If there is one moment that defines Keir Starmer’s troubled government, then last July’s welfare revolt might be it. It was the moment when the fragility of Labour’s landslide majority was exposed and when the administration appeared overwhelmed by the scale of the challenges before it. Relations between the leadership and the Parliamentary Labour Party have never been the same since.
Memories of that political cataclysm have been stirred by last week’s income tax U-turn and by the revolt against Shabana Mahmood’s asylum reform plan. Twenty-one Labour MPs have signalled their opposition to the proposals (follow the New Statesman’s tracker here), which would see refugee status made temporary and reviewed every 30 months.
While nearly half of the MPs are members of the reliably rebellious Socialist Campaign Group, opposition extends beyond what whips call the “usual suspects” to include figures such as Tony Vaughan, the former human rights lawyer and de facto rebel leader, and Sarah Owen, the chair of the women and equalities select committee. “There was no attempt to test the waters of PLP opinion,” says one MP.
Both supporters and opponents of the plan agree on one thing: the government is in a stronger position than it was over welfare cuts. Why? First, even some rebel MPs privately acknowledge that public opinion is on Mahmood’s side. Polling by More in Common shows that Danish-style asylum policies, such as requiring refugees to provide financial guarantees before family members can join them in the UK, are popular not only with Labour voters but with Green ones. “In both language and substance, Shabana Mahmood is much more in line with the median Brit than either the Labour left or Reform,” says Luke Tryl, More in Common’s director.
One of the more telling interventions in last night’s parliamentary debate came from Ian Lavery, a Socialist Campaign Group MP and the former president of the National Union of Mineworkers. He agreed with Mahmood that the asylum system had been “absolutely smashed to smithereens” by the Conservatives, adding that he wanted to see “control of our borders” and to “stop the boats”. His concern, as Hugh Gaitskell’s wife once told the late Labour leader, was that all the wrong people were cheering.
“When the opposition parties – the Tories, Reform UK, not to mention that odious racist chancer [Tommy Robinson] who is bankrolled by the world’s wealthiest man [Elon Musk] – are championing our policies, is it not time to question whether we are actually in the right place?” asked Lavery.
This was a charge levelled repeatedly at Mahmood during the debate and one she had anticipated. “I am sorry to find that the Reform Party is living rent-free in so many people’s heads, but I can assure hon. Members that it is living nowhere near mine,” she declared at one point.
As a Mahmood ally told me yesterday (“this isn’t us tacking towards public opinion, we really believe it”), they have chosen to make their case from first principles, arguing that fixing a broken system is not an electoral imperative but a moral one. “I do not believe that we can look the other way and pretend that it is just talking points from our political enemies that are driving division in our country,” argued Mahmood.
This is another reason that she finds herself on stronger ground than Labour did over welfare reform. Attempts to make a moral argument for that policy foundered as new cuts were pencilled in to ensure Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules would be met in the Spring Statement.
Too often, the government has relied on external forces – the bond markets, the courts, Donald Trump – to justify its approach. As a consequence, it has appeared at the mercy of events rather than in control of them. Mahmood, by contrast, intends to rely on nothing but the force of her own arguments. Her parliamentary admirers are calling that leadership.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[Further reading: Inside the Your Party crack-up]
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