Labour has restored the party whip to the former shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, and the Poplar and Limehouse MP Apsana Begum, 14 months after they lost it for rebelling over the two-child benefit cap, the Guardian understands.
The pair had the whip reinstated after a conversation on Friday with Jonathan Reynolds, who became Labour’s chief whip in a reshuffle earlier this month.
The pair were among seven MPs to lose the whip in July last year for supporting an amendment to the king’s speech, tabled by the SNP, calling for an end to the cap, which has been blamed for a rise in child poverty.
Four of the other MPs suspended at the time, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain and Richard Burgon, had the whip restored in February.
The last of the seven, Zarah Sultana, has cut ties with the party and is attempting to launch a new leftwing party alongside Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who was re-elected at the 2024 election on an independent ticket.
Both had been hopeful of having the whip back earlier. Begum was first elected in 2019, while McDonnell has held his west London seat of Hayes and Harlington since 1997. He was shadow chancellor throughout Corbyn’s time as leader.
There are still a series of other former Labour MPs who are without the whip. In July, after a widespread rebellion over changes to welfare, Rachael Maskell, Neil Duncan-Jordan, Brian Leishman and Chris Hinchliff were told they had lost the party whip for repeatedly rebelling.
The four MPs had been openly critical of several government policies. Maskell and Duncan-Jordan spearheaded opposition to the cut to the winter fuel allowance and welfare reforms. Hinchliff organised a rebellion over the government’s planning bill, voicing concerns about its effect on nature.
Separately in July, Diane Abbott, who was shadow home secretary under Corbyn, was suspended for a second time after saying she did not regret her past remarks on racism, which had cost her the whip for a long period in the last parliament.
Abbott lost the whip then for writing that people of colour experienced racism “all their lives”, which was different from the “prejudice” experienced by Jewish people, Irish people and Travellers. She was re-suspended for telling the BBC that her comments “were factually correct, as any fair-minded person would accept”.
