Jeremy Corbyn has teamed up with four other MPs elected as independents at the general election to form an ‘Independent Alliance’. This, the former Labour leader was quick to point out, makes the new group the joint-fifth largest in the Commons, sharing that accolade with Reform UK and the Democratic Unionist Party. But in the battle for attention in parliament, Corbyn and his colleagues are going to be disappointed.
What is the point of the Independent Alliance?
Labour’s majority of nearly 180 means that Corbyn’s alliance won’t give Keir Starmer sleepless nights, even if the group has already reached out to the seven Labour MPs who were suspended from the parliamentary party for six months after voting in favour of a abolishing the two-child benefit cap.
The new group will not be entitled to any additional public funding, known as ‘Short money’: the Members’ Estimates Committee makes it clear that a group is only eligible for such funding if it has ‘at least two Members of the House who are members of the party and who were elected at the previous General Election after contesting it as candidates for the party’. An explanatory note emphasises that ‘candidates elected without any party affiliation cannot receive Short money’.
The Independent Alliance – which seems to be styling itself as a ‘group’ rather than a political party – is seeking ‘more parliamentary time to ask questions and speak in debates’. Under the current procedures of the House of Commons, its members are not likely to get what they want. The only parties given particular privileges are His Majesty’s Official Opposition, the Tories, and the third largest party, now the Lib Dems. Twenty days in each parliamentary session are set aside for debates on subjects chosen by parties other than the government, seventeen of which are at the disposal of the Leader of the Opposition and three at the disposal of the leader of the second largest opposition party. No other parties or groups – including the Alliance – get a look in.
Prime Minister’s Questions every Wednesday is also unlikely to grant Corbyn and his new allies any special opportunity to win attention. The Lib Dems learned this the hard way when they were ousted as the third largest party by the SNP at the 2015 general election. Suddenly, reduced to only eight MPs, they had no additional status, and no special consideration. The Independent Alliance finds itself in the same position.
So what is the point of the Independent Alliance? The group has pointed to some broadly left-wing policies on which its five MPs agree: they are opposed to the two-child benefit cap, the scrapping of the winter fuel allowance for some pensioners and to ‘austerity and inequality’. But it seems obvious that what really unites them, and what propelled most of them to electoral victory, is the current conflict in Gaza.
Jeremy Corbyn, Shockat Adam, Ayoub Khan, Adnan Hussain and Iqbal Mohamed are, in effect, an advocacy group for the Palestinian cause. That was what motivated many of them to stand for Parliament and likely induced a considerable number of their voters to endorse them. Their statement declared that their door was ‘always open to other MPs who believe in a more equal and peaceful world’, but it’s hard to imagine that they will expend their energies seeking a lasting resolution to the civil war in Syria, or condemning Chinese aggression against Taiwan and the Philippines, or working for the defeat of al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa.
The Gaza group is, of course, entitled to associate freely like any other collection of Members of Parliament. But Corbyn and his colleagues should be under no illusions: they will not be a significant force in the Commons, partly because of the rules and procedures, but partly because they are so few in number, less than one per cent of MPs. In a joint statement the Independent Alliance said: ‘Millions of people are crying out for a real alternative to austerity, inequality and war – and their voices deserve to be heard.’. It seems unlikely that Corbyn’s gang will give these voters a voice.
