Sir Keir Starmer<\/a> needs to listen to his own MPs, a former Labour frontbencher who quit her role over plans to slash benefits has said. <\/a><\/p>\n Vicky Foxcroft<\/a>, who dramatically resigned as a government whip in June, said ministers need to \u201cproperly engage\u201d with Labour backbenchers after a massive rebellion forced the government to abandon key aspects of its benefit reforms.<\/a> <\/p>\n Ms Foxcroft said she was \u201creally concerned\u201d about the negative impact the proposals \u2013 which were later abandoned \u2013 would have on disabled people. <\/p>\n \u201cThere were some quite bad cuts to disabled people\u2019s benefits suggested, particularly around personal independence payments (PIP) and having to have four points before you would be able to access the benefit.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I was just really concerned about that. And at that point, I didn\u2019t feel that I could support it and didn\u2019t feel that I could go out and whip for it and get other MPs to do the same,\u201d Ms Foxcroft told GB News<\/a> presenter Gloria De Piero. <\/p>\n She said she had \u201csleepless nights\u201d in the lead-up to her decision to resign, saying it was \u201creally difficult and I really would rather not have had to do that\u201d. <\/p>\n \u201cI was actually having a hard personal time at that time as well, with my dad passing away quite suddenly. And so, you know, I had the stress of all of that, but also I was really worried about these proposals, and I really spoke to lots of people about what my concerns were around it.<\/p>\n \u201cI had some sleepless nights; it plays on your mind the whole time,\u201d the MP for Lewisham North added. <\/p>\n Asked what the government could do differently next time, Ms Foxcroft said: \u201cI think it\u2019s really important to listen to MPs. MPs are out in their constituencies. They\u2019re meeting with people. When they\u2019re raising concerns, it is coming from what people are worried about.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really important that that engagement takes place in the future. And properly takes place.\u201d<\/p>\n But Ms Foxcroft also insisted that the government can turn around its fortunes despite a poor performance in the polls, with Reform UK surging ahead. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got quite a few years until a general election, and we are doing a lot of good things in parliament \u2013 the Renters\u2019 Rights Bill, the Employment Rights Bill, the Football Governance Bill \u2013 but at the moment, some of this stuff is just bills in parliament. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat we need is people to really feel the difference, actually, genuinely in their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n It comes amid growing concern over the direction of Sir Keir\u2019s government among voters on both the left and the right, with the prime minister\u2019s approval rating having hit an all-time low in recent months.<\/p>\n His support among the public reached new depths of minus 46<\/a> following the local elections in May, while polling published last month<\/a> put the prime minister\u2019s approval rating at minus 43 after the \u00a35bn welfare U-turn. <\/p>\n The survey by More in Common, first reported by The Sunday Times, also found that just a year after Labour came to power, seven in 10 voters think Sir Keir\u2019s government is at least as chaotic as the Tories\u2019 previous term.<\/p>\n Downing Street has been contacted for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-312396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114960233120935922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Vicky](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/9a68b747054201489efbc77d75d5caa3Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzUwNDQ4NTMw-2.34406794.jpg\")
Vicky Foxcroft resigned as a whip over the government\u2019s proposed welfare cuts (UK Parliament)<\/p>\n