Labour Party suspends chief jury trial rebel Karl Turner MP

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

2 April 2026

In a further sign of this Government's increasingly authoritarian direction, the Labour leadership has removed the whip from Karl Turner MP, meaning he has been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party and now sits as an independent.

Turner has been the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East for 16 years and a party member since the age of 13. Before entering Parliament, he practised as a criminal barrister, later serving as Shadow Attorney General and Shadow Solicitor General.

Until David Lammy unveiled plans to restrict our right to trial by jury, Turner had never voted against the party whip. Since then, he has led opposition to the proposals from the Labour backbenches, attracting both cross-party support and respect.

Under plans put forward by the Justice Secretary, defendants facing a maximum sentence of less than three years would no longer be entitled to a jury trial. Instead, their cases would be heard in a judge-only court or by magistrates. The Free Speech Union has been campaigning against what it regards as the most sinister assault on English liberty – particularly free speech – in over 800 years. Research published by the Free Speech Union in December found that people charged with speech-related offences are almost twice as likely to be acquitted in a Crown Court, where there is a jury, than in a magistrates’ court.

Turner has described Lammy’s proposals as “unworkable, unfair, undemocratic and unpopular”, and has repeatedly urged both the Government and his own party’s leadership – including his friend, the Prime Minister – to drop them. He has also pointed out that there was no mandate for such sweeping reforms, as they did not appear in Labour’s 2024 General Election manifesto. He has further criticised the plans as “unworkable, ill-conceived and not supported by any evidence”, and said it is “fundamentally dishonest” to blame jury trials for court backlogs.

In a last-ditch attempt to head off a rebellion of up to 80 Labour MPs – which could have defeated the Courts and Tribunals Bill at Second Reading in the House of Commons – Lammy is reported to have offered rebel representation on the Bill committee in return for abstention. Turner honoured that agreement, urging fellow rebels to abstain and seek to amend the Bill at Report Stage. However, the Government Chief Whip, Jonathan Reynolds, then rejected Turner’s nominees, Stella Creasy and Rachael Maskell, effectively reneging on the deal.

It is also reported that Turner’s suspension is linked in part to comments he made in The Telegraph last week, where he accused the Chief Whip of going back on the Government’s word. Turner is said to have learned of his suspension from journalists before receiving confirmation by email from the Chief Whip. He was not even afforded the courtesy of being told face-to-face.

The Chief Whip has insisted the suspension is unrelated to Turner’s opposition to the reforms, pointing instead to the “tone and manner” of his conduct. But this looks very much like tone policing.

This is a pattern the Free Speech Union sees time and again: people are disciplined not for what they believe, but for how they are said to have expressed it. In practice, disagreement is recast as a “behavioural issue”, allowing the substance of the argument to be avoided.

If there is any consolation, it is that this Government has form for withdrawing the whip from MPs over policy disagreements, only to later dramatically U-turn.

Karl Turner has taken a principled stand. Going up against your own party leadership is never easy, but he has done so in defence of our fundamental liberties at a time when they are under threat.

Read more in The Telegraph and see Karl Turner’s statement on X.