Starmer’s attempt at welfare reform roils his party, capping a troubled
first year in office
[July 02, 2025] By
JILL LAWLESS
LONDON (AP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer won a key vote in
Parliament Tuesday on his plans to trim welfare spending, but only after
diluting the measures to ease intense opposition from within his own
party.
In something of a hollow victory, the bill passed its first big House of
Commons hurdle by 335 votes to 260 after the government appeased Labour
Party rebels by softening and delaying cuts to welfare benefits for
disabled people. Even so, 49 Labour lawmakers voted against the bill.
The result is a major blow to Starmer’s authority as he approaches one
year in office, reckoning with a sluggish economy and rock-bottom
approval ratings.
It’s a long way from the landslide election victory of July 4, 2024,
when Starmer’s center-left party took 412 of the 650 seats in the House
of Commons to end 14 years of Conservative government.
Since then, Starmer has navigated the rapids of a turbulent world,
winning praise for rallying international support for Ukraine and
persuading U.S. President Donald Trump to sign a trade deal easing
tariffs on U.K. goods. But at home his agenda is on the rocks, as he
struggles to convince British voters — and his own party — that he is
delivering the change that he promised.
John Curtice, a political scientist at the University of Strathclyde,
said that Starmer has had “the worst start for any newly elected prime
minister.”
Rebellion over welfare reform
Reforming Britain’s ballooning welfare system – and cutting the cost –
is a key Starmer pledge, but an attempt to trim disability benefits
caused consternation among Labour lawmakers.
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.
After more than 120 Labour lawmakers said they would vote against the
bill — more than enough to defeat it — the government offered
concessions, including a guarantee that no one currently getting
benefits will be affected by the change.
But opposition continued, with a string of Labour lawmakers speaking
against the bill in Parliament. One, Rachel Maskell, called the cuts
“Dickensian.”
“They are far from what this Labour Party is for: a party to protect the
poor,” she said.
Less than two hours before Tuesday's vote the government backed down
further. It pledged that changes to benefits would not be made until
after a review, carried out with the help of disability groups.
“This is an absolute shambles," said Labour lawmaker Ian Lavery,
branding the much-altered legislation "a hodgepodge of a bill that means
nothing to nobody.”
The welfare U-turn is the third time in a few weeks that the government
has changed course under pressure. In May, it dropped a plan to end
winter home heating subsidies for millions of retirees. In June, Starmer
announced a national inquiry into organized child sexual abuse after
pressure from opposition politicians — and Elon Musk.
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Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks with trainee pilots
during a visit to RAF Valley, Anglesey, north Wales, Friday June 27,
2025. (Paul Currie/Pool via AP)
“It’s a failure of leadership for a prime minister with such a big
majority to not be able to get their agenda through,” said Rob Ford,
professor of politics at the University of Manchester. He said the
government had forgotten the “first rule of politics: You need to know
how to count.”
The U-turns also make it harder for the government to invest in public
services without raising taxes. The government estimated that its
welfare reforms would save 5 billion pounds ($7 billion) a year. Now
it's unclear whether it will save any money at all.
Tuesday's vote means lawmakers have approved the bill in principle. It
faces more scrutiny, and potentially more opposition, before becoming
law.
Starmer acknowledges errors
The government argues that it has achieved much in its first year: It
has raised the minimum wage, strengthened workers’ rights, launched new
social housing projects and pumped money into the state-funded health
system.
But inflation remains stubbornly high and economic growth low,
frustrating efforts to ease the cost of living. Starmer’s personal
approval ratings are approaching those of Conservative Prime Minister
Liz Truss, who lasted just 49 days in office in 2022.
Starmer has blamed Conservative governments for the need to make tough
choices, a downbeat argument that has done little to make Starmer
popular.
In recent days, Starmer has acknowledged mistakes. He told The Sunday
Times that he was “heavily focused on what was happening with NATO and
the Middle East,” while the welfare rebellion was brewing at home, and
should have acted sooner to win over colleagues.
UK politics in flux
Starmer’s struggles are all the more striking, because the opposition
Conservative Party had its worst-ever election result in 2024, reduced
to only 121 lawmakers.
But U.K. politics is in unpredictable flux. A big chunk of Conservative
support — and some of Labour’s — shifted in this spring's local
elections to Reform U.K., a hard-right party led by veteran political
pressure-cooker Nigel Farage.
Reform regularly comes out on top in opinion polls. If the shift
continues, it could end a century of dominance by the two big parties.
Starmer’s key asset at the moment is time. He doesn't have to call an
election until 2029.
“There’s still plenty of time to turn things around,” Ford said. But he
said that the Labour lawmakers’ rebellion “will make things harder going
forward, because it’s not like this is the end of difficult decisions
that he’s going to have to make.
“Barring some magical unexpected economic boom … there’s going to be a
hell of a lot more fights to come,” he said.
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