Analysis
Labour divided over Starmer’s turn from welfare to warfare
Half the party’s MPs loathe the measure as an assault on the vulnerable, and Starmer – busy shuttling between NATO and G-7 summits – seemed to have misjudged the scale of rebellion.
NATO rearmament – set to be financed with 5% of the UK’s gross domestic product by 2035, to satisfy North American demands, a plan already endorsed by Keir Starmer – now hangs like a millstone around the prime minister’s neck as he tries to continue his internal balancing act.
Barely a year after taking office, he is already floundering. A particular weak point seems to be his relationship with Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, who sat through last Wednesday’s question time with tears running down her cheeks.
At the root of her display of emotion lay Labour’s contentious welfare-cut bill, introduced the same day. The plan was to carve out £5 billion in savings that Reeves could divert to defence without adding to public debt. Half the party’s MPs loathe the measure as an assault on the vulnerable, and Starmer – busy shuttling between NATO and G-7 summits – seemed to have misjudged the scale of rebellion.
Forced into yet another U-turn, he offered eleventh-hour concessions. Only after a promise to amend the text did the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill clear its second reading, 335 votes to 260; dozens of MPs had threatened to vote it down unless the eligibility restrictions for these benefits were eased.
However, 49 Labour MPs still defied their own government, and the much-touted £5 billion in savings has all but vanished – along with the credibility of both prime minister and chancellor, just twelve months into their tenure.
If Reeves remains in her post, she will be facing brutal choices. Her self-imposed fiscal purity is now chipping away at Labour’s very identity. During Wednesday’s dramatic clashes in the Commons – with Starmer and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch trading barbs – Reeves had what some MPs called a psycho-political meltdown, due “also” to personal reasons. The markets took note: the prices for UK state bonds slid to lows unseen since October 2022, sterling fell, and the ten-year yield jumped as much as twenty-two basis points to around 4.68%.
Starmer did not make a public statement himself in support of Reeves, leaving a spokesman to speak for him, and Reeves has not resigned. So far, the prime minister has lurched from statement to statement, policy to policy, renouncing each in turn in a frantic bid to dodge the “spendthrift” label that the national newspapers have given him. The fiscal rectitude to which he and Reeves have shackled themselves is now accelerating their undoing, despite the commanding majority they enjoy.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/dal-welfare-al-warfare-mezzo-labour-si-ribella on 2025-07-03