I think Kate Hoey is just beyond the pale; she'll soon be joining Clare, I've no doubt. Field should be old enough to know better than to upset the applecart. He'll never make Speaker, if he carries on rubbing people up the wrong way.

I thought this when I heard Frank Field on Newsnight last night almost call for a government defeat. His words were:

Frank Field: "If the Liberal Democrats come off the fence, then the arithmetic changes and I think many more of our colleagues will say it is actually really worth voting for our election pledge and the government will face defeat."

I don't think Frank was treating this as answering a hypothetical question, he is hoping and arguing for this. Am I right in thinking other MPs have had the whip withdrawn for less? 

If you want to see this for yourself, use watch again on the Newsnight website, it is about 27:20secs into the programme (about half way on the slider). The full UPIP/iwantareferendum.com story starts at 25:28secs.

Hoey has been slightly detached for years - but I think to some extent her way of working is in battling authority.

She is loved in Vauxhall constituency for it - I have been out canvassing for her and to all intents and purposes it is the Kate Hoey vote that we were getting out not the Labour vote.

She defines hereself as the outsider: the constituents' champion against the Labour Lambeth council and the Labour government.

She is a very good constituency MP. I'm sure that if she had the whip withdrawn and stood as an independent she would more than likely win the seat without Labour - there are enough social housing tenants who remember how kate sorted out their housing, immigration, benefits or other problem for her to be re-elected. She is also very well liked in Vauxhall CLP - she always turns up for meetings, is happy to help with campaigning and will deal with issues/ problems.

Everyone defines her as 'their' MP so I dont think that withdrawl of the whip will do much to her and would be disasterous for Labour - its better to have her on side as a 'tolerated eccentric' than have her on the outside

 

Galloway was 'expelled for less'

I do admire Galloway for saying British soldiers should be murdered, by telling the Iraqis to 'rise up' against them

If the whip needs to be withdrawn from those who campaign against the party, then so be it.

Kate Hoey will be no loss to us anyway - I've never forgiven her for supporting fox hunting. She'd prefer being in the Tories anyway.

"I don't think Frank was treating this as answering a hypothetical question, he is hoping and arguing for this. Am I right in thinking other MPs have had the whip withdrawn for less?"

I don't think MPs have had the whip withdrawn for less than arguing for a government defeat in a Commons vote, no.

I don't see how that's significantly different than voting against the government - which 150+ MPs have done since 1997 without having the whip withdrawn.

I don't think calling Kate Hoey a Tory makes much sense. She has a strong left-wing voting record on economic issues and trade union rights, which wouldn't make her popular in the Tory party although I accept it doesn't make her very popular within New Labour either.

If we're defining our politics by whether we support not banning foxhunting or the radical victorious position of simply failing to prevent it from happening, we may as well all go home.  

Two MPs stand behind an election manifesto promise.

They are in the right and the nuLabour Govt are in the wrong.

 

 

 

Frank however, I just don't understand him. He makes Blair look like a Bennite.

It is difficult to tell with the amount of corruption in parliament at the moment if the failure of the Labour government to allow the electorate a referendum on the Lisbon EU Treaty is just another example of financial corruption.
It is true that the financial benefits for business and therefore our double dealing MP's are likely to be massive.
Whether it is worth abandoning the electorate and any morals that they might have left in the hope that we will forget by election time is a pretty futile hope.
The fact is that this government will never win another election after selling out Britain to the EU on the cheap.
Every MP is now being targeted on line.
The smother of corruption unfortunately means that the only party with a clean slate for the next election is UKIP.

Lets look at this dispassionately
If Kate Hoey and Frank Field are in an organisation which supports targeting Labour MP's with the aim that they lose their seats at the hands of the electorate, just because of one or two political views they may hold. And if they refuse to leave that said organisation, then yes tey should have the Whip withdrawn.
There are other ways of making your views known and felt. They could for example, resign from the group and put pressure on Pro-Euro Labour CLP's to select other candidates for the Labour Party in those respective seats, but they have decided not to do that and so, sadly, it's a no brainer

Give us strength: Charles Clarke calls Gordon Brown a "ditherer" - apparently as he tucks into a plate of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. (Paid for by the Daily Mail reporter?) Well at least it wasn't a liquid lunch.

Maybe he'd care to join the tories as well? 

And whilst we're on about discipline, how disgusting is it the Km Howells is prepared to pose for a photo op with Columbian Army death squads who have murdered and tortured trade unionists?  

The man is not fit to represent Labour.  

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned that Hoey was the only Labour MP to vote against the Good Friday Agreement, and has opposed every piece of Northern Ireland legislation since then.

I'm not sure her natural home is in the Conservative Party, I can see no difference between her and the Democratic Unionists.