A Labour MP who was suspended from the party after claiming that Sir Keir Starmer’s former aide Morgan McSweeney lied about his phone being stolen has publicly accused No 10 of trying to smear him by questioning his mental health.
Karl Turner, the MP for Kingston upon Hull East, who has campaigned against plans to limit jury trials, told The Mail on Sunday he had made it clear to the Prime Minister that ‘being principled did not make me mentally ill’.
Mr Turner lost the whip after mocking Mr McSweeney’s insistence that his mobile phone was stolen last October, at a time when MPs were pushing for the disclosure of correspondence that could explain why Peter Mandelson was appointed the UK’s ambassador to the US despite his connections with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr Turner’s description of the former Downing Street chief of staff as ‘McSwindle’ appeared to be the tipping point for No 10 following weeks of criticism.
Chief Whip Jonathan Reynolds said he was suspending the whip ‘following his recent conduct’.
Now Mr Turner has revealed that prior to his suspension he sent a solicitor’s letter to Mr Reynolds, copied to Sir Keir and members of the Cabinet, in which he claimed that senior Government figures had questioned his mental stability and linked it to his rebellion over juries.
The letter said Mr Turner ‘was not and is not mentally ill… challenging the Government both rationally and thoughtfully with integrity was not as a result of failing mental health, but out of doing what he thought was right’.
Sir Keir acknowledged receipt of the letter, while Cabinet ministers, including Rachel Reeves, expressed sympathy in response.
Mr Turner described ‘all sorts of shenanigans going on behind the scenes’ after he first stated his opposition to the jury reforms.
He said: ‘MPs would come up to me and say, “Are you OK?” It was being put about that I was unwell mentally and that is why I was opposing the reforms.
‘Whips do things which are not very pleasant. I met Jonny Reynolds in December, well before the juries debate in January.
‘Reynolds intimated to me that I might be unwell at that point. I exploded at him. It was a very loud discussion.’
Mr Turner said he had a psychotic episode in 2019 and had gone through a ‘difficult period’ last year after briefly separating from his wife, but opposed scrapping juries because it was wrong, not because he was unwell.
He said he clashed with David Lammy after he suggested the Justice Secretary had not done the necessary work to find alternatives to jury trials.
‘David told me, “I’m not putting up with this, particularly not as a black man.”‘
A No 10 spokesman said that there were no grounds for Mr Turner’s belief that the party had tried to smear him.
