Welfare bill: A humiliating blow for Starmer, and the fallout will be felt way beyond this week

First there was stonewalling, then the private complaints from MPs before a very public outburst that saw an eye-watering 127 MPs tell their prime minister they were going to defy him on a welfare vote.

Now, the inevitable climbdown has arrived, with Downing Street making a significant offer to rebels last night on their planned cuts to disability benefits.

A government with a massive 165-strong working majority had an awakening on Thursday to the importance of parliament as it embarked on a humiliating climbdown after the private warnings of MPs to Downing Street fell on deaf ears.

It’s worth taking a beat to reflect on the enormity of this moment. Less than a year ago, the prime minister was walking into No. 10 having won a landslide, with a Labour majority not seen since the Blair era.

That he has been forced to retreat by angry foot soldiers so early in this premiership, despite having such a big majority, is simply unprecedented. No government has lost a vote at second reading – this basically the general principles of a bill – since 1986 (Thatcher’s shops bill) and that was the only occasion a government with a working majority lost a bill at the second reading in the entire 20th century.

It is obviously a humiliating blow to the authority of the prime minister from a parliamentary party that has felt ignored by Downing Street. And while No. 10 has finally moved – and quickly – to try to shut down the rebellion, the fallout is going to be felt long beyond this week.

Before we get into the problems for Starmer, I would like to acknowledge the predicament he’s in.

Over the past 10 days, I have followed him to the G7 in Canada, where the Iran-Israel crisis, US-UK trade deal and Ukraine war were on the agenda, to Chequers at the weekend as he tried to deal with the US attack on Iran and all the risk it carried, and to the NATO summit this week in the Netherlands.

He could be forgiven for being furious with his operation for failing to contain the crisis when all his attention was on grave international matters.

He landed back in Westminster from the NATO summit on Wednesday night into a domestic battle that he really didn’t need but moved quickly to contain, signing off a plan that had been worked up this week in Downing Street to try to see of this rebellion.

What will the changes be?

At the time of writing this, the government is yet to officially announce the climbdown, but I expect it to be significant.

I understand the government is offering to keep personal independence payments, the benefits given to those who are disabled, unchanged for existing claimants, rowing back on an initial plan to take it away from hundreds of thousands of people by tightening the criteria for claiming.

I also understand the government will drop the cuts to the health element of universal credit for existing claimants, in changes that will cost an estimated £1.5bn – nearly a third of the savings the government has previously earmarked from these changes.

One senior parliamentary source told me on Thursday night they thought it was a “good package” with “generous concessions”, but said it was up to individual MPs to decide whether to withdraw their names from the amendment that would have torpedoed the welfare bill.

In the coming days, No. 10 will have to make the case to backbenchers and whittle down the rebellion in order to get the welfare bill passed on Tuesday. But it’s clear that No. 10 has given MPs a ladder to climb down.

But the bigger question is, where does it leave the government and its party?

There is quiet fury from many MPs I have spoken to, angry at the No. 10 operation and critical of what they see as a “boy’s club”.

There has been criticism levelled at the PM’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, with MPs in seats facing challenge from the left rather than the right frustrated that the whole No. 10 strategy seems to be seeing off Reform, rather than look to the broader Labour base and threats from the Lib Dems or the Greens.

There is also much ire reserved for Rachel Reeves – interestingly Liz Kendall is escaping the criticism despite being the architect of the reforms – with MPs, already angry over winter fuel debacle, now in open revolt over the Chancellor‘s decision to force through these cuts ahead of the Spring Statement in March in order to help fill her fiscal black hole.

MPs felt talked down to

One Labour figure told me on Thursday the growing drumbeat in the party is that Reeves must go.

Another MP told me colleagues hated the cabinet ring around to try to persuade them to back down over welfare, saying more MPs ended up adding their names to the list because they felt talked down to.

All of this needs work if the PM has any hope of rebuilding trust between his party and his operation.

There is also the problem of what flows from the concessions.

The chancellor will have to fund these concessions, and that could mean hard choices elsewhere. Will this mean that the government ends up doing less on reforming the two-child cap, or will it have to find welfare cuts elsewhere?

That flows into the third problem. In seeing off this rebellion, No. 10 has contained MPs rather than converting them.

What the parliamentary party has seen is a government that, when pressed, be it on winter fuel or benefit cuts, will fold.

That will only serve to embolden MPs to fight again. In the immediate term, the government will hope it has seen off a potentially catastrophic defeat.

But seeing off the growing malaise around the Starmer administration just got a bit harder after this.