120 Labour MPs plan to stand down at next general election

[Sol Invictus]

Toby Helm
Guardian.co.uk
August 9 2009

More than 120 Labour MPs – a third of the parliamentary party – are preparing to quit Westminster at the next general election in the biggest clear-out of the parliamentary "old guard" for generations, according to senior party figures.

Last night, the party released figures showing 63 Labour MPs have already informed Gordon Brown they are going.

Information passed on to party whips suggests this total will rise to some 93 by mid-October, and could then climb by at least another 20-30 in the run-up to a general election, which is expected next spring.

Party insiders say MPs' experiences when confronting voters incensed by the expenses' scandal has added to a sense of disillusion about the job as Labour heads for what many now believe is inevitable, thumping defeat at the next general election.

Many Labour MPs are concerned that their earnings will be pegged back severely if pressure mounts over coming months to stop them taking second jobs in order to supplement their £64,766 salaries.

One senior Labour figure said: "The total will go well over 100, probably to 120. After 12 years in power, Labour MPs do not want to be in opposition for a decade bound by rules that prevent them realising their earning potential." Andrew MacKinlay, a Labour backbencher who recently announced he was quitting, said: "A lot more will go, I am sure. It will probably reach 120. That should be the high-water mark."

Labour MP Barry Sheerman told a private meeting of backbench MPs last month that the party could face mass resignations if discontent with Brown's leadership deepened. "If we are not careful, a number of MPs could leave their seats in the coming weeks and months and cause byelections because they are fed up with what is going on – and then we would be in real trouble."

Full Article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/09/labour-mps-quit-election)

[Liffrea]

A few weeks ago I would have said they wouldn’t have been given much choice in the matter, Labour will be dead and buried anyway by the Tories, but given how the other half of tweeedle dee and tweedle dumb seem to be trying their hardest to make sure Labour wins a fourth term, I’m not so sure.

[Loki]

I'm not very happy with the Tories taking the lead. Labour screwed up, and now everyone's jumping ship to the Tories. The Tories will also screw up, in other ways ... perhaps even more devastating than Labour. Tories are just as pro-immigration and pro-race mixing/destruction of British culture as Labour, they're only more sly about it -- and the ones who will suffer under their reign are the poor whites.

[Liffrea]

Labour and Conservatives are, essentially, the same party in outlook and ideology, differing at most in semantics.

This isn’t a new phenomenon.

British politics has largely been the dominance of a small aristocratic (not necessarily landed) elite since the mid to late 19th century. In truth the UK has never been a democracy in any real sense of the word, nor has there ever been much call for one either, what passes for elections in this country are a minor blip on the administration.

When Labour first began to appear on the political radar, they were potentially the first real upset to British politics since the chaotic period of the last half of the 17th century, they were reasonably quickly absorbed into the political mainstream to the point that they are unrecognisable from their ideological roots (largely socialist). They have become a vehicle for various extreme “Left” (I generally don’t like to play the left vs right game in politics it’s just a sop drawing attention away from the real issue) elements, but then so have the Tories, a far different animal from even Churchill’s day.

Personally I think the next election will be a record low turn out, but whether that’s because people are now wise to the nature of government in the UK or it’s the effective stirring of discontent over MP’s expenses and the like will remain to be seen. Certainly the Establishment seem to be doing their level best to turn people against our traditional parliamentary “democracy” would be interesting to see just how much they are being paid by various elements in the new emerging EU oligarchy.