{"id":30401,"date":"2025-07-01T17:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/30401\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T17:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:24:09","slug":"uks-starmer-faces-party-revolt-over-welfare-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/30401\/","title":{"rendered":"UK’s Starmer faces party revolt over welfare reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer<\/a> marks a year in office this week, fighting a rebellion from his own party in a vote Tuesday on welfare reform<\/a> and reckoning with a sluggish economy<\/a> and rock-bottom approval ratings.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a long way from the landslide election victory<\/a> he won on July 4, 2024, when Starmer\u2019s center-left Labour Party took 412 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons to end 14 years of Conservative government.<\/p>\n

In the past 12 months, Starmer has navigated the rapids of a turbulent world, winning praise for rallying international support for Ukraine<\/a> and persuading U.S. President Donald Trump to sign a trade deal<\/a> easing tariffs on U.K. goods.<\/p>\n

But at home his agenda is on the rocks, as he struggles to convince British voters \u2014 and his own party \u2014 that his government is delivering the change that it promised. <\/p>\n

Inflation remains stubbornly high and economic growth low, frustrating efforts to ease the cost of living. Starmer\u2019s personal approval ratings are approaching those of Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss<\/a>, who lasted just 49 days in office in 2022 after her tax-cutting budget roiled the economy.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: Starmer faces down a revolt over welfare reform after a troubled first year in office\n <\/p>\n

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports British Prime Minister Keir Starmer marks a year in office this week, fighting a rebellion from his own party in a vote Tuesday on welfare reform.<\/p>\n

John Curtice, a political scientist at the University of Strathclyde, said that Starmer has had \u201cthe worst start for any newly elected prime minister.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebellion over welfare reform<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Starmer faces a vote in Parliament on welfare spending after watering down planned cuts to disability benefits that caused consternation from Labour lawmakers. <\/p>\n

Many balked at plans to raise the threshold for the payments by requiring a more severe physical or mental disability, a move the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank estimated would cut the income of 3.2 million people by 2030.<\/p>\n

After more than 120 Labour lawmakers said they would vote against the bill \u2014 more than enough to defeat it \u2014 the government offered concessions, including a guarantee that no one currently getting benefits will be affected by the change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have listened to the concerns that have been raised to help us get these changes right,\u201d Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said as she opened the debate on the bill in the House of Commons.<\/p>\n

But while some rebels backed down, others maintained their opposition, forcing the government to offer a further concession hours before the Tuesday evening vote. Ministers pledged that changes to benefits would not be made until after a review, carried out with the help of disability groups.<\/p>\n

That came after a string of Labour lawmakers spoke against the bill in Parliament. One, Rachel Maskell, called the cuts \u201cDickensian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are far from what this Labour Party is for: a party to protect the poor,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The welfare U-turn is the third time in a few weeks that the government has reversed course on a policy under pressure. In May, it dropped a plan to end winter home heating subsidies<\/a> for millions of retirees. In June, Starmer announced a national inquiry into organized child sexual abuse<\/a>, something he was pressured to do by opposition politicians \u2014 and Elon Musk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a failure of leadership for a prime minister with such a big majority to not be able to get their agenda through,\u201d said Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester. \u201cI can\u2019t think of many examples of a prime minister in postwar politics suffering such a big setback when presiding over such a strong position in the Commons.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U-turns also make it harder for the government to find money to invest in public services without raising taxes. The government estimated that its welfare reforms would save 5 billion pounds ($7 billion) a year from a welfare bill that has ballooned since the COVID-19 pandemic. After the concessions, it\u2019s only likely to save about half that amount.<\/p>\n

Starmer acknowledges errors<\/p>\n

The government argues that it has achieved much in its first year: It has raised the minimum wage, strengthened workers\u2019 rights, launched new social housing projects and pumped money into the state-funded health system. <\/p>\n

But it has also raised taxes for employers and farmers, as well as squeezing benefits, blaming previous Conservative governments for the need to make tough choices. That downbeat argument has done little to make Starmer popular.<\/p>\n

In recent days, Starmer has acknowledged mistakes. He told The Sunday Times that he was \u201cheavily focused on what was happening with NATO and the Middle East,\u201d while the welfare rebellion was brewing at home, and should have acted sooner to win over colleagues.<\/p>\n

UK politics in flux<\/p>\n

Starmer\u2019s struggles are all the more striking, because the opposition Conservative Party had its worst-ever election result in 2024, reduced to only 121 lawmakers.<\/p>\n

But U.K. politics is in unpredictable flux. A big chunk of Conservative support \u2014 and some of Labour\u2019s \u2014 shifted in this spring\u2019s local elections<\/a> to Reform U.K., a hard-right party led by veteran political pressure-cooker Nigel Farage<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Reform has just five legislators in the House of Commons, but regularly comes out on top in opinion polls. If the shift continues, it could end a century of dominance by the two big parties.<\/p>\n

Starmer\u2019s key asset at the moment is time. He doesn\u2019t have to call an election until 2029.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still plenty of time to turn things around,\u201d Ford said. But he said that the Labour lawmakers\u2019 rebellion \u201cwill make things harder going forward, because it\u2019s not like this is the end of difficult decisions that he\u2019s going to have to make.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarring some magical unexpected economic boom \u2026 there\u2019s going to be a hell of a lot more fights to come,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer marks a year in office this week, fighting a rebellion…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,1226,69,90,66,57,330,25933,17723,2934,25932,25929,2676,50,25930,80,25931,2060,25928,376,4338,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-30401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-conservatism","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-elections","12":"tag-elon-musk","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-government-programs","15":"tag-john-curtice","16":"tag-keir-starmer","17":"tag-legislation","18":"tag-liz-kendall","19":"tag-liz-truss","20":"tag-london","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nigel-farage","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-rachel-maskell","25":"tag-rebellions-and-uprisings","26":"tag-rob-ford","27":"tag-united-kingdom","28":"tag-united-kingdom-government","29":"tag-world","30":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114779147363193535","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}