Kier Starmer is not a popular man. In fact he holds the worst approval rating of any UK prime minister this far into a tenure in modern British history. 

He looks constantly to appeal to the more right-wing sector of the electorate, enacting authoritarian attacks on the elderly, disabled people, trans people, immigrants, and on and on. Yet he simply cannot win them over because he can never be right wing enough, even as he continues to trample on the left in his own party who would actually make strides in regaining trust in Labour as a whole.  

With the rebellion of his back-bench MPs and the subsequent concession of the cabinet, the U-turns expose an inner weakness at the heart of his governance. Starmer presents as an authoritarian, but inside is a very poor leader. Both MPs and their constituents have already noticed this fact. 

Another gash for the vulnerable: 

The government proposed the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill on the 18th of this month, with Liz Kendal citing the “firm conviction” of ministers to barrel through the suggested rebellion. That, needless to say, did not happen. 

The Bill would’ve changed the means testing process for those applying for PIP. Under the current system, people wanting to receive PIP must be assessed on their ability to undertake daily tasks like washing, eating, and decision-making. If they have a disability which inhibits these, they receive points based on how severe it is. To receive the standard rate of just £72.65 a week, people must score 12 points or higher across various categories. Under the proposed new legislation, they needed to score at least 4 points in one category, drastically squeezing the amount of people eligible.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, the bill itself would have cut the incomes of c. 3.2 million people by 2030. The PIP adjustments specifically would have cut out 190,000 people from the right to receive vital payments. This strategy is part of a broader attack on vulnerable members of our communities which is making him even more unpopular than he already is. 

The Backbench Rebellion:

In reaction to this piece of legislation, 126 MPs to the left of the right-wing cabinet prepared for a rebellion. Pro-Corbyn mainstayers and 2024 intakes were rightly disgusted at the vicious austerity mission of their cabinet, and forecast their intent to squash the bill to the press. 

Clive Lewis, a prominent left-wing MP for Norwich South since 2015, is known for his campaign against privatised water companies and the various liberties they take with our money and our waterways. He rose up after the announcement of the Benefit Bill to state his cautious opposition, and pointed out that it would “push people into abject poverty” asking that Starmer “rethink” the approach.

This was backed up by Diane Abbot, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, and a stalwart of the left in the party. She called out the government on X for the concession and addressed the fact that although the U-turn may be a failure for this particular bill at this particular moment, the campaign against disabled people will likely not stop. 

Others like Zarah Sultana, suspended though she remains from the party, stated their firm opposition to the draconian bill. This is the very least we can ask for from Labour party representatives in the Commons as the party lurches further towards the right. 

But what all of the U-turns mean for Starmer’s government is the same as what it meant for Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak at the whispy end of Conservative rule – more and more instability. As anarchists, we don’t invest too much faith in parliamentary politics, but it’s important to understand that that instability will have a detrimental effect on people’s lives under the current system. The Labour cabinet cannot govern competently enough to keep its back-benches on side, and that is because they cannot help but attempt to appeal to the moderate and even far-right of the British electorate. And that stands for not just domestic, but foreign policy issues also. 

Kier Starmer is a dead man wandering

Morgan McSweeney has garnered a lot of the attention for Labour’s policy platform since he became Chief of Staff for Downing Street in October 2024. Like many of his ilk, the Littlefinger of this Prime Minister is attempting to gain the respect and admiration of the lower-middle class British voter that for years voted for the Tories. It was his mission to gain the trust Thatcherite voters for the Labour Party, but they just can’t seem to sing the right tune. And in return he and the Labour leadership had to sell out all that the Corbyn campaign stood for, and banish them from the party. 

That motivation is also likely what hides behind the decision to attack disabled people in the way the government has attempted to do. Starmer routinely tests the waters of the British people, seeing how they will react to one austerity measure after another, and he gets routinely bad results, prompting U-turns. This is the third U-turn we’ve seen from the government this month, and that speaks for itself. 

In the following week, Starmer will have reached 1 year in government. From the right-wing legislation, to the authoritarian crackdown on protestors, to the U-turns, Starmer not only seems to abore those in the country struggling to live, he also seems weak, unprincipled, and unstrustworthy in his leadership. 

Image Via: Jessica Taylor. CC BY-SA 3.0  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/Wikimedia Commons.