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Dan Carden quits Labour front bench to vote against CHIS Bill ‘as a matter of conscience’

A LABOUR frontbencher resigned from the shadow cabinet yesterday to vote against the highly controversial Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) Bill.

Dan Carden, MP for Liverpool Walton, stepped down as shadow financial secretary over a Bill that would legally allow undercover agents to commit serious crimes such as murder, torture and rape. 

He said he quit as “a matter of conscience” to join rebels voting against the party whip ordering Labour MPs to abstain from the vote, which took place after the Morning Star went to print.

Mr Corbyn said that he was “disappointed” that the College of Policing said “it is not necessarily wrong for undercover officers to form sexual relations with people in order to gain information.”

He said: “This is the kind of world that we are about to approve of unless the amendments that have been put forward are accepted by the government today.”

Amendments have put ministers under fresh pressure to explicitly prohibit undercover agents from being authorised to kill, torture or rape.

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