Tears and fury of the Labour rebels: did Reeves go too far over welfare?

Times

a day ago

It was a private conversation that illustrated the moral and political stakes of the government's welfare reforms.
On one end of the line was Rachel Reeves, in the midst of a round of calls to MPs who were conveying their profound misgivings about the proposals to restrict access to personal independence payments. On the other was Marie Tidball, who was elected as MP for Penistone & Stocksbridge, south Yorkshire, last year.
In common with plenty of Labour backbenchers in that intake, she feels Keir Starmer's election was a repudiation of austerity, not an endorsement of Reeves's language of fiscal rectitude and 'difficult choices'.
But Tidball is also unique. She is the only visibly physically disabled MP in the Commons: a former Oxford academic whose congenital condition means all four of her limbs are foreshortened.
With Reeves threatening to slash the benefits to which people like her are entitled, she insisted on a direct dialogue. According to sources, the conversation did not go well. Tidball is said to have been left in tears and although the chancellor got in touch over text shortly afterwards to smooth things over, the damage was done.
Within hours, MPs were discussing in hushed tones claims that Reeves 'shouted' at Tidball and even threatened to have the whip withdrawn if she signed the reasoned amendment that eventually prompted No 10's U-turn. Those close to Reeves say she made no such threat — pointing out the whip is not in her gift to withdraw and shouting is not in her nature. They also point out it was Tidball who asked for the call, disputing any notion Reeves went looking for a confrontation.
However, Tidball is understood to have been dismayed and deeply shaken by the week's events — in which her priority has been ensuring the government fulfils its manifesto pledges to champion the disabled while supporting them back into work.
The high-stakes exchange capped one of the worst weeks for Starmer and Reeves since the pair entered Downing Street a year ago.
• The Sunday Times view: A year on, Labour is a long way from fixing Britain
Where once Starmer and his chancellor appeared unassailable after the party's landslide victory, they are now facing mutiny from an army of Labour MPs and growing impatience from an increasingly fractious cabinet.
With discipline breaking down, especially among MPs who fear they may only serve one term given Labour's dramatic decline in the polls, the biggest concern among advisers is that paralysis will now set in and Starmer will be prevented from pursuing the type of radical change that got his party elected: in particular, the ability for the government to pass an immigration bill and introduce special educational needs reforms to increase the number of children in mainstream schools and reduce those attending expensive independently run special schools.
• Keir Starmer approval rating: tracking the PM's popularity
'There is blood in the water now,' said one senior Labour figure. 'The soft-left were always going to do for Labour and so it now seems to be coming to pass.'
Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister's most senior adviser, is in the firing line after three significant U-turns in the space of a month: on winter fuel payments, grooming gangs and now welfare.
Labour MPs blame him for alienating and ignoring backbenchers and presiding over a 'bunker mentality' in No 10, leading some to suggest that the time has come for 'regime change'.
These calls are only likely to grow louder this weekend after claims McSweeney's plans to stave off the rebellion involved suspending 10 Labour rebels every hour until 50 had been reached. At which point, McSweeney is said to have insisted the insurrection would be over.
It is understood that McSweeney, who denies the specifics of the allegation, was told that the scale of the rebellion was such that the usual sanctions — removing the whip — would have little or no impact.
Despite the whips privately briefing No 10 for weeks that there would have to be concessions, Starmer and Reeves ignored the warnings. To the fury of backbenchers, Reeves, who is facing mounting questions about her future, insisted on Monday that there would be 'no U-turn', while on Wednesday the prime minister dismissed the revolt as 'noises off' at a Nato press conference in the Hague.
Within hours of those comments, which only added to the sense of disconnect between No 10 and MPs, Starmer and Reeves were told that contingency plans, which had been drawn up months ago, were being presented to rebels.
Neither of them took part in the negotiations — another sign of the distance that has grown between Downing Street and the back benches. Starmer, who has only voted seven times since becoming prime minister, and MPs claim is notably absent from the Commons tearooms, was represented in the talks by McSweeney.
The concessions offered were even bigger than expected, with the government agreeing to protect existing claimants of personal independence payments (PIP), a disability benefit, and universal credit for all existing claimants, at a cost of more than £3 billion.
There was also a pledge that more fundamental changes to the criteria by which PIP payments are calculated in future will only be done in collaboration with disability groups, which is likely to end up costing the government even more money.
Downing Street has since failed to rule out tax rises to pay for the changes, which have been welcomed by Meg Hillier, one of the rebels behind the wrecking amendment. She described the concessions as 'a good deal' involving 'massive changes' to protect vulnerable people and involve disabled people in the design of future reforms.
But the deal does not satisfy all the rebels. Several came out to say they still would still not back the government on Tuesday, while others are threatening to lay another 'reasoned amendment' to kill the bill which they claimed could be signed by as many as 50 MPs.
On Saturday, Unite, one of the country's biggest trade unions and funders of the Labour Party, called for the entire welfare bill to be dropped and for the government to start again. It claims the proposal to limit PIP to new claimants will create a two-tier workforce resulting in far greater injustice.
Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, said: 'Why do Labour keep making the same mistakes, attacking the most vulnerable in our society? The government's latest plans for disabled benefits cuts are divisive and sinister. Creating a two-tier system where younger disabled people and those who become disabled in the future will be disadvantaged and denied access to work and education is morally wrong.'
