Start the clock on a Labour U-turn over the two-child benefit cap. Few think the policy is good within the party, and yet retaining the cap is policy. Something will have to give.
For now, it is seven Labour MPs who rebelled on the King’s Speech last night in order to vote for an SNP amendment which would scrap the cap. The group, which is on the party’s left and includes former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, were swiftly suspended. It’s like when Boris Johnson removed the whip from 21 liberal conservatives in 2019, except this time it’s over a policy the senior ministers have said is bad (Angela Rayner has called the cap “obscene”); it’s not a defining showdown which would shape the constitution for a generation.
This was drastic action. As the politics professor Philip Cowley pointed out, there is little precedent for removing the whip from those who rebel on the King’s Speech. So many suspensions so early on is designed to scare new MPs into disciplined, loyal supporters of the government’s policy. This is completely in line with the ruthless operation that Keir Starmer ran as leader of the opposition. Party democracy will never override what Starmer’s office judge as necessary to win. Don’t expect him to drop that approach because he now has a 160-seat majority.
There is something more revealing here than that Starmer has a tight grip on his party. The government say they cannot afford to remove the cap – in other words, they will not borrow, tax or move spending from elsewhere to fund the plan. The cost of doing so would be £2.5bn to £3.6bn, but Labour is emphatically not making the argument that fewer children in poverty would alleviate pressure on public services, create a healthier population and therefore boost economic growth. Instead, fiscal restraint in the short term is preferred over “invest to save”.
How will this end? The government is currently pinning national ruin on the Tories. But there will come a moment where Starmer will want to get his MPs onside and when Rachel Reeves will claim the “plan is working” and therefore the government can do what Starmer calls those “Labour things”. Until then, he will hope the punishment has worked.
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