Analysis
Third
U-turn in a month leaves Keir Starmer diminished
Kiran Stacey
Political
correspondent
Changes to
welfare bill likely to win over moderates, but PM’s reputation for embracing
tough reforms damaged
Fri 27 Jun
2025 09.23 BST
After his
third U-turn this month, Keir Starmer will hope he has done enough to avoid a
humiliating first Commons defeat as prime minister on Tuesday, even if he is
now a diminished figure in front of his party and the country.
Over
Wednesday night and Thursday, Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and
the deputy PM, Angela Rayner, sat down with leading rebels and agreed a series
of changes to the government’s welfare bill that ministers hope will be enough
to get it over the line.
Those
changes are likely to be significant enough to win over the support of dozens
of moderates who had signed an amendment that would have put the bill on hold
indefinitely. But they have damaged the prime minister’s reputation for
embracing tough reforms, and his chancellor’s reputation for fiscal probity.
The health
minister Stephen Kinnock said on Friday: “Keir Starmer is a prime minister who
doesn’t put change and reform into the too-difficult box. He actually runs
towards it and says: ‘Right, how do we fix it?’ And I’m sure that that’s what
will be foremost in people’s minds on Tuesday.”
Others in
his party disagree, however. “Keir will have to change his approach now,” said
one senior Labour MP. “He and his advisers have spent the first year in
government riding roughshod over Labour MPs. He’s realised now he can’t do that
any more.”
This is the
third time the prime minister has reversed course in recent weeks in the face
of pressure from outside.
Earlier this
month his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, announced she was undoing most of the cuts
to winter fuel payments after a sustained political backlash. Just over a week
ago, the prime minister told reporters on the way to the G7 in Canada that he
was dropping his opposition to a national inquiry into grooming gangs after one
was recommended by Louise Casey.
And on
Friday, the Observer published an interview with Starmer in which the prime
minister admitted to other regrets too. They included hiring Sue Gray as his
chief of staff and warning in a recent speech on immigration that the UK risked
becoming an “island of strangers”.
But it is
this week’s decision to change key parts of the welfare bill that could prove
the most expensive regret of all.
Ministers
will now limit their cuts so they only apply to new claimants and have also
promised to lift the health element of universal credit in line with inflation.
Along with promises to increase spending on back-to-work schemes and to
redesign the entire system of personal independence payments (Pips), the
Resolution Foundation estimates the entire U-turn could end up costing £3bn.
Reeves will
set out the full costs of the package, and how she intends to pay for them, in
the budget in the autumn.
But it is
not just the cost of the immediate changes that Reeves will have to measure.
Now that she and the prime minister have developed a reputation for changing
course in the face of backbench resistance, the chancellor is likely to come
under heavy pressure over other issues that Labour MPs care deeply about.
Meg Hillier,
the Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, said on Friday that the prime
minister would now have to listen more carefully to his parliamentary
colleagues. “There is huge talent, experience and knowledge in parliament, and
it’s important it’s better listened to. And I think that message has landed,”
she said.
Top of many
Labour MPs’ wishlist is an end to the two-child benefit cap. Starmer agrees on
the importance of removing that cap but doing so would cost as much as £3.6bn a
year by the end of the parliament.
This is why,
as the government’s spending commitments grow, ministers are refusing to rule
out tax rises this autumn. As Starmer has found out this week, angering nearly
a third of your MPs is a costly business.
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