Keir Starmer suspends four welfare rebels as Labour MPs

Welfare Rebellion had been one of the worst humiliations of Keir Starmer's premiership. These Dickensian cuts belong to a different era and a different party. And wouldn't it be better to withdraw the bill? Yet when he left Number 10 this morning, there was no indication. The PM was about to wield the axe in a brutal attempt to restore party discipline. But he did, suspending four MPs, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Chris Hinchcliffe, Brian Leishman, Rachel Maskell from the Parliamentary Party for voting against the government, and removing the job of Trade Envoy from Rosina Allan-Khan, Bel Ribeiro Addy and Mohamed Yassin. I'm devastated, quite frankly. As I said, and I always have said, I'm a proud Labour Party member. But I will take this on the chin. I will not be changing the sort of things that mean the world to me and what I say down here in Parliament. The action all the more surprising as the government insists that welfare reforms have been improved by the interventions of backbenchers. The Work and Pensions Secretary saying this only this morning. I think we've ended up in the right place now and I think we have a really positive story going forward about how we will work with disabled people. This suspended MP upset but unrepentant. Will this do anything to dissuade you from voting against the government where you think they've got things wrong in the future? My morals, my conscience, that hasn't changed. So of course I will engage on everything because that's the way I do. I always reach in but ultimately I will hold on to those principles tight because when all is said and done, I've got my accountability to think about too. It's not the first time Keir Starmer has acted against backbenchers. Zahra Sultana suspended last July for voting against the government, has said she'll be starting a new party with Jeremy Corbyn. Making an example of MPs doesn't always have the desired effect. Romilly Weeks, ITV News. Well our political editor Robert Peston is here. So look Robert, the Prime Minister clearly stamping his authority with it. It's quite a risky strategy though isn't it? It is. It's also, I wouldn't say comic exactly, but increasing this government feels like an addition of that comedy called The Thick of It. You've just heard the Working Pension Secretary saying that these MPs who protested against her welfare reforms had got the government to the right place. Well Keir Starmer's so grateful that he's thrown them out of the parliamentary party. What's going on is that there is a caucus of officials in Downing Street, all men, all in their thirties, who have this, some would say very macho view that it's Keir Starmer's way or you're out. And they have persuaded the Prime Minister to take really pretty draconian action to throw these people out. The whips, the people who are in charge of party management, I am told, feel very uncomfortable about all of this. Partly because, as you heard from Romilly, actually that dispute about welfare did enormous damage to the coherence of the party and they were just about coming back together. And now, you know, there are some MPs who just think rebelling is out of the question, you've got to be thrown out. But most MPs say when you vote with your conscience that's got to be allowed from time to time. And this is just too draconian and I'm reminded, I'm afraid I'm old enough to have reported on the Blair government, and you know there were lots of rebels in that time. I don't think a single one of them was thrown out of the party. That was a government that won four elections and two successive massive landslides. And some would say the best approach is to be a broad church. Obviously, you know, you don't have to do what your rebels want, but you just have an argument with them, but you keep them within the church.