How did Keir Starmer end up in such a mess over benefit cuts?

Prime minister Keir Starmer could be about to face his first defeat in the House of Commons.

The government is scrambling to save its planned disability benefits cuts, after more than 120 Labour backbenchers signed an amendment that would effectively kill its derived Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.

Ministers hope that last-minute concessions – such as exempting existing claimants from the changes to personal independence payment (PIP) and universal credit – will stave off rebellion. But it’s “still going to be tight,” experts say.

“I think it’s up in the air as to what side of the debate MPs fall on,” says Max Mosley from the New Economics Foundation. “Because politicians are quite rightly concerned at using their minimal time in office to potentially cause such hardship.”

The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) own modelling suggests the reforms could push 150,000 people below the poverty line.

“I think some MPs will rightly just be looking at this and saying, ‘I don’t want to be a politician who is responsible for pushing anybody into poverty, let alone more than 150,000 of them,‘” Mosley added.

For Kim Johnson, Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, the proposals are indefensible – and the concessions are just a political face-saving exercise. “It’s not about the needs of disabled people,” she told Big Issue. “It’s about [solving] a political problem and making a cash saving… if that was the case, they’d stop it, start afresh, do it properly.”

Labour has faced dissent from its left flank since taking office; in July last year, seven MPs were suspended for voting for an amendment to the King’s Speech which would have scraped the two-child benefit cap. But this time, it’s not just the usual rebels. Signatories include 2024-intake backbenchers and ex-loyalists – MPs once dubbed “Starmtroopers” for their unquestioning support of party leadership.

What’s happened? Partly, it’s the political climate. Labour’s approval ratings have tanked. Starmer’s net favourability has collapsed to negative-34%, down 44% since the election. The party itself is faring little better: in one Ipsos poll, Labour trailed behind Reform UK by nine points.

This climate is influencing how MPs vote, Mosely says.

“People would assume that it’s impossible to get over 100 members of parliament to break away from the hand that feeds them – but that’s what’s happened,” he explained. “I actually think in some ways it’s quite inspiring, because for lots of these members of parliament, it would be within their interest to toe the party line.”

“Some of them are probably coming to the realisation that they won’t be re-elected in 2029. Instead of trying to hop on the gravy train – to get a ministerial job while they’re in government, to set themselves up for afterwards – they’ve decided to take a really principled stance. I think that’s actually really wonderful.”

There’s also a palpable sense among many backbenchers that the government is not sticking to Labour values, Johnson says. This has been the case since Labour took office, she adds: “We got a taste of this just before summer recess last year with the devastating announcement [to means test] the winter fuel allowance.”

Read more:

• Disability benefit cuts violate human rights even with concessions, MPs warned ahead of vote
• No UK party currently has what it takes to end poverty, research finds: ‘We need a radical rethink’
• It never crossed my mind I might need disability benefits. Now I don’t know where I’d be without PIP

Initially such policies were accepted by loyal MPs who Starmer delivered to office. But that support is fading, not just among the general public but within the parliamentary Labour Party.

“They [Number 10] now say that they are listening,” Johnson says, “but they’re not hearing us. When it [the cuts] were first announced, people were up in arms. So why weren’t you listening then? There’s a level of arrogance, I have to say.”

This feeling is echoed by Cat Eccles, Labour MP for Stourbridge.

“I think the concessions themselves demonstrate that [backbenchers don’t feel listened to],” she says. “What many of us have asked for here is the Government to stop and engage. Instead, they’ve presented a policy drawn up over a weekend, continuing to press ahead without understanding the impact of what this will do. They’ve therefore continued to ignore the backbench advice on this.

“I think this also demonstrates a pattern that we could examine across several issues, from Winter Fuel, to WASPI, to Farmers and now this Green Paper. It’s not that all these policies are completely wrong or inherently bad. But I’ve seen Backbench MPs present viable cases of people falling through holes in the policy, and then offering alternative methods to achieve similar desired outcomes whilst negating further specific issues caused. 

“These have been almost entirely ignored until it has been too late and then we’re in the U-Turn / Rebellion territory.”

The whips are working hard to save the government’s bill. But Johnson still expects a sizeable majority to vote against.

“I think that is still a good show to say: this is not good enough,” she says. “The level of attacks on disabled people… the impact is going to push people into poverty. And we already know that eight in ten families who are in receipt of these benefits already go without essentials.”

The Big Issue has reported extensively on the impact of the cuts, here, here and here.

There are alternatives, Johnson says: “We should be thinking about other methods of gaining money for the Treasury. A 2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million – that’ll bring in £24 billion. She [Rachel Reeves] needs to move away from the self-imposed fiscal rules.”

The problem isn’t just with the policies themselves, Mosely adds – it’s the absence of a coherent political narrative to justify them.

“A degree of political honesty would have done them a lot of favours here,” he says.

“If the government had come through in an alternative universe and said, ‘Look, we need to keep our fiscal rules otherwise financial markets have a meltdown‘ – I don’t agree with that, but I can see why government was worried about that – and that they’ve decided that they’re going to rule out taxes because they think that they’re too high on people. And [then say], ‘Therefore, after 14 years of austerity, there’s not much fat left on the government machine, and it’s going to have to be difficult.‘ They should come out and make that argument and have the courage to do so… instead they framed it as too many people claiming benefits as a moral thing.”

That lack of political honesty, Mosley suggests, has led to a collapse in trust with the rest of the parliamentary labour party.

“I think the problem is, all these members of parliament are looking at the government saying, ‘You don’t really believe this. You don’t really believe that we have too many people claiming disability benefits.’”

“That’s one of the critical reasons why there’s been this breakdown – there just isn’t that political honesty, and everyone’s trading in these sound bites, but no one’s really listening or believing in each other.”

The government has failed to bring its MPs along for the ride – and may now be facing the political consequences.

“Maybe that’s the lesson learned for them,” Mosley says. “Honesty is always the best policy.”

It remains to be seen whether the bill will pass. But its firmest opponents aren’t going anywhere – and will continue to push against the government.

Concessions are “too little too late,” Eccles warns.

“In our lifetime, 1 in 3 of us will become disabled. With that in mind, the safety net for our disabled and vulnerable, who access the welfare system to catch them, should be made tighter and more secure. I fear these reforms continue to pull resource, therefore widening holes that our disabled communities become increasingly more likely to fall through.”

Johnson echoes this plea – and stresses that it isn’t too late.

“We’re saying: stop it, pause it, start again. Why can’t we do that?” she asks. “This is our first year of a five-year term. We’ve got plenty of time to get it right.”

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