'What will be left of Labour's project?' MPs to rebel on aid cut

Backbenchers to express anger over decision to axe international budget in Commons debate

- Toby Helm

Keir Starmer is facing a backbench revolt by Labour MPs this week as anger mounts over the decision to cut the international development budget by almost half to pay for an increase in defence spending.

The Labour chair of the all-party select committee on international development, Sarah Champion, who has already called on the government to rethink the decision, has secured a debate in the Commons on Wednesday at which dozens of Labour backbenchers are considering intervening to express their dismay.

One of those who may speak out, according to colleagues, is Anneliese Dodds, who resigned as international development minister on Friday.

In her resignation letter Dodds, formerly a close ally of Starmer, suggested that discussion about altering the government's fiscal rules to avoid having to cut international aid should have taken place before a decision was made.

There is also mounting concern spreading across ministerial ranks over how many of Labour's core policies will have been thrown overboard to allow the government to keep within the chancellor Rachel Reeves' self-imposed fiscal rule of not borrowing for day-to-day spending.

One government source said: "This is the real debate now. What will be left afterwards? What will be left of the Labour programme?"

Other sources said that it was all very well increasing defence spending, as Donald Trump had demanded, and as was necessary, but there needed to be "sacred areas" of policy.

Unease over the aid decision is also likely to surface when Starmer makes a statement to the Commons early this week on his visit to the White House, and on his subsequent meetings with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders.