In July 2024, shortly after the party he had represented for a decade finally got into government, Labour suspended the whip from Richard Burgon. The MP for Leeds East had, along with six other colleagues, voted for an SNP amendment to the King’s Speech which would have abolished the two-child benefit cap. They were all duly suspended. Now back in the party (the whip was reinstated in February 2025), Burgon is looking on as the government ministers who suspended him may be about to enact the exact measure he and his colleagues called for.
After this week of chaos for No 10 – rife with backroom briefings, leadership speculation and calls for regime change – Burgon feels some exasperation. “If they’d listened in the first place, then they wouldn’t have put themselves in the mess they’re in,” he told me when we met for a drink in Portcullis House on Wednesday afternoon. Burgon is the secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group, a backbench grouping of 30 MPs first founded to support the deputy leadership bid of the darling of the left, the late Tony Benn. “Our call to the government and the leadership and the people around the Prime Minister as well is to learn the lessons of this,” he said, “because whether they like it or not, we’ve been proven right on these things before, and it gives me no satisfaction to say that.”
To Burgon, the mess the Labour Party currently finds itself in – wracked by infighting, and trailing behind the Greens and Reform in the polls – is of its own making. He argues that the treatment of MPs on the left of the party has helped to destabilise Labour, citing the suspensions of Jeremy Corbyn’s former shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, former leadership hopeful Rebecca Long-Bailey and Mother of the House, Diane Abbott. All have had the whip reinstated (except for Abbott) but disquiet over their treatment has lingered.
“From memory, no Labour right MP was suspended under Jeremy’s leadership for their vote or for their political position,” Burgon told me, “and so what we’ve seen is unprecedented in my view in modern times in the Labour Party.” Burgon pointed out that the dial has now shifted, with the events of the past week equating to a “right on right attack”. He described a “culture of fear” within the party, where “backbenchers don’t feel they can stand up for their constituents or come forward with policy proposals and political positions that they think will help us to get out of this crisis.” Burgon added: “There has been – no doubt about it – an unhealthy atmosphere in the Parliamentary Labour Party.”
How can this be resolved? Burgon is clear that the buck does not stop with Starmer. Regime change is needed, but it cannot be limited to a change of Prime Minister. “I think it’s inevitable that if the elections in May go as all the polls suggest, it’s just a matter of political reality that the Prime Minister will be gone shortly afterwards,” Burgon said. But he added that he would be “surprised” if Starmer is pushed out before then. “It goes against the general nature of the Labour Party,” he said.
Who would the SCG support in any future leadership election? Burgon confirmed that the group will certainly consider fielding a candidate. Rumours have swirled that Streeting has been on the charm offensive with his left-wing colleagues – his posts on X celebrating the victory of Zohran Mamdani and attendance at the official opening ceremony of the new Palestinian embassy in London didn’t go unnoticed. But this attempt to woo the SCG doesn’t seem to have paid off. “I can give you an exclusive now,” Burgon said, giggling. “If Wes Streeting stood to be leader of the Labour Party, the Socialist Campaign Group would not support him.”
[Further reading: The left’s plan to retake the Labour Party]
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