(Bloomberg) — UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is less than 10 days away from the biggest parliamentary challenge to his authority in his not-yet year-long tenure.
Unpopular cuts to disability benefits unveiled earlier this year as part of Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ efforts to balance the country’s books are due before the House of Commons for their first vote on July 1, with a large-scale rebellion brewing on the Labour back benches.
So far, at least 150 of the governing party’s Members of Parliament have indicated concerns about the cuts in two letters to the government. Other non-signatories have told Bloomberg they also intend to vote against the bill. While Starmer’s attention this week was centered on the escalating tensions in the Middle East, the domestic threat was laid bare on Thursday when Vicky Foxcroft, a government whip who would have been tasked with helping quell the revolt, quit, citing her own objections.
The rebellion threatens to bruise Starmer’s and Reeves’ credibility and further damage their stock with the left of their party. In order to avoid falling to what would be an unprecedented defeat for a government enjoying such a large majority so early in its tenure, ministers could at worst be forced into major concessions that reduce the bill’s expected cost savings, forcing the Treasury to conjure up money from other cuts or tax rises at the budget in the fall.
“It’s a test of Starmer’s authority and the way he and Rachel Reeves are running the economy,” Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University London, said in a phone interview. “If the rebellion is too big, you start to run into questions about the loyalty of your backbenchers and even perhaps the future of your leadership.”
The welfare reforms allowed Reeves to save about £5 billion ($6.5 billion) a year by 2030 by making it harder for disabled people to claim a benefit called the personal independence payment, or PIP. The chancellor factored them into a spring statement as part of spending cuts designed to help meet her self-imposed fiscal rules.
Reeves says the changes are necessary because an extra thousand people a day have been signing on for PIP, creating an “unsustainable” impact on the public finances. PIP payments had been projected to almost double to £41 billion by the end of the decade, within overall spending on disability and incapacity benefits that the Office for Budget Responsibility — the government’s fiscal watchdog — sees rising to £100 billion from £65 billion last year. The government has also says there is a moral case for supporting people back into work.
But Labour lawmakers are concerned the government announced changes in a rush to deliver savings, without thinking through the impact on vulnerable people.
“There are alternative and more compassionate ways to balance the books, rather than on the backs of disabled people,” one Labour backbencher, Debbie Abrahams, told the House of Commons.
There are particular concerns about a new requirement for claimants to score four or above in one of the daily living components of the PIP assessment, meaning people who can’t wash half their body or cook a meal will be denied the payments if they have no other impairments. One Labour MP describing the process as letting the OBR tail wag the government dog.
Some 45 Labour MPs signed a public letter objecting to the measures, while another letter — arranged in secrecy so that even signatories couldn’t see who they were joining — garnered 105 signatures and was sent to the chief whip.
While some of the would-be rebels have indicated they could be swayed by the government whips, one of them told Bloomberg they are confident that more than 80 MPs will commit to voting against the government. Given Starmer’s working majority is 165, if all opposition parties vote against the bill, it would take 83 Labour rebels to defeat the government.
The main opposition Conservative Party is planning to vote against the changes, Danny Kruger, one of the party’s work and pensions spokespeople, told parliament in May. Its reasons are different: the Tories argue the measures don’t go far enough.
One Labour MP told Bloomberg that concerned lawmakers plan to put forward a procedural challenge to the bill. While they don’t expect the speaker to select that amendment for debate, the aim is to force further changes from the government, and organize would-be Labour rebels into a coherent group which could eventually vote down the bill.
Many in Labour had been waiting to see the bill before making up their minds. When the text was published on Wednesday, the concessions to their concerns were minimal, largely amounting to a 13-week transition period for those losing their PIP. Foxcroft — the whip who had previously served for four years as Starmer’s shadow disability minister in opposition — quit within hours of the publication, saying she didn’t believe cutting the disability benefits should be part of the solution to tackling ballooning welfare costs.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said Friday that Foxcroft’s resignation wasn’t a sign of a major rebellion, while conceding that “of course” there are dissenting voices on such a big reform. “Vicky is the only front-bencher that I’ve had a conversation with about resigning,” she said.
Nevertheless, many so-called “red wall” Labour MPs in northern and central England face a tough decision. Health Equity North, a public health institute, found that all the places most affected financially by the PIP reforms are Labour constituencies in northern England. In several areas, the number of people affected by the welfare changes exceeds the Labour majority, meaning those MPs could see a crucial drop in support.
The government is gearing up for a fight, indicating it will make no further concessions. On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner failed to rule out stripping the whip from Labour rebels, while government enforcers are warning MPs that their political career prospects will be ruined if they oppose the bill.
Whips and wannabe rebels alike expect the potential revolt to be whittled down as July 1 approaches. Some opponents are weighing whether to abstain at the second reading and wait until the third reading to take a more decisive vote, as whips are encouraging them to do.
“I’d be amazed if he were defeated here,” Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think-tank, said. “If the whips got a whiff they were going to get defeated, they’d give some concessions. The worst of all outcomes is to lose this.”
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