Starmer suggests welfare bill revolt just ‘noises off’ as he rejects claim row shows he is bad at politics
Starmer says Labour MPs are “pretty united” in agreeing that welfare reform is needed.
The question is how. The bill will modernise welfare, and make it fairer and more efficient, he says. That is what the goverment was elected to do, he says.
He goes on:
If I may say so, many people predicted before the election that we couldn’t read the room, we hadn’t got the politics right, and we wouldn’t win an election after 2019 because we lost so badly.
That was the constant charge of me at press conferences like this, and we got a landslide victory.
So I’m comfortable with reading the room and delivering the change the country needs.
We’ve got a strong Labour government with a huge majority to deliver on our manifesto commitments. And that’s the work that we did over many years to win the election. Now we start the work over many years to change the country. Having changed the party, we now change the country.
And is it tough going? Are there plenty of people and noises off? Yes, of course, there always are, there always have been, there always will be.
But the important thing is to focus on the change that we want to bring about.
Starmer has always been sensitive to the charge that he has poor political instincts. It was a claim often made when he was in opposition, and it still surfaces now, despite his landslide election win. In fact, just today the New Statesman has been promoting a cover essay by Andrew Marr making this claim.
But Starmer’s answer implied the internal Labour row about welfare was little more than “noises off”. If that is what he meant, that would be a mistake, because the rebellion is much more serious about that. Perhaps he was wound up by the aggressive question (from a Mail reporter), which could have prompted him to say more than he intended.
Key events
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Q: The national security strategy published yesterday said Britons should prepare for war on home soil. Should people be thinking seriously about cold war-style prepartions?
Starmer said it was mistake to think the UK does not face threats at home. Cyber attacks are happening on a daily basis, he said. Russia and Iran were carrying out cyber attacks against the UK on a regular basis, he said.
Q: Do you think President Trump wants to get tough on Russia now over Ukraine?
Starmer said at the Nato summit there was a view that Russia needs to be pushed harder.
I think it’s fair to say the mood of pretty well all participants in the session in Nato that we’ve just had in the moment summit was, on the one hand, of positivity and resolve and purpose in relation to the commitment we’ve made … but at the same time recognising that we need to now push harder on Ukraine. And I think that reflects the mood in the room, and that it’s time for Putin to come to the table.
That’s been the subject not only of the discussions at the summit, but actually of many of the discussions over dinner last night and in the margins.
Starmer did not explicitly discuss Trump’s views on this.
Q: Why have you failed to read the mood of Labour MPs on welfare reform. Is that because you have no political nous, as critics claim?
Starmer says Labour MPs are “pretty united” in agreeing that welfare reform is needed.
The question is how. The bill will modernise welfare, and make it fairer and more efficient, he says. That is what the goverment was elected to do, he says.
He goes on:
If I may say so, many people predicted before the election that we couldn’t read the room, we hadn’t got the politics right, and we wouldn’t win an election after 2019 because we lost so badly.
That was the constant charge of me at press conferences like this, and we got a landslide victory.
So I’m comfortable with reading the room and delivering the change the country needs.
We’ve got a strong Labour government with a huge majority to deliver on our manifesto commitments. And that’s the work that we did over many years to win the election. Now we start the work over many years to change the country. Having changed the party, we now change the country.
And is it tough going? Are there plenty of people and noises off? Yes, of course, there always are, there always have been, there always will be.
But the important thing is to focus on the change that we want to bring about.
Starmer has always been sensitive to the charge that he has poor political instincts. It was a claim often made when he was in opposition, and it still surfaces now, despite his landslide election win. In fact, just today the New Statesman has been promoting a cover essay by Andrew Marr making this claim.
But Starmer’s answer implied the internal Labour row about welfare was little more than “noises off”. If that is what he meant, that would be a mistake, because the rebellion is much more serious about that. Perhaps he was wound up by the aggressive question (from a Mail reporter), which could have prompted him to say more than he intended.
Q: President Trump gave you hardly any notice of his attack on Iran and then he expressed doubts about Nato’s article 5. Is he really a reliable ally?
Yes, says Starmer. He says the UK works very closely with the US.
Q: Your plans to increase defence spending go into the next decade. How confident are you that you will be around in the next parliament to implement these plans? And are you confidend you will lead Labour into the next election?
