A Fatal Mistake - Is Starmer About to Be Ousted?

Right, so if Keir Starmer were looking for a way to end his political career with a bang, he may have just found it—in the form of a welfare axe aimed squarely at the poor, the sick, and the disabled. Forget fighting the Tories; Starmer has decided to borrow their policies, make them even worse, wrap them in Labour red, and march them through Parliament with all the charm of a cold audit. But this time, the numbers don’t lie—and neither do the growing ranks of Labour MPs apparently prepared to torpedo his draconian legislation, putting pen to paper to show their intent. When your welfare bill is too harsh for your own party, draws praise from Kemi Badenoch, and triggers talk of rebellion, you don’t have a political strategy—you have a ticking time bomb. Starmer could be toast before he’s even been in power for a year, despite the size of his majority and its his own thuggishness and bullying that will bring him him down it seems, unless he does as all cowards and bullies do and runs away from holding the vote at all…
Right, so Keir Starmer's leadership is teetering on the brink of collapse, not because of Tory attacks or external pressure, but due to his own catastrophic miscalculation, pushing his own party too far with his right wing Tory-style governance, combined with demands for absolute obedience from his MPs, selected not to be loyal to the constituents who elected them, but to him: a proposed assault on Britain's poorest and most vulnerable under the guise of welfare reform. His government's intent to slash Universal Credit (UC) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is not just a policy misstep—it is a political and moral calamity for him and a catastrophic blow to the poorest paid and disabled, many of whom will be in work, during a cost of living crisis they will already be struggling with on top of their additional needs. This is the action of a craven bully punching down on those much weaker and much more vulnerable, I can kid of see why he’s so fond of Israel having just said that, can’t you? But these proposed cuts are so deeply unjust and economically foolish that they have incited a full-scale rebellion within Labour, prompting a growing number of MPs to back a reasoned amendment designed to destroy the Bill outright. As of time of writing, 134 Labour MPs have signed on, a number seemingly increasing by the day and each time Starmer threatens them with deselection or even a general election, knowing as he does how badly he’d lose it now.
Starmer's proposed cuts target the very people Labour was built to protect. Universal Credit and PIP are not luxuries—they are lifelines for ordinary working class people. UC tops up the incomes of the lowest-paid workers and PIP enables disabled individuals to live with dignity and independence, whether they are able to work or not. These cuts will not distinguish between the employed and the unemployed, the temporarily ill and the permanently disabled. Everyone will be affected. The cruelty is staggering: as many as 800,000 people stand to lose their benefits either partially or entirely. This includes individuals so sick or disabled they cannot wash or dress themselves, it really is no wonder, as craven as many MPs can be, that this size of rebellion is happening in Labour ranks, led as they are by the very worst elements of their own right wing.
Many rights organisations have condemned the proposed changes, stating they will severely harm people with disabilities. The government's proposal to revise PIP assessments, especially by tightening the scoring system, is a deliberate attempt to disqualify people who clearly need support, it is simply a numbers game to the government who have decided the numbers are too high, but they are more than numbers, they are people with real health issues, who got through the horrendous PIP process at least once before, to get help they were clearly found to qualify for. It is a calculated attack on the most marginalised members of society.
These are real people behind these statistics—families who already struggle to make ends meet, carers who rely on PIP to provide full-time support, who could be forced to choose between caring in even further poverty or working and leaving loved ones to fend for themselves; workers in low-wage jobs who depend on UC just to survive and get by no longer being able to. Slashing these payments would not only plunge these individuals into further hardship, but it will deepen existing inequalities on disability rights and income support already hammered after the last 14 years of Tory rule.
The justification offered by ministers—that these cuts are necessary to balance the books—is transparently hollow. Every penny received through UC and PIP is spent back into the economy. These are not funds hoarded offshore or squirreled away in investment portfolios. These are payments that keep food on tables, lights on, and medicines within reach. Cutting this money will devastate local economies, increase poverty, and expand the burden on an already overwhelmed NHS and social care system, the added expense to all of us via the public purse is potentially massive.
Independent economists and analysts have underlined that these cuts make no economic sense. The multiplier effect of welfare spending, particularly targeted at low-income and disabled groups, far exceeds the savings from austerity measures. For every pound cut, a larger pound if you like, is lost in consumer spending, economic growth, and tax receipts.
Meanwhile, Starmer has pledged to raise defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, amounting to sixteen times the amount he seeks to save through welfare cuts. Among these expenditures: twelve new jets capable of delivering nuclear bombs—an absurd investment in unusable weapons while claiming there is "no money" for the disabled. This is grotesque and this is the conundrum that rebel Labour MP’s cannot square a round hole over. Defence spending on an unnecessary, ideological basis, serves no peacetime purpose, we’re not under threat here on the UK homeland, it represents a staggering misallocation of national resources and all so Starmer can play soldier, soldier, obsessed with being a wartime leader, when we aren’t at war.
This Labour rebellion is no fringe protest—it is a full-on revolt. The reasoned amendment backed by 134 MPs is a powerful tool. It allows MPs to reject the entire Bill on the basis of its core principles, not just its details. At the heart of the rebellion are two non-negotiable demands: a full impact assessment of the proposed PIP changes, because despite the government desperately wanting to cut PIP, they haven’t bothered to check how many people will be affected and how badly, and revision of the scoring system, some movement in proposals to prevent unjust disqualifications and you imagine people being unable to wash or get dressed would count wouldn’t you? Doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
A full impact assessment would lay bare the devastating consequences of these reforms, while the scoring system changes would allow Parliament to ensure that PIP assessments remain fair, evidence-based, and humane. Without these changes, the Bill amounts to a blanket attack on the disabled and their carers.
