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A Labor MP has said that the party’s decision not to oppose new restrictions at the Covid level of government made her feel ill and that some 20 colleagues had wanted to vote against the measures.
South Shields MP Emma Lewell-Buck said she would break the party’s whip in a Commons vote on the new coronavirus rules later Tuesday, though it made her uncomfortable doing so.
Keir Starmer ordered Labor MPs to refrain from voting for or against the measures, meaning they are likely to pass despite a considerable conservative rebellion that Boris Johnson is struggling to contain.
Several Labor MPs told The Guardian on Tuesday that while they were willing to vote against the level restrictions, they would either follow the party line or have not decided yet.
Andrew Gwynne, a Labor MP for Denton and Reddish, said he would vote against the measures. Its constituency includes Stockport and Tameside, which have infection rates of 170 per 100,000 and 178 per 100,000, respectively. Like the rest of Greater Manchester, its constituency has been locked up locally for four months, with all indoor domestic mixing prohibited.
A shadow cabinet minister in an area with a relatively low infection rate said Starmer had been pressured to abstain, a decision that has left several party colleagues uncomfortable.
Lewell-Buck said: “I felt a little bad when I saw that we would abstain because I knew that I would have to do what my community considers right and that would be voting against. I knew I would have to break the whip today and that’s an uncomfortable place to be. “
The MP, whose South Shields constituency has been under some of the strictest lockdown rules in England since September, said the hospitality industry was “going to the wall” and that businesses needed more support.
“There comes a point where if you abstain or vote up, you’re saying that you agree with the status quo and that you agree with the approach, and I don’t,” he said.
“My hotel industry in South Shields is collapsing, but there is no evidence to show that infection rates are higher in the hotel industry.”
Cat Smith, MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood and Shadow Minister for Voter and Youth Engagement, said: “When I spoke to my whip over the weekend, it was clear to me that I would not vote for [the restrictions]. I agree with the principle of restrictions. [but] I do not agree with the request as far as my constituency is concerned. “
He said the infection rate in Lancaster was low, but that bed occupancy at the local hospital had remained at 95% for several weeks. He stressed that that figure had not yet been validated, but sources at the local university hospitals of the Morecambe Bay NHS foundation had told him that bed occupancy was now 98%. “We are not out of the woods yet,” he said.
Lancaster has an infection rate of 115 per 100,000 people, according to the seven-day moving average, well below the English average of 168 cases per 100,000.
Kate Osborne, a Labor MP for Jarrow, said she was inclined to vote against the level restrictions but would make a decision after the Commons debate.
He said he would have voted against the measures if Labor had given MPs a free vote: “The reason I’m even contemplating voting against this is because they just don’t have the [financial] support instead and I think that’s unfortunate.
“I am concerned that if we abstain on certain votes like this, is there enough pressure for the government to implement some of the things that are needed around the support packages?”
Osborne said his mail was filled with voters who wanted him to vote against the new level restrictions, which were due to go into effect Wednesday morning, but that others would support them.
Richard Burgon, the Labor MP from Leeds East, described the government’s approach as “recklessly inappropriate” and confirmed that he would vote against the measures.
