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“What an absolute bloody shambles!”
This frank assessment from a Labour MP, now willing to support Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s welfare proposals, underscores the significant anger this issue has generated and continues to fuel.
Many remain dissatisfied, either advocating for further revisions or planning to vote against the measures.
“It is not the resolution lots of people want. They are tinkering with a broken bill,” another MP stated.
Following a backbench rebellion against the government’s proposed welfare reforms, the prime minister conceded that stricter criteria would apply only to new claimants.
“Clearly some at least will have been pacified by the concessions but there are still very significant numbers” of opponents, according to a third MP, who added that “it shouldn’t be underestimated the potential effect of a weekend of emails from constituents, constituency surgeries etc.”
Debbie Abrahams, Labour MP and chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, told the BBC: “The concessions are a good start, they are very good concessions and they will protect existing claimants. However there are still concerns about new claimants. It would not be right for me not to do anything just to spare the prime minister an inconvenience.”
Her stance suggests she remains unconvinced.
Notably, Disability Labour, identifying itself as “an independent socialist society affiliated to the UK Labour Party,” continues to urge all MPs to oppose the plans.
The prevailing sentiment within the Parliamentary Labour Party will be closely monitored leading up to Monday.
Evidently, many Labour backbenchers feel deeply aggrieved.
One MP characterized Downing Street’s attitude: “They see us as an inconvenience, people to manage, not to listen to. When we are invited into No 10, and it doesn’t happen often, it is to be told what to think.”
Candid assessments of the prime minister and his Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, are readily available.
Concerned MPs report that the whips, responsible for party discipline, have conveyed backbench concerns to Downing Street.
“They either didn’t think about it or didn’t think new MPs would have the balls to stand up to them,” one MP reflected.
Another posited, “Perhaps this is the moment they finally get it, and they get better at talking to us, and listening.”
Others worry that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s commitment to her self-imposed fiscal rules will perpetuate a pattern of seeking cuts.
Some believe that a new chancellor is the only long-term solution. Senior government figures argue that Starmer and Reeves embody the modern Labour Party in government, and that demonstrating fiscal responsibility through Reeves’s rules is paramount.
Those close to the prime minister will welcome the week’s end, hoping they have chosen the least damaging approach to address the internal dissent over welfare.
They may also reflect on the government’s first year in office.
Next Friday marks the first anniversary of the general election and Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.
To mark the occasion, he granted an interview to his biographer, journalist and former Labour Party Director of Communications Tom Baldwin, in The Observer.
In the interview, Sir Keir expressed regret for his pessimistic tone last summer and for stating that “the damage” done to the country by immigration in recent years “is incalculable.” He also stated that his remark that immigration risked turning the UK into an “island of strangers” was a mistake and repudiates much else of the political strategy of his first year in office.
After a week spent attempting to repair relations with the Labour Party’s left and centre-left factions, this interview has managed to alienate even his allies.
“Outrageous,” “weak,” and “totally lacking in moral fibre” were among the criticisms leveled by Starmer loyalists.
There is particular resentment over the perception that he is sacrificing his closest aides.
A senior government source stated they were too angry to comment.
The situation creates the impression that the prime minister can currently do nothing right.
It also raises broader questions about the prime minister’s core beliefs.
If his remarks on immigration were a mistake, what are his true views?
Defining his position in his second year in office, along with avoiding missteps, will be crucial.
Steve Witherden says the new two-tier system still means huge benefit losses for disabled people.
As the PM marks a year in office next week – which he will spend grappling with crises – British politics finds itself at an inflection point
Simon Case says ministers “weren’t good enough at communicating” in the early days of the Labour government.
Keir Starmer has been personally calling some Labour MPs to win them over ahead of a vote next week.
The prime minster and his team are trying to repair relations with backbenchers over welfare cuts.
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