Sir Keir Starmer is under growing pressure from within his own party as more than 100 Labour MPs have privately urged him to rethink the Government’s proposed benefit cuts. The rebellion – involving over a quarter of Labour’s MPs – has been laid out in a letter to the party’s chief whip, calling for the controversial welfare reforms to be scaled back.
This internal backlash comes just days after 42 Labour MPs went public with their opposition, saying the changes would be “impossible to support”. While that was seen as a strong warning, this new private letter, revealed by The Times, signals the discontent is running much deeper behind closed doors, reported the Express.
At the centre of the dispute are plans to tighten eligibility for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and reduce the sickness element of Universal Credit. The Government says the changes are necessary to fix a broken system and get more people into work. But critics argue it’s the most vulnerable who will pay the price.
The timing is also critical, with a major Commons vote expected next month. While the Government has a hefty working majority of 165, if enough Labour MPs break ranks – 83 to be exact – it could spell trouble for the Prime Minister.
In their public letter last week, Labour MPs didn’t mince their words. “Cuts don’t create jobs, they just cause more hardship,” they wrote. The MPs acknowledged the benefits system is in need of reform but slammed the Government’s approach as misguided. They warned the proposals had sparked “a huge amount of anxiety and concern among disabled people and their families.”
They want the vote pushed back until at least the autumn, when more data will be available on how the changes could affect things like employment, healthcare, and the need for social care.
“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,” the letter urged.
The Labour leadership has so far stayed relatively quiet on the matter, but pressure is clearly mounting. For Starmer, it’s shaping up to be a serious test of how much control he really has over his party — and whether he’s willing to confront growing unrest from his own MPs over policies that could hit society’s most vulnerable the hardest.
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