Labor MPs press Keir Starmer to rethink benefits after local elections

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Sir Keir Starmer faces the new pressure of his work deputies to reverse the cuts in winter fuel bonus after the government’s welfare decisions were partially blamed for the party’s mishap in the Thursday’s local elections.

The removal of the 10 million pensioners’ winter fuel grant was a key motive for voters told labor activists who would not support the party in last week’s election, according to the party’s deputies and figures.

The policy, which limits the provision of up to £ 300 per year only for the poorest pensioners, was announced a few weeks after work took power last year.

Labor deputies and party figures said that the measure, along with a more recent decision to reduce disability benefits, had helped to lose the party in some of their traditional hearts for the United Kingdom reform of Nigel Farage.

Some have privately provided that Starmer will be forced to a partial turn in U in winter fuel cuts before the end of the year.

A deputy of moderate labor said that the party had won a “cost of life elections” last July, but later it had failed to improve the situation of the cost of people’s lives, while actively getting worse for the elderly and disabled.

“Anyway, it would be a very difficult sale, but when it joins countless millions, the government can find to house young men who come to vessels every day, it is not sustainable to say that we can simply not pay the winter or PIP fuel payment,” he said, referring to personal independence payments, a form of benefit for patients and disabilities.

“Winter fuel reinstallation and review pipe changes are the least to be done if we want to avoid a reform,” he added.

Another Labor Member considered as a Starmer supporter said: “I am sure the government reflects on the problems that contributed to the losses last week, including winter fuel payments and disability and health benefits.”

Labor lost his former Runcorn and Helsby fortress to reform in secondary unions, while also losing Doncaster’s advice against the Populist Party of the right of Farage. The reform also approached the labor force in the Mayor’s Race of Tyneside North.

Starmer has dealt with the right in recent months to try to counteract the increase in reform, including reducing the foreign aid budget and introducing measures against illegal immigration.

But many labor campaigns said that the benefits cuts were a more powerful problem in the local election of the so -called “red wall”, the old labor choirs of the Midlands and northern England.

During the weekend, some deputies have been sharing investigations that suggest that the changes proposed to PIP could have a “devastating” effect on some of the most private communities in England.

The report from Health Equity North, a group of academics, said that the cuts would fall more hard in the northeast and northwest of England. “The ten -thoroughly circumscribes of the worst success are all the work and the” red wall “areas, he said.

Labor Member Stella Creasy said on Saturday the party should be careful to “imitate” the reform.

“Each reform counselor is a warning, not a way to go. A warning that mimics their plans to divide the British audience and echo their rhetoric, nor does it bring votes to the ballots or better results for anyone,” he told Instagram.

Instead, he requested urgent measures to combat the cost of the life crisis, including ending the lid of two children in the profits and ending with the cuts to PIP.

Ros Jones, Doncaster’s re -elected Labor Mayor last week by a small majority, warned after his victory over the damage caused by Starmer cuts to benefits such as PIP and winter fuel bonus.

A Labor Party figure said he was waiting for a partial turn on U on winter fuel cuts before Christmas, with the autumn budget the most likely moment.

“No one in Downing Street now thinks this was a good idea. Everyone realizes that it was a mistake. Each of them. At the moment, they say they will do nothing about it, but it feels like” not yet “that” never “, they said.

One option would be to lift the bar for eligibility so that only the richest excluding. The grant is currently restricted to pensioners who receive pension credit or other benefits.

Another government assistant said he was still “first days”, but predicted that work could not “keep the line” about politics by the end of the year.

But he asked if Starmer would become politics, a Downing Street official said on Sunday: “I’m not aware of the plans to do so, even though people look at things all the time.” Treasury did not immediately respond to a comment request.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves reduced the winter fuel bonus last July after the election to strengthen public finances, saying that the previous conservative government had exceeded.

“It was something that the treasure had been trying to escape for years,” said an ex -superior government.

They said that Morgan McSweney, then Starmer’s political strategy, but now the Chief of Staff, “he almost hung his head in his hands” when he learned about the decision “because he knew what he was politically.”