A LABOUR rebel has said that the party’s duty of care is “severely lacking” after being handed six-month suspension from the party.
Zarah Sultana was one of seven – alongside former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, ex-shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne and Imran Hussain – who were kicked out of the Parliamentary Labour Party on Tuesday night after voting for an SNP amendment to the King’s Speech calling for the two-child benefit cap to be axed.
The now Independent MP for Coventry South told the News Agents podcast on Wednesday evening that neither the Labour whip’s office nor the leadership office had spoken with her since.
“[This] speaks to a wider culture around duty of care, which I feel is severely lacking,” Sultana said.
She also told the podcast that Labour whips refused to give her a bigger office she could pray in.
Sultana previously suggested she was the victim of a “macho virility test” and said she “slept well knowing that I took a stand against child poverty”.
Asked for her view of Prime Minister Keir Starmer following the action, she also told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m not interested in playing up to this macho virility test that seems to be what people are talking about.
“It’s about the material conditions of 330,000 children living in poverty.
“This isn’t a game. This is about people’s lives.”
Although the rebellion was small and the motion comfortably defeated by the Government, opposition to the cap within Labour is not limited to the seven who lost the whip.
Liverpool Riverside MP Kim Johnson said she had voted with the Government “for unity” but warned that the strength of feeling within the party is “undeniable”.
“We moved the dial, the campaign will continue,” she said.
