Spiteful Starmer suspends MP who criticised jury reforms

Keir Starmer has suspended Karl Turner MP after the latter made several criticisms of the Labour government. It also follows an interview Turner gave to independent journalist and Canary contributor Jody McIntyre:

🚨 BREAKING: Karl Turner MP has had the Labour whip suspended after criticising the Government's reforms to jury trials

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) March 31, 2026

Starmer crushing dissent

Politics UK added:

It’s understood several Labour MPs raised concerns about a recent interview Turner gave to activist Jody McIntyre, who stood against Jess Phillips at the last election

Turner said: “I am being told that I have had the whip suspended but I have not had any notification from the whips about this. It seems journalists have been told but I have not”

Providing further context, they said:

Update: It’s understood Turner was told by the Chief Whip earlier today via email.

McIntyre published his interview with Turner on X/Twitter. As we reported at the time, the interview related to Starmer’s ex-chief of staff Morgan McSweeney:

This morning on Sky News, Keir Starmer said that it is “a little bit far-fetched” to think that McSweeney could have known that “sometime in the future there would be a request for the phone”.

Labour MP Karl Turner told me this morning that the statement is “absolute bollocks”. pic.twitter.com/ANxfikYWai

— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) March 26, 2026

Turner, the MP for East Hull, told me: “There are messages on there, probably slagging off the PM.”

He described McSweeney’s “antecedence for dishonesty”:

“He was chasing down journalists for being journalists! You can’t trust the bastard without interrogating every detail.” pic.twitter.com/KE6mpMfSd9

— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) March 26, 2026

Labour’s Karl Turner alleges that Morgan McSweeney is “still running the job” in the background, and that several MPs are “very angry” about the situation.

Turner added that Starmer’s work as head of the CPS “ought to show him that McSweeney’s version of events is not credible”. pic.twitter.com/zXPO4w2miP

— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) March 26, 2026

Labour MP Karl Turner told me he doesn’t believe McSweeney’s story:

“If I lost my phone, I’d be calling Shabana direct. I’ve f***ed up, I’ve got messages slagging off x, y, + z, and I don’t want them on the front pages.

Every police officer in the area would be notified, FACT!” pic.twitter.com/yYVn42CSGn

— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) March 26, 2026

I report on the stories mainstream media cannot.

My journalism is funded by my generous readers. If you value my work, please consider making a donation: https://t.co/SgLnupRJib

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Follow @jodymcintyre_ for more.

— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) March 26, 2026

The following tweet from 29 March suggests the whips may have approached Turner before now (that or he was being sarcastic):

I got the memo now. Morgan McSweeney was mugged, reported that to the police, followed all the processes. Any questions around this is just conspiracy theory territory, really. Let’s move along now. 🤷🏼‍♂️

— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) March 29, 2026

Elsewhere, Turner has indeed criticised Labour’s plans to end trial by jury as a universal right:

Yes, we committed to specialist court in our @UKLabour manifesto. We did NOT commit to doing away with the right to elect jury trial in serious criminal cases which can result in imprisonment for 3 years on conviction. https://t.co/WWHCB5AaNp

— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) March 30, 2026

.@MoJGovUK Ministers including @DavidLammy have been pretending that Sir Brian Leveson blames the backlog in Crown Courts on jury trials when in fact he never has. Sir Brian confirmed as much in evidence before the Public Bill Committee today. https://t.co/lmkMiGTK5G

— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) March 25, 2026

30 charitable organisations wrote to ⁦@DavidLammy⁩ warning him of the risks of ‘undermining justice’.Two of those orgs have apparently said they want to retract from that letter after meeting Ministers, why? https://t.co/H0MdwjYFIz

— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) March 25, 2026

Turner has previously threatened to step down and force a by-election in protest over the government’s position on jury trials.

What changed?

McIntyre has also criticised the government plans, writing for the Canary:

On 10 March, the Labour government’s bill to restrict access to jury trials, a right enjoyed by English citizens for over 800 years, successfully passed its first reading in the houses of parliament.

As previously reported, the Minister for Courts, Sarah Sackman, announced plans for many criminal cases to be heard by only a judge and a magistrate, in order to reduce a backlog of ten of thousands of cases.

This is despite that fact that, in 2017, now justice secretary David Lammy concluded that juries “act as a filter for prejudice”, following an independent review commissioned by then prime minister David Cameron. In 2020, he said:

Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea… The government needs to pull their finger out and acquire empty buildings across the country to make sure these [trials] can happen in a way that is safe … you don’t fix the backlog with trials that are widely perceived as unfair.

Now, Lammy wants to get rid of them.

My investigations reveal that this erosion of democracy has been shaped by Lammy and Sackman, two pro-Israeli lawyers-turned-politicians, who have both been captured by lobbyists and arms traders.

If Labour have suspended Turner for his opinions on trial by jury, then they’ve suspended him for holding an opinion which was Labour orthodoxy until recently.

In other words, it’s another sign that Labour under Starmer are lurching towards crushing dissent.

Featured image via Downing Street (Flickr)