Seven Labour MPs have been suspended from the parliamentary Party after voting against the government on a motion to scrap the two-child benefit cap.

Former Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell MP, said ahead of the vote: “I don’t like voting for other parties’ amendments but I’m following Keir Starmer’s example as he said put country before party.”

He was joined in the rebellion by Apsana Begum MP, Richard Burgon MP, Ian Byrne MP, Imran Hussain MP, Rebecca Long-Bailey MP and Zarah Sultana MP. 42 other Labour MPs abstained.

“Though the majority of Labour MPs who had been pushing for scrapping the cap were on the left of the party, there is support across the party,”  reported the Guardian. “Rosie Duffield, the Canterbury MP, said she would have rebelled to vote for the SNP amendment but was prevented from doing so because she had tested positive for Covid.”

Diane Abbott MP also missed the vote on account of personal reasons, but tweeted that she was “horrified” that colleagues were suspended for six months for voting for what was supposed to be Party policy.

Given the huge majority the government has, the suspension of members for a rebellion on an issue so widely supported is both authoritarian and factional – especially as members of the Cabinet have suggested the government should be open to the idea of scrapping the cap.

Momentum said the suspension was outrageous, tweeting: “Removing the Party whip from Labour MPs for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap is not only an insult to the 4 million children living in poverty, but also an affront to democracy.”

Ahead of the vote, Zarah Sultana MP said: “If the Labour Party has a moral mission, it must be to eradicate child poverty. I join the 11 unions affiliated to the Labour Party and the TUC, which represents six million workers, in calling for the two-child benefit cap to be immediately scrapped. I will vote for it today.”

NEC member Jess Barnard called the suspension of the Labour MPs “an utter disgrace”. Another NEC member, Mish Rahman, called it “complete control-freakery and authoritarianism.”

TUC president and Fire Brigades Union General Secretary Matt Wrack said: “The seven MPs who voted to scrap the cap spoke for millions of trade union members and many Labour Party members. Keir Starmer must restore the whip to them immediately.”

As Politics Professor Philip Crowley pointed out, removing the Party whip from rebel MPs used to be considered a “nuclear option”. He called this suspension both “unprecedented” and “heavy-handed”, saying it completely “changed the rules of engagement”. He added: “It guarantees that the next rebellion will be big – big enough that you can’t suspend them because there will be too many.”

Mirror journalist Ros Wynne-Jones tweeted:  “This is terribly wrong. What happened to ‘understanding the passion’ Labour MPs feel on this issue? Eradicating  poverty is not a weird macho ‘virility’ test, it must be the mission of this government.”

A total of 103 MPs voted for the amendment which was comfortably defeated by the government majority.

But the government response will prove unpopular. Public opinion is supportive of ending the  two-child cap and there is a strong economic case for doing so. Former Labour MP Alan Simpson tweeted that scrapping the cap was “right in principle and affordable in practice. These 400,000 children aren’t in households who bank offshore. The money to feed them will be spent in local shops, and provide local jobs that pay UK taxes. The money-go-round pays the country back as it feeds the kids.”

The campaign to scrap the cap will intensify – as will the demand to restore the whip to these seven committed MPs who put principle before expediency.

Image: British Houses of Parliament. Source: The British Parliament and Big Ben, Author: Maurice from Zoetermeer, Netherlands, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.