Starmer says he is “very confident”. He says when he was elected he said there would have to be a decade of renewal. He says it is important to “lead from the front”.
Q: Are you willing to compromise on welfare reform?
Starmer again says welfare needs reform. The government was elected to reform the system, and that is what it will do, he says.
Starmer is now taking questions.
Q: There is no condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the Nato communique. Is that to appease Donald Trump?
Starmer says Nato’s position on Ukraine has not changed. It is time for Putin to come to the table.
Q: On welfare reform, if yo cannot government your party, how can you govern the country.
Starmer says welfare needs reform, and he again confirms the vote will go ahead on Tuesday.
On the question of welfare reform, we’re committed to reforming our welfare system. It doesn’t work. It traps people, and it has to be reformed, and it also has to ensure that we’ve got a welfare system that is fit for the future. And that is why there will be a vote.
Starmer is making his opening statement.
He confirms the announcement about the government buying jets to carry nuclear weapons.
Keir Starmer is holding a press conference at the Nato summit.
There is a live feed here.
At PMQs Angela Rayner defended the welfare cuts bill and said that the vote on it would go ahead, as planned, on Tuesday next week, despite growing speculation that minister will have to postpone. While it would be unfair to describe these comments as worthless, they were also about as devoid of significance as any political discourse can be. That is because Rayner was just delivering “the line”.
PMQs gets interesting when politicians go beyond the line, or it starts to shift. But Rayner was defending the bill with a script that is very familiar, and would not have been out of place being deployed by a loyal backbencher in the 6.50 slot on the Today programme. She certainly did not put in passionate, compelling defence of the bill. But there was nothing in what she said that implied she wants to see it fail. Maybe she does (most Labour MPs with her politics seem to think that way), and maybe Mel Stride was right to say she was defending a policy she did not personally support. But if that is the case, Rayner covered it up quite successfully.
And Rayner saying the vote will go ahead does not mean it will. But it does not mean it won’t either. It just means that, at this point, No 10 has not decided to pull the debate. It is a binary issue, and in situations like this the government always has to keep saying it is sticking to the plan until the moment comes to announced that it isn’t. Just ask Michael Gove. In December 2018 he told the Today programme that a vote on Theresa May’s Brexit bill was “definitely, 100% going to happen” – only for the vote to be abandoned a few hours later.
Perhaps the most interesting thing we learned in relation to the welfare bill was that Labour MPs opposed to it did not want to have that argument out at PMQs. Debbie Abrahams is the second signatory in the reasoned amendment, and as chair of the work and pensions committee this is her specialist subject. She had a question, but she asked about something else. As did Rebecca Long-Bailey, Rayner’s former flatmate and runner-up in the leadership contest won by Keir Starmer. She has signed the reasoned amendment, but did not bring it up at PMQs.
Rayner, in her exchanges with Stride and elsewhere during PMQs, seemed over-reliant on the ‘You Tories were rubbish’ response to any complaints about the government’s record. But that did not seem to matter much because Stride’s attack lines were predicatable and vulnerable to a fairly obvious comeback. Adam Bienkov from Byline Times summed it up quite well like this.
Conservative Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride, whose party raised taxes to record levels and presided over a surge in welfare costs, accuses the government of planning to raise taxes and increase welfare costs #pmqs
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, asked the final question. He said the UK should not be selling F-35 parts to Israel given that those jets were used to attack Gaza. And he asked if Rayner would back his bill for a public inquiry into the UK’s complicity with Israeli war crimes.
Rayner said Israel’s recent actions in Gaza were “appalling”. But she said it was for international courts to determine when genocide has taken place, not governments.
Rayner says the Palestine Action attack at Brize Norton was “disgraceful”. But she says the attempt by Reform UK to blame the female officer commanding the base was “even more disgraceful”. They should have been blaming the criminals, not “an accomplished woman who has served her country”, Raynerr says.
Neil O’Brien (Con) says local people are opposed to the plan to expand the boundaires of Leicester’s local authority.
Rayner says what local people did not want was the last government.
Kanishka Narayan (Lab) accuses Reform UK of proritising the interests of millionaires with its latest policy, the Britannia card.
Rayner says Nigel Farage is demanding “billions more in unfunded tax cuts for the very richest” while voting against better sick pay for low earners.
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