13 members of parliament have voted against Prime Minister May’s motion to hold a ‘snap’ general election on June 8 this year.
ADVERTISEMENT13 members of parliament have voted against Prime Minister May’s motion to hold a ‘snap’ general election on June 8 this year.
Who are these 13 MPs voting against a GE? I want to shake them all by the hand.
— Glen O’Hara (@gsoh31) April 19, 2017
May said she wanted political stability going into Brexit negotiations, and a general election is the way she believes that can be achieved.
May’s Conservatives needed two-thirds of all MPs (434 MPs) to agree to the vote, and 522 eventually voted ‘Aye’.
Will Labour vote in favour of a General Election in June and their own destruction? Of course they will.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) April 19, 2017
But nine Labour MPs, three Independents (two of whom are formally of the SNP), and one SDLP (Northern Irish nationalist) MP voted against Prime Minister May.
Of the 13 MPs who voted against the election in June, all have majorities over 3000, except Labour’s Paul Farrelly who only has a maj of 650
— Anja Popp (@Anja_Popp) April 19, 2017
Of the rebels, only two voted for the Brexit bill, and all but two (Graham Stringer and Dennis Skinner) had campaigned to remain part of the European Union.
So who are they?
Labour
Ronnie Campbell has been MP for Blyth Valley in north east England since 1987. Despite being one of only a few Labour MPs to campaign for Brexit, he later voted against the Brexit bill in Parliament.
Ann Clwyd, MP for the Cynon Valley in South Wales since 1984. She also voted against the Brexit bill, though she also campaigned to remain part of the EU.
Paul Farrelly, MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme since 2001 but only after losing by more than 16,000 votes in 1997. Farrelly not only campaigned for the UK to remain a member of the EU, but he defied his constituents by voting against the Brexit bill despite representing an area where over 60 percent of voters wanted to leave.
Jim Fitzpatrick, MP for Poplar and Limehouse since 2001 (after a boundary change. He was MP for Poplar and Canning from 1997). He is the only MP of the 13 rebels to represent a London constituency. He told local press he was shocked by the decision to call an election in 2017. He voted against the Brexit bill after campaigning to remain.
Clive Lewis, MP for Norwich South and among the favourites to usurp Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. He campaigned for the UK to remain, and voted against the Brexit bill.
Fiona Mactaggart has represented Slough since 1997. Again, she was a ‘remain’ supporter and voted against the Brexit bill. She was vice-president of the National Union of Students, and was a teacher before becoming an MP.
Liz McInnes has been MP for Heywood and Middleton (in Manchester) since a 2014 by-election after the death of Jim Dobbin MP. She worked in the National Health Service, and was a local councillor before being voted in to Westminster. She voted against the Brexit bill after campaigning to remain as part of the EU.
Dennis Skinner, MP for Bolsover in the English Midlands is a well-known rabble rouser and vocal backbencher in the House of Commons, earning him the nickname ‘The Beast of Bolsover’. Skinner has been MP for the same Derbyshire constituency since 1970. He voted against the Brexit bill, but like Ronnie Campbell, campaigned for the UK to leave the EU.
Why did we introduce The Fixed-term Parliaments act with elections every 5 years?
The letter of the law is being abused. Del Boy politics.
— Denis Skinner (@BolsoverBeast) April 19, 2017
Graham Stringer, Member for Blackley and Broughton in Manchester since 1997 (notwithstanding a boundary change in 2010. He voted against the Brexit bill, after also petitioning to leave the EU.
Independents
Lady (Sylvia) Hermon, MP for North Down, Northern Ireland. Hermon was first elected as an Ulster Unionist Party, but after the UUP allied with the Conservative party in 2009-10. She is also the widow of the former chief of Northern Irish police. Hermon campaigned to remain part of the EU, before voting for the Brexit bill.
ADVERTISEMENTNatalie McGarry, elected MP for Glasgow East in 2015 as part of the Scottish National Party before becoming independent following allegations of fraud. She campaigned to remain part of the EU, before voting for the Brexit bill.
After PM May said it was “not the right time” for another Scottish independence referendum, McGarry tweeted:
At this juncture my focus is on my constituents and my staff. We still have a lot of work to do to represent those hit by vile Tory cuts.
— Natalie McGarry MP (@NMcGarryMP) April 18, 2017
Michelle Thomson became MP for Edinburgh West in 2015, and like McGarry was originally an SNP MP. She quit the SNP after allegations of ‘irregularities’ related to her but-to-let property portfolio emerged. The police are no longer investigating this case. She voted against the Brexit bill, but did not publically declare her stance during the referendum campaign. Her constituency voted 71 percent to remain part of the EU. Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP)
Alasdair McDonnell, MP for Belfast South, is the second Northern Irish MP to vote against a general election in June. McDonnell has been an MP since 2005, but contested seven elections in the constituency he later won, after losing the 1970 election in North Antrim. He voted against the Brexit bill, after campaigning to remain.