Keir Starmer urged to not pack Lords with cronies | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Stuff the House of Lords with Labour cronies would ship a “terrible signal to the public”, Sir Keir Starmer has been warned.

The Labour chief has been urged to withstand the temptation to pack the Lords with supportive friends if Labour wins the subsequent election.

Labour has far fewer friends than the Tories and is barely the third largest grouping within the Upper Chamber. Campaigners have referred to as on him to scrap the Lords because it exists right this moment and exchange it with an elected physique.

Sir Keir pledged in the course of the Labour management contest to “abolish the House of Lords” and “replace it with an elected chamber of regions and nations”. And in 2022 he reportedly advised friends he wished to strip politicians of their energy to nominate Lords.

But a Labour Government can anticipate stiff opposition to its insurance policies in a Lords the place there are 275 Tories, 179 cross-benchers and simply 172 Labour friends. Sir Keir could properly come beneath stress to redress the steadiness.

A Labour insider mentioned: “We have had so many Tory prime ministerial resignation lists that Labour is now only the third largest group in the House of Lords. For Keir Starmer to achieve his reforms he is going to have to put the numbers on equal footing in the Lords.”

They mentioned solely when he has performed this can he have adequate assist within the Lords to take away the 92 hereditary friends.

During Tony Blair’s decade in energy, 162 Labour friends have been appointed. David Cameron created 110 Tory friends between 2010 and 2016.

Darren Hughes, chief govt of the Electoral Reform Society, urged Sir Keir to introduce radical reform.

He mentioned: “Labour’s pledge in 2022 to abolish the unelected House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber was a much-needed and long-overdue proposed reform. The current Lords is already embarrassingly bloated with around 800 members, making it the second largest legislative chamber in the world after China’s National People’s Congress.

“The scandals surrounding peerages in recent years have also done little the help public trust in politics. It would send a terrible signal to the public if it were to be stuffed with yet more peers after the election unless it was as a prelude to serious democratic reform of the upper chamber.

“The best way to clean up our politics and restore trust is by replacing the Lords with a smaller elected chamber where the people of this country, not prime ministers, decide who shapes the laws we all live under.”