MPs should have more respect for their colleagues rather than ridiculing them

Monday night shouldn’t have happened as it did: a group of Labour MPs roaring at their colleague Emily Thornberry about Trident, then telling journalists all about it. Screaming down fellow Labour MPs and parading internal feuds in front of the media, doesn’t do anyone any favours. It’s a state of affairs that wouldn’t be acceptable in most workplaces.

It doesn’t have to be this way; dispute doesn’t have to lead to all out war and debate doesn’t have to morph into binary arguments. Labour MPs can disagree on certain issues and still work together.

Trident doesn’t divide the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) along gender lines; it would be ludicrous to suggest it does. If reports of Monday’s meeting are anything to go by, women MPs were among those who made their opposition to unilateral disarmament known to shadow defence secretary Thornberry. But regardless of these realities, it doesn’t look good that predominantly male MPs were ridiculing their woman colleague, then briefing predominantly male journalists loitering in the Commons hallway. It looks like a bunch of men were shouting her down and boasting about it.

Trident is undeniably a thorny subject. But the complexities around renewing Britain’s nuclear weapon need to heard properly and viewed in the context of what’s best for Britain’s security. Not least because opposition to renewal isn’t just clutched dearly by the so-called ‘hard left’; calls to scrap Trident come from the likes of former Tory defence minister Michael Portillo, who said it was kept “entirely for reasons of national prestige” and former navy minister David Owen. The political breadth of opposition to nuclear weapons is enough alone to justify debate. If the party are going to have this conversation, they should have it sensibly.

What’s alarming is this: Monday night’s debacle goes way beyond nuclear weapons. It was an embarrassing episode that has become commonplace. A small number of anti-Corbyn MPs are refusing to listen to others and making public their discontent. You don’t win an argument by shouting down the opposition and refusing to engage with them. That’s a sure way to shut down debate, stall progress and prove that you aren’t interested in listening to views different from your own. And yes, this happens on all sides of the debate.

The mark of a democratic party is one where views are heard, not ridiculed. Whether they agree with Thornberry urging them to keep an open mind on Trident or not, the people who were causing a stir should have more respect for their fellow Labour MP.

The small section of the PLP that vociferously attacked Thornberry are intent on shutting down debate and discrediting Jeremy Corbyn. Surely some of these same people were unimpressed when leadership candidates were heckled at hustings over the summer. The irony is gone, and with it the grasp on how democratic politics works.

Corbyn was democratically elected as leader of the Labour Party. No amount of hostility from some MPs should or is likely to change that. It’s getting in the way of the leadership improving and making the changes that need to be made. All of us want to see a Labour Party developing a narrative relevant for the country. The only people benefitting from the openly hostile spats and anti-Corbyn attacks, spearheaded by a small number of MPs, are the Tories. While the growing number of people who are at the sharp end of the cuts are, most certainly, losing.