Why I voted against whip over the Welfare Bill

I will always put the people of Lancaster and Fleetwood first when I vote in Parliament, because in my eyes the tens of thousands of constituents are my bosses.

This won’t be an easy task. It’s near impossible to please everyone all the time, yet this is what I was thinking of when I broke my Party whip by voting against, not abstaining, at the second reading of the Welfare Bill in Parliament. This was my first vote against the whip, and a decision I thought long and hard about, but it was the right one.

While campaigning in May voters said they weren’t sure what Labour stood for, that they couldn’t tell the difference between Labour and Tory. Now, for me, the difference between Labour and Tory is clear. But it is decisions like this, to abstain, rather than oppose the Government’s welfare bill that will hurt many people, who ‘earn their poverty’ and lead people to question what Labour stands for and who it stands with.