Prime minister's benefit cuts U-turn leaves backbenchers feeling bruised
"What an absolute bloody shambles!"When we tell you that this is the unvarnished view of a Labour MP now willing to back the Prime Minister Keir Starmer's benefits plans, you get a sense of how much anger this row has provoked and is still provoking.And there are still plenty who are not happy and still either pushing for further changes or planning to vote against the measures."It is not the resolution lots of people want. They are tinkering with a broken bill," another MP tells us.
After backbench Labour MPs revolted against the government's proposed welfare reforms, the prime minister made concessions, saying the stricter criteria would only apply to new claimants."Clearly some at least will have been pacified by the concessions but there are still very significant numbers" of opponents, a third MP texts, adding "it shouldn't be underestimated the potential effect of a weekend of emails from constituents, constituency surgeries etc."Debbie Abrahams, the Labour MP who chairs the Work and Pensions Select Committee, told the BBC: "The concessions are a good start, they are very good concessions and they will protect existing claimants. However there are still concerns about new claimants. It would not be right for me not to do anything just to spare the prime minister an inconvenience." In other words, she does not appear won over yet.Some note that Disability Labour, which describes itself as "an independent socialist society affiliated to the UK Labour Party" is still urging all MPs to oppose the plans.Let's see how opinion and mood within the Parliamentary Labour Party settles by Monday.What is very clear is many Labour backbenchers feel very bruised.Downing Street "see us as an inconvenience, people to manage, not to listen to. When we are invited into No 10, and it doesn't happen often, it is to be told what to think," is how one MP puts it.It is not hard to find pretty blunt assessments of the prime minister and his Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney.Worried MPs say the whips – those in charge of party discipline – had raised the concerns of many with Downing Street."They either didn't think about it or didn't think new MPs would have the balls to stand up to them," reflected one."Perhaps this is the moment they finally get it," reflects another, "and they get better at talking to us, and listening."
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Others fear that the six month cycle of Chancellor Rachel Reeves seeking to meet her self-imposed fiscal rules will, as they see it, mean the pattern of hunting for cuts will keep happening.Some think the only solution, in time, will be a new chancellor. Senior voices in government counter that Starmer and Reeves personify the modern Labour Party in government. Those voices say being seen as responsible with the country's finances is paramount and Reeves' rules help achieve that.Those around the prime minister will be glad the week is over and hopeful they picked the least worst option to deal with the outbreak of insurrection over benefits.And they may allow themselves a moment's reflection on the best part of a year in government.
Next Friday marks the first anniversary of the general election, and so 12 months since Sir Keir Starmer became prime minister.As part of that he has given an interview to his biographer, the journalist and former Labour Party Director of Communications Tom Baldwin in The Observer. In it, Sir Keir said he was too gloomy last summer and he regreted saying "the damage" done the country by immigration in recent years "is incalculable". He also said that his remark that immigration risked turning the UK into an "island of strangers" was a mistake and repudiates much else of the political strategy of his first year in office.Having spent the week battling to mend relations with many on the left and centre-left of the Labour Party, this interview has managed to find a way to alienate his allies too."Outrageous", "weak", "totally lacking in moral fibre" are just a few of the choice words from Starmer loyalists — yes, loyalists.There is particular anger at the perception that he is throwing his closest aides under a bus.A senior government source said they were too angry to speak about it.It leaves the impression that right now, the prime minister is a politician who cannot do anything right.And it also, yet again, poses a bigger question about what the prime minister stands for.If those remarks about immigration were a mistake, what does he really think?Finding definition in his second year in No 10, as well as avoiding cock-ups, will be key.
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