Labour MPs have nothing to fear from activists criticising their performance, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has said, arguing that a recent spate of no-confidence motions is little different from what has always happened in the party.
Speaking before an address to the TUC where he will call for more rights for casual workers in the gig economy, McDonnell said he was against attempts to impose mandatory reselection for Labour MPs, but that people should not overreact to two or three incidents at local party level.
“I keep saying to people: don’t mistake democracy for division, because that’s what democracy is all about, people get up and say: this is what I feel,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He dismissed the idea that Labour had been infiltrated by hardliners who were seeking to push out MPs such as Frank Field – who has now quit the party whip – and Joan Ryan, both of whom have had no-confidence motions passed against them by local parties. Rosie Duffield, the new MP for Canterbury, was also threatened with such a move.
“We now have 500,000 members. It’s a huge, mass party now, and of course those members want to get involved in discussions about policy, and also they will reflect at times their view about the performance of their local MP,” McDonnell said.
“And we’ve had a small number of incidents that we’ve seen – two or three – where parties have come together and they’ve expressed concern about the performance of their MP. That’s happened right the way through the history of our party. It’s nothing untoward.” Speaking to reporters later after Treasury questions in the Commons, McDonnell declined to say whether he had sought to intervene to prevent the vote against Ryan. “I don’t want to go into private conversations that I’ve had,” he said.
It was acceptable for local parties to express unhappiness with their MPs as long as it was done “in a way that we’d term comradely”.