UK Starmer’s Struggles Laid Bare in Welfare Climbdown That Shakes Labour’s Grip

[Social Media]

 

Starmer’s Struggles Laid Bare in Welfare Climbdown That Shakes Labour’s Grip

 

The Labour government, riding into office on the back of a landslide that handed it a 165-seat working majority, has just faced a harsh awakening. On Thursday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer suffered a humiliating reversal on welfare reform after 127 Labour MPs threatened to defy him, forcing Downing Street into a sudden and significant retreat.

 

Initially, the leadership responded to dissent with stonewalling. Private complaints were ignored until they boiled over into public rebellion. The pressure proved too great to contain, resulting in an embarrassing climbdown over planned cuts to disability benefits. “A government with a massive 165-strong working majority had an awakening on Thursday to the importance of parliament,” one insider remarked, summarizing the scope of the moment.

 

The revolt marked a historic moment in parliamentary politics. Not since 1986 has a government lost a bill at its second reading – when the general principles of legislation are voted on. The only time in the 20th century such a defeat happened under a government with a majority was Margaret Thatcher’s Shops Bill. That Starmer came so close to repeating that, less than a year into his premiership, and with such a commanding majority, is a blow not just to his credibility but to his control over the party.

 

The context only adds to the drama. Over the past ten days, Starmer had been consumed by foreign policy crises: from the Iran-Israel conflict and the threat it posed to UK national security, to vital summits at the G7 in Canada and NATO in the Netherlands. One might forgive him for feeling blindsided by domestic turbulence on his return. He landed in Westminster Wednesday night and by Thursday had to hastily approve a rescue plan to avoid disaster.

 

While the full details of the retreat were not confirmed at the time of writing, insiders described it as substantial. The government is now expected to preserve personal independence payments for existing claimants, walking back a proposal that would have removed benefits from hundreds of thousands of disabled people. Additionally, the cuts to the health component of universal credit will be scrapped for current recipients—at a cost of around £1.5 billion, a third of the originally forecast savings.

 

A senior parliamentary source described the revised offer as “a good package” with “generous concessions.” Still, whether it will be enough to bring MPs back into line remains uncertain. Downing Street has “given MPs a ladder to climb down,” but it will need to spend the coming days convincing them to use it ahead of Tuesday’s critical vote.

 

What’s more troubling for Starmer is the simmering discontent within his party. Backbench MPs are angry, not just at the reforms but at the way they were handled. Critics have turned their ire on Starmer’s inner circle, branding it a “boy’s club,” and targeting his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney for what they see as a narrow focus on staving off the threat from Reform UK, while neglecting more progressive threats from the Greens and Liberal Democrats.

 

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has also found herself in the firing line. “The growing drumbeat in the party is that Reeves must go,” one Labour figure admitted, adding that the cabinet’s efforts to pressure MPs into supporting the bill backfired, leading even more MPs to sign the amendment in protest. Liz Kendall, architect of the reforms, has somehow escaped the brunt of the criticism, but the winter fuel misstep and now this rebellion have left Reeves increasingly exposed.

 

This crisis doesn’t end with the welfare bill. The concessions now have to be paid for. Will the government abandon its plans to reform the two-child benefit cap? Will new cuts appear elsewhere in the welfare budget? The risk is that this firefight becomes a pattern. “What the parliamentary party has seen,” one observer noted, “is a government that, when pressed … will fold.” That perception may only encourage future uprisings.

 

In the short term, Starmer may have avoided a legislative disaster. But the real damage may be longer term: weakened authority, emboldened rebels, and a party asking tough questions about its direction under his leadership. Rebuilding trust—and control—just became much harder.

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from Sky News  2025-06-28

 

 

[DonniePeverley]

This is the problem the UK and Europe face .... whenever their is an attempt to reduce the level of state spending on anything you get opposition so fierce that you are unable to make any cuts at all. You barely touch the sides. 

 

The UK in particular has to get a grip on spending, it's just completely out of control (most of it sheer waste). 

 

So instead you are going in a spiral of high taxes to fuel more spending ... which just cuts growth, and you are in a tail spin of repeat and rinse.  The money spent on financing the debt is astronomical compared to those with less debt. 

 

If anything i admired the Cameron / Osbourne government for actually trying to make an attempt at cutting spending, but ultimately it was all very minor again. Eventually someone is going to have to speak seriously to the population, explain you cannot get everything, and major cuts will have to be made. 

[James105]

3 hours ago, Social Media said:

The government is now expected to preserve personal independence payments for existing claimants, walking back a proposal that would have removed benefits from hundreds of thousands of disabled people.

 

They don't call him 2 tier Keir for nothing.   He has now found a way for 2 people with the exact same disability to not receive the same help.   What an imbecile.  Any half decent lawyer will be rubbing their hands at taking the government to court due to the obvious unfairness of this proposal so it's a shame that Labour don't have a single half decent lawyer in their ranks who could foresee this coming down the line.  

 

There was a much simpler solution to this.   Don't give these payments for "mental health" conditions such as anxiety and depression (the UK is apparently the only country that gives money as a disability payment for mental health conditions) which is apparently 40% of disability payments and immediately stop paying any benefits to any foreign national who does not have 10 years contributions to the system.  

[Watawattana]

People who need to be looked after must be looked after.  Everybody else?  Well, maybe a little bit of help for a short period, then you need to get a job.  There you are, sorted.

 

 

[jippytum]

Labour's grip was lost during Starmer's firsy 100 days and has further  declined everyday since

[James105]

4 hours ago, DonniePeverley said:

If anything i admired the Cameron / Osbourne government for actually trying to make an attempt at cutting spending, but ultimately it was all very minor again. Eventually someone is going to have to speak seriously to the population, explain you cannot get everything, and major cuts will have to be made. 

 

Yes I remember this and the incessant wailing from the left.   People don't want to vote for a party that promise to make cuts to wasteful spending (that Tory government being the obvious exception), they vote for those who promise to spend yet more money that far outweighs the tax income.  Reform also seem to be falling into this trap as it is the only way to gain power.  It's quite frankly a fundamental problem with a democratic system where people vote for what they can get for themselves rather than what is beneficial for the wider country as a whole and/or the future generations.   

 

Maybe it's time to embrace a cold and calculating AI to run the country that cannot be swayed by the whingeing and that does not pander to those who contribute the least, and cannot be bribed by lobbyists or self interested parties.   That's not a serious point, but the way the UK has been run for the last few decades is clearly unsustainable and I have no doubt an IMF bailout is on the cards before too long along that comes with crippling and forced cuts to every single welfare system.