It’s a bold declaration for a man who in recent days has U-turned on cuts to winter fuel payments and on establishing a national inquiry into grooming gangs.
Reports that there will be upwards of 150 Labour rebels are likely to prove off the mark when it comes to the vote. A swathe of Labour MPs have expressed unease about the proposed cuts, but numbers are always brought down by the whips.
If Labour MPs don’t send the PM a message, their voters will do it for them in elections next May
However, something does feel different this time: Labour MPs are fed up, and statements from Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall and from Starmer seem to be ratcheting up rebellion rather than quelling it.
Since the policy was announced, Labour has taken a hammering in May’s local elections, the Prime Minister and Chancellor’s popularity has tanked, and Labour MPs are losing faith in the current leadership and their judgement.
PIP is payable to disabled people to help with the added costs of living with a disability. Many of those disabled people work. I spoke to one person who works in the Department for Work and Pensions and is worried that they may lose PIP, and may have to give up work or reduce their hours. MPs report they are being lobbied on this by their constituents, who are spelling out the detail of how they will be impacted, and robotic lines from the Prime Minister and other ministers inflame rather pacify this.
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But the real threat to Starmer’s plans to impoverish disabled people lies not in Westminster, but across the country, where a majority are opposed: polling by More in Common shows 58 per cent think the cuts are a bad idea. Supporters of every party in Westminster (Tory voters only narrowly) and non-voters are all united in opposing these cuts.
From the streets of the recent Runcorn by-election, Labour canvassers reported that it was cuts to winter fuel payments and disability benefits that came up again and again. If Labour MPs don’t send the Prime Minister a message, their voters will do it for them in May next year when a lot of Labour heartland seats are up for election in the Welsh and Scottish national elections and in local elections in England covering key cities such as London.
Andrew Fisher served as the Labour Party’s executive director of policy under Jeremy Corbyn between 2015 and 2019
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