What is the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill, and why is it a problem for Keir Starmer?

Boris Johnson seems to be trying to tempt Labour into opposing laws that the government says are needed for national security, writes John Rentoul

Keir Starmer has to decide how Labour should vote on the spy powers bill next week (Getty)

Keir Starmer has “done more to smash the left in six months than Neil Kinnock did in six years”, one observer of internal Labour Party politics told me – and he’s been able to do it “because there are no meetings”. The coronavirus crisis means no meetings of local parties, and no physical gathering for annual party conference. 

That means that, every time the Labour leader makes a decision that upsets Momentum, the faction set up by supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, the response is muted. 

The one place where resistance continues to be vocal and visible, however, is the House of Commons, where Labour MPs belonging to the Socialist Campaign Group speak out against the leader and defy his instructions about how to vote. 

Two weeks ago, 18 Labour MPs defied the whip to vote against the Overseas Operations Bill, and this week 20 opposed the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill. In both cases, Starmer had asked his MPs not to vote, because, while he thinks there are problems with the bills, he does not want Labour to be portrayed as being against the armed forces or the intelligence services. 

For the Socialist Campaign Group, including Corbyn himself, this brings back memories of the founding moment of Corbyn’s leadership: Harriet Harman’s decision as acting leader in 2015 to ask Labour MPs to abstain on the welfare bill, which brought in a two-child limit for universal credit payments. 

Corbyn and the pure of heart were having none of the sophistry of parliamentary tactics. Harman asked them to abstain at the preliminary stage, so that it didn’t look as if Labour were against the idea of saving public money on welfare payments in all cases – especially as it had just lost an election to a party promising to make big cuts. They could all vote against the bill at its final stage, which Labour did (a part of the founding myth of Corbynism that is usually overlooked). 

Anyway, we are back with the sophists and the impure of heart, otherwise known as tactical politicians determined to minimise the chances for Labour’s enemies to portray the party as out of touch with the values of the voters whose support it seeks. So Starmer asked his MPs to abstain on the preliminary vote on the Overseas Operations Bill, a tawdry piece of legislation designed to make it look as if the government cares about soldiers being chased through the courts repeatedly for alleged offences from long ago. 

And this week he asked them to abstain on the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill, although it was a one-line whip to abstain, which more or less allows MPs to do what they like. Anyway, what Corbyn and John McDonnell and the rest of the tiny cabal that ran the party until six months ago liked was to posture in moral purity and vote against the bill. 

The bill is in fact something that was demanded by civil libertarians, because it seeks to set out protections for undercover informants working for the police and MI5 if they break what would otherwise be the law. But the Socialist Campaign Group complain that the bill is vague about the safeguards to exclude murder, torture and sexual violence. 

Until recently, McDonnell argued that the Socialist Campaign Group and its supporters should avoid criticising Starmer in order to avoid “the left” being marginalised. But yesterday he said it had been a “mistake” for Starmer to ask his MPs to abstain, and urged the leader to allow a free vote when the bill comes back to the Commons for its final stages next Thursday. 

McDonnell is probably right when he accuses the government of “playing politics” with the bill, trying to tempt Labour into voting against something that purports to give the police and security services the powers they need to fight terrorism. But the question is: will Starmer fall into that trap, or will he risk an even bigger rebellion among his MPs? We will find out on Thursday.