Graham has found herself an unlikely ally in Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, who will warn this week that Labour has created a 'punishing welfare trap that shuts people out of going back to work'.
In a speech to the Local Government Association Annual Conference in Liverpool on Wednesday, Badenoch will also spell out the political trap the prime minister has now fallen into with his tax-and-spend plans in chaos and being dictated to by his own MPs.
'Labour told us 'the adults were back in charge', but this is actually amateur hour,' Badenoch will say. 'The prime minister is incapable of sticking to a decision. If he can't make relatively small savings to a benefits bill that is set to exceed £100 billion by 2030, how can we expect him to meet his promised 5 per cent defence spending, or ever take the tough decisions necessary to bring down the national debt?'
Behind the scenes, cabinet ministers are frustrated at the lack of a political narrative from a 'tin-eared' No 10 and believe many of the U-turns could have been avoided with better messaging. They also fear Starmer has squandered his first year and not made the most of the advantages of having a majority of 174, including making greater inroads into public-sector reform.
This will be seen as an even greater lost opportunity if the summer is plagued with record migrant crossings in the Channel and the country is hit by a new wave of graduate unemployment — widely regarded as the next big crisis looming over the government.
'The welfare reforms could have been sold better to MPs if we had made better the argument that it was about making people's lives better through work rather than through the prism of saving money in order to meet Rachel's [Reeves] fiscal rules,' one minister said.
Another government source blamed the timing of the welfare changes, which were announced a week before the spring statement, and said that in future any such reforms should be 'disentangled' from a fiscal event.
There is also a fear that despite extensive efforts by McSweeney to ensure that the 2024 intake of new Labour MPs were Starmer loyalists, too many appear to have delusions of grandeur and a lack of respect for the two men who ultimately got them elected.
'One of my colleagues described it as main character syndrome,' one MP said. 'These complaints about the prime minister not talking to new MPs — well he's a bit f***ing busy talking to President Trump.'
These sentiments are echoed by senior advisers in Starmer's government, who have watched the antics of backbench MPs with a mixture of contempt and incredulity.
'I think there are a lot of [new MPs] who worked in the charity sector who think they are really important,' one said. 'There's no respect for a leader who has worked incredibly hard to fix the party and who got them elected just 12 months ago.'
While few MPs are actively talking about replacing Starmer as prime minister, the chatter is growing that he will not lead the party into the next election. Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood are among those thought to have leadership ambitions.
One minister said: 'Very few of the MPs who signed the reasoned amendment were doing so because they wanted to see regime change, but the events of the last week have certainly emboldened those who do.'
In an effort to further quell the dissent among the back benches, Starmer said fixing the 'broken' welfare system must be done in a 'Labour way'.
'We cannot take away the safety net that vulnerable people rely on, and we won't, but we also can't let it become a snare for those who can and want to work,' the prime minister told the Welsh Labour conference on Saturday.
'Everyone agrees that our welfare system is broken: failing people every day, a generation of young people written off for good and the cost spiralling out of control. Fixing it is a moral imperative, but we need to do it in a Labour way.'
Whether these assurances are enough for Tidball, who was left upset by the chancellor last week, remains to be seen. She said: 'The concessions they have now announced are significant, including that all recipients of PIP who currently receive it will continue to do so. I know this will be an enormous relief for many of my nearly 6,000 constituents in receipt of PIP and disabled people across the country.
'However, I will continue working as I have done from the beginning, to look at these concessions carefully against the evidence on the impact upon disabled people … Fundamentally, I will be looking for further reassurances that the detail will fulfil Labour's manifesto commitments to disabled people.'
July 2024: Victory Having just returned from Buckingham Palace, Sir Keir Starmer stood outside No 10 to give his first speech as prime minister, promising to deliver the 'change' the country had voted for and 'a return of politics to public service'.
July 2024: Winter fuel payment cutOn July 29, Rachel Reeves announced she would remove the benefit from about ten million pensioners as part of her cost-cutting exercise to plug a much-contested £22 billion 'black hole' left by the Conservatives. After months of backlash and political pain, the prime minister U-turned on May 21 this year and announced the policy would be largely reversed.
September 2024: FreebiesThe Sunday Times revealed that Labour donor Lord Alli had been given a pass to No 10. This led to reporting on clothes and gifts he donated to Starmer, his wife and cabinet ministers — resulting in the prime minister, Reeves and Angela Rayner saying they would no longer accept similar donations.
October 2024: National insurance risesOn October 30, Reeves unveiled a £25 billion-a-year rise in employers' national insurance contributions and removed full inheritance tax relief on farmers, restricting it to the first £1 million of combined agricultural and business property.
June 14, 2025: Grooming inquiryStarmer spent six months resisting calls for a national grooming inquiry after the debate around the scandal was reignited by Elon Musk on social media. On June 14 he U-turned and announced an inquiry after all, days before a government-commissioned review was due to recommend it.
June 26, 2025: Welfare billOn March 18 the government announced major reforms to the benefits system that would have resulted in cuts to payments to hundreds of thousands of disabled people. More than 120 Labour MPs threatened to vote against the bill and after weeks of digging in, Downing Street caved and announced major concessions on Thursday evening.