Rebel MPs will continue flexing their new muscles

When Labour took office a year ago, ministers proclaimed that the grown-ups are back in charge” and stability will replace Tory chaos”. But Keir Starmer’s government looked anything but stable this week.

- ANDREW GRICE

His authority as prime minister has been badly dented by his spectacular climbdown over £5bn of welfare cuts. He looks more like the follower of his mutinous MPs than leader of the Labour Party.

Starmer can no longer take their support for granted after they forced U-turns on winter fuel payments and now sickness and disability benefits. Once MPs in any party rebel, they are more likely to do it again - and the welfare rebellion worked brilliantly.

As one Labour source told me: "Many of the newbies [the 2024 intake] think they are only here for one term, and are not going to become a minister because there are not enough jobs to go round. They have nothing to lose by standing up for what they believe in." This is a big moment. It will make it harder to win approval for the "tough decisions" Starmer believes are needed to "renew" Britain. It will mean more of the "sticking-plaster solutions" he vowed to avoid.

Treasury plans for further welfare savings will probably have to be shelved. The £4bn estimated cost of the winter fuel and welfare U-turns makes tax rises in the Budget this autumn even more likely. The same group of more than 120 Labour MPs, spanning the soft and hard left, will demand the abolition of the two-child benefit limit and now have the muscle to get it.

The PM and a long-overdue heavyweight economic adviser in No 10 will need to keep Reeves on a tighter leash; she, rather than the work and pensions secretary, was the architect of panicky welfare cuts