Labour Party conference has voted for the government’s cut to the winter fuel allowance to be reversed, in a strong rebuke of the Starmer leadership.

The motion, submitted by Unite the Union and the Communication Workers Union (CWU), also called for taxes on the wealthy and for the party to abandon its ‘fiscal rules’ limiting investment in public services.

Though the motion is non-binding, it represents the most significant challenge to the Labour leadership since its landslide election victory three months ago. It also comes off the back of sustained criticism from media, rival political parties, Labour MPs and anti-poverty groups that have left Keir Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, increasingly isolated.

Under government plans to limit winter fuel payments to those in receipt of pension credits, about 10 million pensioners will lose out on the £200-300 annual lump sum payments. Pensioner groups and anti-poverty campaigners have pointed out that this will potentially push hundreds of thousands of pensioners into poverty, leaving them unable to hear their homes. Those with medical conditions requiring them to stay warm and those living in poorly insulated housing are set to be hit hardest. 

The prospects of today’s vote causing a U-turn, however, seem distant. Despite the mounting campaign against the cut, the prime minister appears unmoved. In yesterday’s address to party conference, he preempted criticism of the policy and provided a bullish defence of the necessity of cuts and stinging criticism of their opponents:

‘All those shouts and bellows, the bad faith advice from people who still hanker for the politics of noisy performance, the weak and cowardly politics of fantasism — it’s water off a duck’s back.’

Yesterday’s leader’s speech, the first from a Labour prime minister in 14 years, ought to have been an occasion of celebration and triumph. Yet Starmer felt the need to preempt criticism and attempt to steady the ship after three months of scandal and blunder had rocked his government. 

Before the general election, Team Starmer briefed the press that they had plans to ‘hit the ground running’ in the first 100 days of government. But what should have been a honeymoon period has seen the party squander its post-election goodwill: Labour has slumped in the polls to a narrowing lead over a leaderless Conservative Party. Meanwhile, Starmer’s favourability ratings have plunged by 30 points, leaving him with an even lower approval rating than Rishi Sunak.

There is no single cause of the government’s nosediving popularity. The rolling freebies scandal, the decision to suspend MPs for voting against child poverty, continued support for Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. All these have played a role. The winter fuel allowance cut, however, has resonated more than any other.

In yesterday’s speech, the prime minister attempted to make a virtue of his government’s increasing unpopularity, boasting that ‘many of the decisions we must take will be unpopular’ and explaining that ‘If they were popular — they’d be easy’.

Starmer and his team appear to believe this doubling down on the ‘unpopular’ frames him as a defiant leader prepared to make tough but necessary choices. For the public, it increasingly casts him as stubborn, brittle and avoiding the truly difficult decisions; nobody buys that the government is picking on poor pensioners instead of the super-rich because the latter would be too easy targets.

These attempts to defend the cuts as a necessary sacrifice also inflame the deep anger at the growing corruption scandal. The past few weeks have seen government ministers oscillate between justifying accepting hundreds of thousands of pounds in designer clothes, concert tickets, holidays and lavish parties and explaining why pensioners surviving on £12,000 a year must tighten their belts. Sacrifice, it seems, is only expected of some. 

It is these deficiencies in Starmer’s character and the political project that he leads which are responsible for the government’s cratering popularity after such a short time in power. And if his team believe that the public will thank him in the coming years for inflicting cuts on the most vulnerable while leaving the wealthy unscathed, they are sorely mistaken. 

The tragedy of the Starmer government already finding itself in this predicament is that it was all so predictable and avoidable. The few occasions in his speech where the prime minister spoke with genuine passion and conviction were when he took swipes and sneered at the Left and his own party members. It’s a shame, really. With the battle over the winter fuel payments set to rumble on, he could benefit from listening to them.