Starmer's Welfare Overhaul to Face Key Vote
How likely is it that this crucial bill will pass? How close could it be? I say that the bill is crucial. Really? It's a test, isn't it, of Starmer's standing within his own party? Absolutely, Tom. It could be the most consequential vote of Starmer's premiership so far. Now, it doesn't look like he's going to pull the bill at this stage. It does look like he's going to win it, but it is by no means guaranteed and it should be guaranteed, shouldn't it, When he's got a historic, huge majority of 165 MPs in the House of Commons. Theoretically, he shouldn't struggle to pass this sort of legislation, but there could still be a significant rebellion. Some newspapers have been estimating 60 Labour MPs could vote against it and there'd been even bigger doubts last week until Friday when he made this embarrassing U-turn. He wanted to cut disability benefits, but he had to make an exemption for existing claimants. That's going to cost the Treasury £3 billion at a time when the Treasury needs every penny it can get its hands on. Without that U-turn, no 120 Labour MPs had threatened to kill the bill and that would have been really damaging to Keir Starmer's premiership because this is flagship policy. The last time a bill failed at this stage was 1986. Wow. 1986. What does it mean then, as you allude to, as you touch on? Let's see, this is not the first U-turn for this prime minister just one year read. What does all of this say about Starmer's own position? No, it's the third U-turn, actually. We've had one on winter fuel payments for pensioners. We've had another on the inquiry into child sexual abuse gangs. And every time Starmer takes the credit for one of these costly U-turns, he's chancellor takes the flak and it makes it even more likely that she's going to have to raise taxes in the autumn, or that she'd have to break her fiscal rules. So it's putting Rachel Reeves and her job on the line here. We've already reported that some Labour MPs want to sack her and pivot the government to the left. But in any case, Tom, this political instability is exactly what Keir Starmer promised he would, and he's getting attacked from the left and the right by the Reform UK Party, trailing them in the polls and already Starmer's had to admit that perhaps in this first year in office he should have had an eye more on the domestic ball than all the globetrotting dealmaking that he's been doing.
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