As the rebellion grows, the threats from Starmer’s leadership have intensified though. MPs have been told that this will be a de facto vote of confidence in the Prime Minister. Starmer has allegedly warned of deselections for those who defy him. Yet these threats have backfired. Upon being warned this could bring the government down and topple Starmer, the number of rebels has grown from 108 to 127, and now stands at 134. As much as so many of us cannot abide Starmer, it seems the same can be said amongst a lot of his MPs. Some insiders suggest it could be as high as 170 including those privately mooting voting the Bill down—more than enough to destroy the Bill even with a Labour majority, if you factor in opposition parties voting it down as well.
The optics of this legislation could not be worse in another respect too. Kemi Badenoch, the equally competence deficient leader of the Tories, has openly offered to support the Bill in exchange for tax cuts and even deeper welfare reductions, her rationale being the Bill doesn't go far enough. That the Tories under her would rescue a Labour Prime Minister is not a show of unity for the common good—it is a glaring indictment of how far Labour has fallen under Starmer and obviously the optics of his legislation only passing with Tory votes would be horrendous.
Labour ministers like Rachel Reeves, little miss we’ll be tougher on benefits than the Tories, are echoing Conservative talking points in trying to talk around the rebels. Reeves has reportedly warned that rejecting the cuts would "devastate the government," ignoring the irony that a government so widely unpopular, Labour holding just a 16% approval rating at this moment in time, might be devastated by this, when frankly she should look in a mirror.
Starmer has already lost one whip, Vicky Foxcroft, and more front bench resignations are expected if this vote pushes ahead next week. London's Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan has also now publicly condemned the Bill, further embarrassing the Prime Minister. Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has however yet to decide whether to select the reasoned amendment, with rumours swirling that he may refuse, a display of spinelessness as that would be, would trigger outrage and deepen the crisis both inside parliament and outside too.
Meanwhile, disability rights groups and charities are ramping up their campaigns, warning that the reforms will disproportionately harm children, with an estimated 50,000 children at risk of falling into poverty as a result of these changes, making the cruelty aspect stand out all the more.
The government’s spin machine, meanwhile, churns out misleading statistics—like the claim that 1,000 people a day are claiming PIP. This figure, even if accurate, undermines their case: it proves people are successfully navigating an already torturous system to prove they desperately need help and assessment is finding in their favour. It suggests the need is growing, not shrinking, and that existing assessments are already too strict, so an impact assessment would also be a good idea to find out why that is and perhaps address the underlying causes, rather than just punish people who already have it harder than most - for daring to have additional needs or a low paid job.
One of the most damning accusations against the Starmer government is that it is not listening. Not to the rebels. Not to charities. Not to disability activists. Not to economists. All focus is on suppressing rebellion rather than responding to it. Meg Hillier, the Treasury Select Committee Chair and a Labour MP, has herself joined the revolt, undermining the economic rationale behind the Bill as the optics of her rebellion shows.
Worse still are reports that Liz Kendall is exploring the possibility of means-testing PIP on top of everything else—a policy so cruel even Tory governments have shied away from it. This would only inflame tensions further and confirm fears that Starmer’s Labour is adopting policies to the right of the Conservative Party, to be even more Tory than the Tory Party and for no reason whatsoever, it clearly isn’t winning them support, it is losing them support.
Kendall's justification—that the government has "no choice"—is belied by the existence of better alternatives. Economists have repeatedly pointed out that a wealth tax could raise many times more than the projected savings from the PIP and UC cuts. The Labour leadership has chosen political expediency over moral clarity, to pick on the disabled to protect the donors.
Recent local elections should have served as a wake-up call. Defence spending wasn’t a top concern for voters. Economic hardship was. Yet Starmer remains fixated on a hawkish agenda, seemingly more concerned with NATO posturing and willy waving whilst cosplaying as Robson Green in Soldier, Soldier, rather than feeding hungry families or protecting disability rights to a reasonable standard of living. He has learned nothing, he listens to nobody save his handlers, the likes of Morgan McSweeney. The electorate is growing increasingly tired of political leaders who promise change but deliver more of the same. Starmer’s failure to offer a genuine alternative to Tory cruelty is damaging his party’s credibility and playing into the hands of the populist hard right of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK band of Tory cast-offs.
The parliamentary opposition is also growing. Jeremy Corbyn is set to present a parliamentary petition the day before the vote demanding wealth taxes instead of benefit cuts. Disability activists have vowed to fight this Bill to the end. One campaigner stated, “We will not give a single inch.” And they shouldn’t. This Bill is not policy. It is persecution.
Corbyn’s intervention, while largely symbolic, serves as a powerful reminder that there is an alternative. A government that taxes wealth instead of punishing the vulnerable is not only possible—it is necessary.
This crisis has exposed Keir Starmer not as a unifying figure, nor as a leader but as an authoritarian technocrat whose instinct is to punish the powerless while appeasing the powerful. He is the establishments most loyal servant. He would rather cut from the disabled than tax the wealthy, threaten his own MPs rather than listen to them, and potentially may take support from Tories rather than admit error, because when does he ever do that? He’s never wrong and he never, ever says sorry.
If this Bill passes, it will be on the back of Conservative votes, with Labour rebels and the public in opposition. If it fails, it could spell the end of Starmer’s leadership. The likeliest scenario is that Starmer will run away from the vote again, because he’s also a coward. Whatever happens, one thing that won’t change is that Starmer absolutely has to go one way or another and here, he has backed himself into a corner where there is no outcome that he comes out on top.
Where prosecution used to be his stock in trade, it’s persecution these days, so it goes as he seeks to proscribe Palestine Action as a terror group for throwing paint over a couple of planes, but Starmer’s prosecutor past has exposed his hypocrisy here too, having defended activists in the past in court who did exactly the same thing! Get all the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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