March 14, 2025 - 1:00pm
Keir Starmer is facing perhaps the biggest rebellion of his short time in office. The Labour leadership is currently in schmoozing mode, trying to win over rebels who oppose planned cuts to disability benefits. It’s rumoured that dozens of MPs are aghast at the situation, both on the established Labour Left and among newer, more loyal members. How Labour handles it could be critical for the long-term position of the party.
Appeasing the rebels might be hard, and the Government knows it has limited fiscal wiggle room. It was already struggling to raise public spending and improve services, a problem compounded by the perceived need for more defence spending. Tax rises of the sort needed would be hugely unpopular, and Britain would struggle to afford more borrowing. Cuts have to come from somewhere.
Starmer is making a strategic decision to pass them on to benefits, and disability benefits in particular. It is typical of his leadership, which seems haunted by voters’ worst stereotypes about Labour. Starmer is always worried that his party will be perceived as too high-spending or a soft touch on those unable or unwilling to work. This seems to drive his political decisions, as he always takes the route which is least likely to result in these sorts of allegations.
The Prime Minister does not want to face the traditional Tory attacks about Labour’s economic record. When combined with his moves on tax, his decision on cuts looks like a concerted effort to spare the average worker from the costs of increased spending. He’s opening himself up on the Left flank to keep this going.
This might not be sustainable for Starmer. Part of the oddness of last year’s election was the narrowness of Labour’s wins in its heartlands. In inner-city seats, the party’s vote plummeted, going not to the Right but to the Left. This benefitted the Greens and a range of independents. Though this was partly driven by Gaza, those smaller parties will be looking to exploit economic differences with Labour next time around. Moves like this could give them ammunition.
Labour also has to think about how this will affect Reform UK voters. The general trend is to see Reform, which remains broadly Thatcherite in its economics, as hawkish on benefits. But many of the seats where the party polls well are also ones with the highest rates of disability claimants. Cutting them could fuel further disillusionment in places like Blackpool and Merthyr Tydfil, on which Reform may capitalise.
In the short term, however, the biggest problem for Starmer might be internal. Once people have rebelled for the first time, they tend to find it an easier line to cross. Despite a big majority, a showdown now could seed the sort of dissent that makes getting anything done much more of a slog. More time will have to be devoted to parliamentary management; and blocs of opposition could solidify, expanding beyond the usual suspects on the Left. It could become a drag on everything he wants to do.
Fiscally, Starmer has little room for manoeuvre. But you always have a choice on who you take the fight to. He has his reasons for seeing benefits as the easiest thing, politically, to cut. It is not risk-free, however, and going against a key part of the Labour constituency could have serious ramifications for the PM in terms of both party management and electoral success.
John Oxley is a corporate strategist and political commentator. His Substack is Joxley Writes.
Mr_John_Oxley
A big majority is not an unqualified blessing. It encourages MPs to voice their dissent without the fear of bringing (their) government down.
Has this govt done anything to benefit its citizens? Anything at all. From rounding up social media thought criminals to ignoring the group causing a lot of problems, it’s as if Labor’s goal is to make the locals second class.
Yes. It is looking after its own special interest groups very well. But obviously, that’s not us and we won’t be getting invitations.
I treat all these Starmer prounouncements as performative and a sure indication that the policies and initiatives announced will be little more than token gestures while the original (and opposed) policies continue as before behind the PR smokescreen.
And all the Trump chaos came at just the right time for Starmer.
It gives me no pleasure to say it, but I sense that Starmer has so lowered expectations during his first 6 months that he’s starting to seem almost competent. The threshold for competence and survival after the last 8 years is probably at an all time low.
I’m not convinced that reducing the unsustainable and widely-abused benefits system will ignite right-wing opposition; and it will probably be popular with the majority of the electorate. Any opposition is likely to come from the unpopular left and human-rights liberal progressives. Please stop this ridiculous use of the term ‘populist’ as if popularity is a sin.
:Starmer Crashes The Economy” is a headline you don’t see…and yet that is what has happened.
Starmer currently has the general support of the MSM, presumably because of his fatuous “standing up to Russia”, despite it needing US backing which Trump has already said won’t happen.
The MSM always like a leader “doing a Churchill” and Starmer has obviously been taking lessons in it. No doubt his “benefit cutting” will receive their support with the voters going along…unless they are personally affected.
Meanwhile the Economy will remain crashed.
Syntax is not this author’s strong point. Demonstrative pronouns need a clear antecedent. But once I had worked out what he (probably) means, his theme makes sense.
There is something wrong with some of the assumptions here, or at least they raise additional questions.
Who makes up the bulk of Reforms voter base? If the statement “Reform, which remains broadly Thatcherite in its economics…” holds true, why are they represented in Parliament by the constituencies of Clacton, Ashfield, Great Yarmouth and 2 others which I’m fairly certain are not Thatcherite in their economic beliefs? I’m fairly certain that the Brexit heartlands (I could be wrong) do not represent huge blocks of anti-state intervention libertarians who would love nothing more than to see the NHS abolished and welfare benefits slashed. Quite the opposite in fact.
That’s my rational observation.
Probably agree that the ‘average’ reform voter would not be impressed by cutting back disability benefits. A group I think who might be even more against this would be your average labour activist. Not sure if they will be able to counter the charge of being against disabled people in any effective way and I think activists will be mightily scunnered during forthcoming campaigns. Which is why I think a lot of the noise around benefits reductions might be a ruse and that any changes would focus on incentivising people into work, who are employable, while leaving people who wont trouble the labour market anytime soon, with at least a dignified amount of money to live on. If not, labour are screwed in Scotland, which unfortunately will come on the back of increased levels of misery.