Solidarity has argued for radical left Labour MPs to remain on Parliament’s backbenches rather than take positions in Keir Starmer’s ministerial team, so they can better help organise the grassroots activist left and take clear political stands free from the leadership’s restrictions.
We were disappointed to learn that two MPs we have great respect for, Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Nadia Whittome, have taken junior positions – Lloyd as Shadow Minister for Natural Environment and Air Quality and Nadia as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth.
Nadia will be familiar to many readers as a class-struggle socialist actively involved in grassroots initiatives such as Labour for a Socialist Europe and the Labour Campaign for Free Movement, a record she has continued since her election in December.
Those junior positions oblige the MPs holding them to support their senior shadow minister, and to toe the leadership line or risk losing their jobs. Sometimes in the past shadow ministers have been able to keep a left-wing profile by political nods and gestures and choosing to stress the more left-wing aspects of front-bench policy, and occasionally they have been given somewhat greater leeway. It seems likely that Starmer will run a "tighter ship" than Jeremy Corbyn was inclined to.
But in any case MPs really effective in boosting the grassroots left have always been backbenchers, from Aneurin Bevan in 1940-5 and 1951-5 and Tony Benn after May 1979, through to more recently.
We want to see Nadia Whittome, Lloyd Russell-Moyle and others return to the backbenches to play that kind of role. We urge them to continue to take stands for what they believe in, and to strengthen their relationship with struggles, grassroots organising and the internationalist left, even if that causes difficulty in their new positions, as it surely will.
Debate on left MPs joining Starmer's team
See here.