Sir Keir Starmer’s jubilation over sealing the UK-US trade deal with President Donald Trump may be short-lived as problems loom closer to home. It now transpires that the Labour Prime Minister could be facing his biggest rebellion yet – as up to a quarter of the parliamentary Labour party flag their frustrations about proposed cuts to disability benefits. Dear oh dear…
As reported by the Times, more than 80 Labour MPs have signed a letter – to be sent to the chief whip at the start of next week – setting out their concerns about welfare cuts, while many more have relayed their worries to government ministers. Next month, politicians will vote on plans to make it more difficult for people to claim personal independent payments (PIP), and the big sticking point for lefty politicians is the fact that MPs will not get to see the full impact of the reforms until after the vote.
More than 80 Labour MPs have signed a letter – to be sent to the chief whip at the start of next week – setting out their concerns about welfare cuts.
In the same vein, 42 MPs have also signed a separate statement in which they conclude that unless there is a ‘change in direction’, the reforms will be ‘impossible to support’. This memo states that while the government ‘may have correctly diagnosed the problem of a broken benefits system’, it has ‘come up with the wrong medicine’. Going on, it reads:
The government’s Green Paper on welfare reform has caused a huge amount of anxiety and concern among disabled people and their families. The planned cuts of more than £7 billion represent the biggest attack on the welfare state since George Osborne ushered in the years of austerity and over three million of our poorest and most disadvantaged will be affected.
Ministers therefore need to delay any decisions until all the assessments have been published into the impact the cuts will have on employment, health and increased demand for health and social care. This is likely to be in the autumn and only then will MPs be able to vote knowing all the facts.
Without a change in direction, the Green Paper will be impossible to support.
Crikey. Yet despite growing tensions in the Labour party over the bill, Starmer’s whopping majority – and the possibility of support from other parties – means the legislation remains likely to pass. And after seven rebels who voted against the party on the two-child benefit cap were suspended last year, there is a feeling in the party that, despite uneasiness about the cuts, Labour MPs won’t want to risk losing the whip. Will this rebellion cause more problems for Starmer’s army or will Labour whips manage to temper backbench grievances in time? Stay tuned…
