawn pending resolution of a harassment complaint, voted with Hoey, Field and Stringer on an amendment to the customs bill debated on Monday night that had been originally submitted by Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group and accepted by No 10 as being in line with government policy.

The Brexit factions: the winners and losers after customs bill vote Read more

In Hoey’s Vauxhall constituency a party branch passed a resolution on Tuesday calling for the MP to be censured, to have the party whip removed and for the national executive committee to declare her ineligible to stand in future. It is expected to be debated by the constituency party this week.

Last night, Hoey said the censure motion was “no surprise”. She added that “over my 29 years I have been censured numerous times” and said she had long held anti-EU views, and had in the past often voted against EU legislation alongside Jeremy Corbyn when he was a backbencher.

The deselection letter concludes: “MPs have the right to vote with their conscience and against their party whip. But the actions of these MPs in uniting with the Tories and the DUP to prop up a failing government are a betrayal of our entire movement.”

