Third U-turn in a month leaves Keir Starmer diminished
After his third U-turn this month, Keir Starmer will hope he has done enough to avoid a humiliating first Commons defeat as prime minister on Tuesday, even if he is now a diminished figure in front of his party and the country.Over Wednesday night and Thursday, Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and the deputy PM, Angela Rayner, sat down with leading rebels and agreed a series of changes to the government’s welfare bill that ministers hope will be enough to get it over the line.Those changes are likely to be significant enough to win over the support of dozens of moderates who had signed an amendment that would have put the bill on hold indefinitely.But they have damaged the prime minister’s reputation for embracing tough reforms, and his chancellor’s reputation for fiscal probity.The health minister Stephen Kinnock said on Friday: “Keir Starmer is a prime minister who doesn’t put change and reform into the too-difficult box.
He actually runs towards it and says: ‘Right, how do we fix it?’ And I’m sure that that’s what will be foremost in people’s minds on Tuesday,”Others in his party disagree, however,“Keir will have to change his approach now,” said one senior Labour MP,“He and his advisers have spent the first year in government riding roughshod over Labour MPs,He’s realised now he can’t do that any more.
”This is the third time the prime minister has reversed course in recent weeks in the face of pressure from outside.Earlier this month his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced she was undoing most of the cuts to winter fuel payments after a sustained political backlash.Just over a week ago, the prime minister told reporters on the way to the G7 in Canada that he was dropping his opposition to a national inquiry into grooming gangs after one was recommended by Louise Casey.And on Friday, the Observer published an interview with Starmer in which the prime minister admitted to other regrets too.They included hiring Sue Gray as his chief of staff and warning in a recent speech on immigration that the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers”.
But it is this week’s decision to change key parts of the welfare bill that could prove the most expensive regret of all.Ministers will now limit their cuts so they only apply to new claimants and have also promised to lift the health element of universal credit in line with inflation.Along with promises to increase spending on back-to-work schemes and to redesign the entire system of personal independence payments (Pips), the Resolution Foundation estimates the entire U-turn could end up costing £3bn.Reeves will set out the full costs of the package, and how she intends to pay for them, in the budget in the autumn.Sign up to Headlines UKGet the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morningafter newsletter promotionBut it is not just the cost of the immediate changes that Reeves will have to measure.
Now that she and the prime minister have developed a reputation for changing course in the face of backbench resistance, the chancellor is likely to come under heavy pressure over other issues that Labour MPs care deeply about.Meg Hillier, the Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, said on Friday that the prime minister would now have to listen more carefully to his parliamentary colleagues.“There is huge talent, experience and knowledge in parliament, and it’s important it’s better listened to.And I think that message has landed,” she said.Top of many Labour MPs’ wishlist is an end to the two-child benefit cap.
Starmer agrees on the importance of removing that cap but doing so would cost as much as £3,6bn a year by the end of the parliament,This is why, as the government’s spending commitments grow, ministers are refusing to rule out tax rises this autumn,As Starmer has found out this week, angering nearly a third of your MPs is a costly business,
Free speech target or terrorist gang? The inside story of Palestine Action – and the plan to ban it
If this interview had taken place in a week’s time, Huda Ammori might have been arrested. If this interview had been published in a week’s time, the Guardian might also have been breaking the law.Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, said she was finding it “very hard to absorb the reality of what’s happening here”. She said: “I don’t have a single conviction but if this goes through I would have co-founded what will be a terrorist organisation.”By “this” she means the UK government’s hugely controversial proposal to ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws, placing it alongside the likes of Islamic State and National Action – the first time a direct action group would be classified in this way
Starmer still faces Labour anger over risk of ‘two-tier’ disability benefits
Keir Starmer is battling to stem the revolt over his cuts to disability benefits, with about 50 Labour MPs concerned the new concessions will create a “two-tier” system where existing and new claimants are treated differently.Senior government sources insisted things were “moving in the right direction” for No 10, with the whips phoning backbenchers to persuade them to support the bill on Tuesday.Government insiders said they believed they had peeled off enough of the original 120-plus Labour opponents of the legislation to win the vote, after the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, promised to exempt current disability claimants from the changes, and to increase the health element of universal credit in line with inflation.However, rebel MPs will attempt to lay a new amendment on Monday giving colleagues a chance to delay the bill, which will still involve £2.5bn of cuts to future disability benefits
UK politics: Starmer says welfare concessions are ‘common sense’ but dodges funding question – as it happened
Keir Starmer has described the compromise welfare bill proposals announced overnight as “common sense” and as striking “the right balance”.Speaking to reporters on a visit, he said:It’s very important that we reform the welfare system, because it doesn’t work and it traps people, and therefore we’re going to press ahead with the reforms. And the principles are if you can work, you should work. If you need help getting into work, you should have that help and support. But if you can’t work or there’s no prospect of work, then you must be protected
Keir Starmer says he ‘deeply regrets’ island of strangers speech
Keir Starmer has said he “deeply regrets” a speech in which he described the UK as being in danger of becoming an island of strangers without tough curbs on immigration.In an interview with the Observer, the prime minister said he should have read the speech more carefully and “held it up to the light a bit more”.The speech, delivered in May to unveil Labour’s immigration policy, was criticised for seeming to echo Enoch Powell’s infamous 1968 “rivers of blood” speech in which Powell claimed Britain’s white population would be “strangers in their own country”.After the speech, Starmer’s official spokesperson said the prime minister “absolutely stands by” his language, including claims that mass immigration had done “incalculable damage” to the British economy.However, in the interview with his biographer Tom Baldwin, Starmer said: “I wouldn’t have used those words if I had known they were, or even would be, interpreted as an echo of Powell
Stephen Kinnock stares into the abyss as he carries can for welfare U-turn | John Crace
You could have heard the cries of despair coming from Stephen Kinnock’s house from the other end of the street. He had been safely tucked up in bed when he got the message from No 10 that the government was doing the mother of all U-turns on the welfare bill. The third U-turn in a month or so and by far the biggest yet.It was Kinnock’s bad luck that he had been booked to do the government’s morning media round. He had been told it would be a doddle
No 10 climbs down over welfare bill in move to win over Labour rebels
Downing Street has announced major changes to its welfare bill in an attempt to win the support of more than 120 Labour rebels who had threatened to vote against it next week and hand Keir Starmer a damaging first defeat as prime minister.Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, wrote to Labour MPs on Thursday night to lay out the concessions, which were thrashed out over 24 hours of negotiations between senior rebels and government officials.The compromises, revealed by the Guardian on Thursday, include exempting everyone currently receiving disability benefits from the changes, and increasing the health element of universal credit in line with inflation.Kendall said she would bring forward a more fundamental review of the personal independence payment (Pip) system and increase the amount of money to be spent on back-to-work schemes. Ruth Curtice, the head of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said the changes would cost about £3bn and would probably be paid for by tax rises
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