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The United Kingdom House of Commons on Wednesday grilled Prime Minister Keir Starmer after suspending seven of his own Labour MPs for rebelling.
The suspension resulted from an alleged controversial welfare policy.
Starmer suspended the Labour rebels late Tuesday after they backed a motion demanding the removal of the contentious two-child limit on benefits introduced by the previous Conservative government.
Their votes supporting ending the cap introduced in 2015 and which restricts payments to the first two children born to most families is an early test of Starmer’s authority.
The new UK leader has warned there is “no silver bullet” to ending child poverty but acknowledged the “passion” of MPs who opposed maintaining the policy.
Starmer’s decision to suspend the whip from the group of left-wingers, which included former finance spokesman John McDonnell, was seen as a show of ruthlessness from his new administration.
Starmer will be on his feet in the Commons at 1100 GMT for his first weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session, when the politically charged two-child cap could feature.
Liverpool MP Kim Johnson said she had voted with the government “for unity” but warned that the strength of feeling within the party was “undeniable”.
“We moved the dial, the campaign will continue,” she said.
The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said Labour had “failed its first major test in government” by choosing not to “deliver meaningful change from years of Tory misrule.”
“This is now the Labour government’s two-child cap - and it must take ownership of the damage it is causing, including the appalling levels of poverty in the UK,” he said.
AFP
