Keir Starmer’s whips office was dealt its first major blow this week when a whopping 69 Labour MPs abstained on a high-profile vote on Chancellor Reeves’ inheritance tax hike on farmers.
On Wednesday the Conservatives used their opposition day to force a vote on Labour’s deeply unpopular plan to tax farmers’ assets over £1million at 20 per cent when they die.
The move prompted 20,000 angry farmers to gridlock central London on November 19, but the government doubled down saying it was a ‘fair and balanced way’ to plug the £22billion black hole.
Kemi Badenoch’s motion to scrap the changes to inheritance tax- widely labelled the ‘family farm tax’- was defeated comfortably by 339 noes to 181 ayes, a majority of 158.
With such a large majority, Labour was never likely to lose the vote.
But as many Labour backbench MPs would not have known of Reeves’ tax hike before her budget, this vote forced them to support or oppose it publicly.
The only other option was to abstain, ie not vote. Commentators often include abstainers when talking about party dissent as by abstaining they are declining to support the government.
Of course, some MPs may have just had more important engagements to attend, but this can’t be true of such a large number of abstainers.
It will be a disappointing result for Labour whips to see such large numbers not supporting the government.
The large number of abstainers also drew furious reaction from voters, with many labelling the MPs as spineless for not standing up for their rural constituents.
GB News has crunched the data and generated a map showing the Labour MPs who abstained on the vote.
Full list of Labour MPs who did not vote:
Rural
Tonia Antoniazzi / Gower
Catherine Fookes / Monmouthshire
Amanda Hack / North West Leicestershire
Chris Hinchliff / North East Hertfordshire
Henry Tufnell / Mid and South Pembrokeshire
Steve Witherden / Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr
Other
Heidi Alexander / Swindon South
Douglas Alexander / Lothian East
Antonia Bance / Tipton and Wednesbury
Chris Bloore / Redditch
Julia Buckley / Shrewsbury
Maureen Burke / Glasgow North East
Liam Byrne / Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North
Dan Carden / Liverpool Walton
Feryal Clark / Enfield North
Lizzi Collinge / Morecambe and Lunesdale
Yvette Cooper / Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley
Stella Creasy / Walthamstow
Alex Davies-Jones / Pontypridd
Anneliese Dodds / Oxford East
Maria Eagle / Liverpool Garston
Sarah Edwards / Tamworth
Patricia Ferguson / Glasgow West
Mary Kelly Foy / City of Durham
James Frith / Bury North
Gill Furniss / Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough
Louise Haigh / Sheffield Heeley
Fabian Hamilton / Leeds North East
John Healey / Rawmarsh and Conisbrough
Meg Hillier / Hackney South and Shoreditch
Leigh Ingham / Stafford
Dan Jarvis / Barnsley North
Diana Johnson / Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham
Kim Johnson / Liverpool Riverside
Sarah Jones / Croydon West
Mike Kane / Wythenshawe and Sale East
Stephen Kinnock / Aberafan Maesteg
Sonia Kumar / Dudley
Peter Kyle / Hove and Portslade
David Lammy / Tottenham
Simon Lightwood / Wakefield and Rothwell
Kerry McCarthy / Bristol East
Pat McFadden / Wolverhampton South East
Alison McGovern / Birkenhead
Jim McMahon / Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton
Ed Miliband / Doncaster North
Ian Murray / Edinburgh South
Luke Myer / Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland
Lisa Nandy / Wigan
Kate Osborne / Jarrow and Gateshead East
Taiwo Owatemi / Coventry North West
Stephanie Peacock / Barnsley South
Jess Phillips / Birmingham Yardley
Luke Pollard / Plymouth Sutton and Devonport
Gregor Poynton / Livingston
Angela Rayner / Ashton-under-Lyne
Rachel Reeves / Leeds West and Pudsey
Jonathan Reynolds / Stalybridge and Hyde
Marie Rimmer / St Helens South and Whiston
Matt Rodda / Reading Central
Tulip Siddiq / Hampstead and Highgate
Cat Smith / Lancaster and Wyre
Keir Starmer / Holborn and St Pancras
Kirsteen Sullivan / Bathgate and Linlithgow
Marie Tidball / Penistone and Stocksbridge
Derek Twigg / Widnes and Halewood
Michelle Welsh / Sherwood Forest
Matt Western / Warwick and Leamington
Steve Witherden / Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr
Rosie Wrighting / Kettering
This comes after a second protest has been confirmed for December 11 in the UK’s four capitals.
Gareth Wyn Jones, Welsh celebrity farmer, has confirmed his attendance, calling for tractors to descend on UK town centres.
The protest organiser Liz Webster of Save British Farming campaign group has said to ‘expect chaos’ and more tractors than last time.
