Earlier this week, a FactCheck reader took to Twitter to help solve a conundrum:
“Can @skwawkbox, @TheCanaryUK or @FactCheck help – when going against the Party whip, how many times did Corbyn vote WITH the Tories, ie for a vote the Tories were promoting? This might help clarify accusations of double standards…”
During the last Labour government, Mr Corbyn — then a backbench MP — rebelled some 428 times against his party’s leadership in parliamentary votes.
Skwawkbox, who were also asked the same question, replied that “nobody has yet produced an example of [Jeremy Corbyn] voting with the Tories against Labour”.
We’ve found seven examples of parliamentary votes where Mr Corbyn, while still a backbencher, voted with the majority of Conservatives and against the majority of Labour MPs.
Before we start…
This is not an exhaustive list. There’s no quick-and-easy way to find the answer. We spent a couple of hours trawling the “not-for-profit, open source website”, The Public Whip, which contains voting and membership data for MPs back to the 1997 General Election.
Nothing in this list tells us anything about why Mr Corbyn voted the way he did in each case. Philip Cowley, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London, points out that Mr Corbyn is “often voting with [the Conservatives] but for different reasons, like when there is a bill which he objects to because it’s not left-wing enough and others object to because it’s not right-wing enough.”
We don’t know what the whips were saying at the time of each vote. Each of the parties has a team of “whips” — MPs who try to make sure that members vote in line with the wishes of the party leadership. If an MP defies the whips in their own party, they are said to have “rebelled”.
On some occasions, MPs are permitted a “free vote”, on which the whips don’t enforce any particular position. These tend to be on issues of conscience. You can normally tell when there’s been a free vote because there’ll be a more even mix of MPs supporting and proposing the motion from different parties.
We’ve tried to eliminate votes that were obviously free votes from this list. This should mean that the votes listed below are examples of where Mr Corbyn has rebelled against the Labour whip — but we can’t guarantee it.
During the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government
- Mr Corbyn voted against the motion, along with 246 Conservative MPs.
- Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour, with 203 voting for the motion.
- Mr Corbyn was one of three Labour MPs to vote against the motion, along with John McDonnell and Dennis Skinner.
Protection of Freedoms Bill — Clause 3 — Retention of DNA and Fingerprint Information — 10 Oct 2011
- Mr Corbyn voted against the motion, along with 243 Conservative MPs.
- Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour, with 218 voting for the motion.
- Mr Corbyn was one of two Labour MPs to vote against the motion, along with John McDonnell.
- Mr Corbyn voted against the motion, along with 256 Conservative MPs.
- Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour, with 208 voting for the motion.
- Mr Corbyn was one of two Labour MPs to vote against the motion, along with John McDonnell.
- Mr Corbyn voted against the motion, along with 260 Conservative MPs.
- Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour, with 210 voting for the motion.
- Mr Corbyn was one of two Labour MPs to vote against the motion, along with John McDonnell.
During the last Labour government
Deferred Divisions — Social Security — 4 Mar 2010
- Mr Corbyn voted against the motion, along with 147 Conservative MPs.
- Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour, with 238 voting for the motion.
- Mr Corbyn was one of two Labour MPs to vote against the motion, along with David Drew.
Fiscal Responsibility Bill — 5 Jan 2010
- Mr Corbyn voted against the motion, along with 146 Conservative MPs.
- Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly in favour, with 264 voting for the motion.
- Mr Corbyn was one of four Labour MPs to vote against the motion, along with Diane Abbott, Katy Clark and Linda Riordan.
Bill Presented — Fiscal Responsibility — New Clause 3 — 2010 Target — 9 Dec 2009
- Mr Corbyn voted in favour of the motion, along with 145 Conservative MPs.
- Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly against, with 279 voting against the motion.
- Mr Corbyn was one of three Labour MPs to vote in favour of the motion, along with David Drew and Lynne Jones.
FactCheck verdict
A reader asked us on Twitter whether Jeremy Corbyn has ever voted with the Conservatives while rebelling against Labour. One commentator — the Skwawkbox blog — suggested in reply to the same question that this has never happened.
We’ve found seven examples of parliamentary votes where Mr Corbyn, while still a backbencher, voted with the majority of Conservatives and against the majority of Labour MPs.
This is not an exhaustive list and there is no quick way to find this information. We’ve used recent records from The Public Whip, an independent, not-for-profit website.
It’s worth stressing that these records don’t tell us anything about why Mr Corbyn voted the way he did on each occasion. Professor Philip Cowley of Queen Mary University of London made the salient point that Mr Corbyn may have been “voting with [the Conservatives] but for different reasons, like when there is a bill which he objects to because it’s not left-wing enough and others object to because it’s not right-wing enough.”
