Hours before MPs were due to vote on the government’s welfare bill, Angela Rayner conveyed an urgent message to Downing Street.
She had spent the day in intense talks with Labour rebels including Sarah Owen and Florence Eshalomi, and come to the conclusion the concessions offered just days earlier had failed. Dozens of them were still planning to vote against the government, and one of Keir Starmer’s major economic policies hung in the balance.
The prime minister agreed to Rayner’s proposal to make the biggest concession available to the government without withdrawing the bill altogether.
The planned cuts to personal independence payments (Pips) would be shelved, Starmer agreed, and any future changes to the system would be implemented only after a review by the welfare minister Stephen Timms, in conjunction with disability groups.
The prime minister relayed his message to a handful of potential Labour rebels, and directly to the Commons chamber, where MPs had been debating the measures for more than three hours. In huddled conversations on the frontbench, the U-turn was communicated to the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, and then hastily announced by Timms.
This capped the most tumultuous 24 hours of Keir Starmer’s premiership: one that has underlined how badly damaged the prime minister has been by his first year in power and which could define the rest of his time in Downing Street.
Ministers began the week in bullish mood. The U-turns announced on Friday – including limiting the Pip changes to new claimants only – appeared to have won the support of leading rebels including Meg Hillier, the chair of the Treasury select committee.
Kendall went to the Commons to outline the concessions to MPs. But despite her confident tone, some MPs felt she had tripped on some of the finer details and even contradicted herself at times.
Rebels had been particularly upset by one important clarification Kendall offered: the Timms review would not be ready in time to forestall the new four-point system. That system would be imposed as planned in November 2026, with any changes recommended by Timms coming into force at a later stage.
Stephen Timms next to Liz Kendall in the Commons. Timms announced the U-turn in the chamber, where MPs had been debating the bill more for than three hours. Photograph: Parliament TV
“We were already worried about a two-tier system,” said one wavering Labour MP. “Now the government was telling us it was going to be a three-tier system.”
What made it worse was the unexpected publication of a new impact assessment, showing that even after the government’s changes the bill would push 150,000 people into relative poverty.
Whips spent much of Monday calling prospective rebels, focusing particularly on those first elected in 2024 whom they deemed most likely to change their minds.
The tactics showed some signs of success, but also created anger among many longer-serving Labour backbenchers.
“They’re focusing only on the 2024 intake,” said one person who signed Hillier’s amendment. “They seem to have forgotten the rest of us exist.”
Complaints about the behaviour of Labour whips have plagued the bill throughout the negotiations and became louder over Monday and Tuesday.
“Once they thought they had it in the bag, we never heard again from a single minister,” one MP said.
Another added: “It has been student politics throughout. They were laughing that the rebels didn’t have the numbers, then got angry when they realised they did and started threatening deselection instead.”
By Monday evening it was clear the government was still in trouble. A new wrecking amendment was published by the Labour MP Rachael Maskell, complete with the signatures of 39 MPs.
Many Labour MPs did not want to join forces with Maskell, whom they considered an imperfect leader of the rebellion.
“Rachael called me to ask me to sign the amendment and I asked her what the political strategy was after laying it,” said one. “She didn’t seem to have one.”
Another added that Maskell had alienated some moderates by ostentatiously sitting next to Jeremy Corbyn during Monday’s heated Commons debate. “We fought Corbyn for five years,” said the MP. “And there she is cosying up to him. It was not a great look for someone looking to win over colleagues to her cause.”
These concerns did not change the fact that many MPs were still planning to rebel – many more than the 39 who signed Maskell’s amendment.
Ministers knew this, and at one point on Monday evening Kendall came close to making further U-turns on the timing of the Timms review and a promise to address the potential “three-tier” system.
Late on Monday that offer was hastily withdrawn amid disagreement between Kendall’s department and No 10 on how to respond. The Treasury insisted they could not release any more money.
At one point negotiations over the concessions became so fraught that when one rebel MP asked if the government could include lifting the two-child benefit limit, a furious aide told them: “You’ve just spent the money for that!”
Tuesday began with the prime minister on the front foot.
Starmer opened his weekly cabinet meeting with a warning shot to those who had been anonymously blaming his advisers for the chaos surrounding the welfare bill.
The briefing wars must stop, he said, giving a full-throated defence of his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. He said without his master strategist “none of us would be sitting around this cabinet table”.
For most of the rest of the day, ministers continued to defend their plans. Having agreed concessions with Labour rebels days earlier, the government was determined to stay the course.
Opening the debate on Tuesday afternoon, Kendall reinforced this message, with no sign of the concession to come. “This bill and our wider welfare reforms seek to fix the broken benefits system that we inherited from the Conservatives and deliver a better life for millions of people across our country,” she told the Commons.
The truth was, however, that ministers were still unsure even at this late stage whether they could get the bill through the Commons.
As they huddled in corners of the parliamentary estate on Tuesday morning, Labour MPs admitted to each other that they were still uncertain how to vote.
“What are you going to do?” asked one. Their colleague replied: “I don’t know, I’ll probably make my mind up during the debate.”
Sitting at tables in the atrium of Portcullis House, a number of worried new MPs were war-gaming what would happen if the government were to lose. Several asked journalists if they knew what it would mean.
“It would unleash something a lot of colleagues don’t intend to,” one supportive MP said. “I think only this morning was the time they are really grappling with that. I think it’s the PM’s only hope to be honest. Do you really want to completely destroy this government’s authority?”
Several MPs said they were thinking of rebelling even though they had not signed Maskell’s amendment. “I didn’t want the whips pestering me all night,” one said.
Even those loyal to Starmer admit the lead-up to the vote had been badly handled, but said that in the final reckoning many MPs had decided the consequences of rebelling would be too severe.
“People have started to think about what the alternative is,” one Labour MP said. “The alternative is maybe not to bring down the government, but it would get pretty close.”
Meanwhile, Rayner, who led the negotiations for the government throughout last week, was engaged in shuttle diplomacy, crossing the floor of Portcullis House on multiple occasions as she carried messages between rebels and the whips’ office.
The final message was clear: Labour was heading for a possible defeat on one of its most important economic policies. Ministers could gut the bill, withdraw it, or lose.
Timms’ dramatic announcement on Tuesday evening may have staved off the threat of a ministerial resignation but it leaves Starmer badly damaged and his chancellor having to find nearly £5bn of extra cuts in the budget this year.
MPs are particularly irritated that the issue of welfare cuts has tripped up another Labour leader, as it did with Tony Blair, Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman.
Many potential rebels cited the experience in 2015 when Harman as interim leader whipped her MPs to abstain on government benefits cuts, a decision which helped propel Jeremy Corbyn to office in the subsequent leadership election.
“Many of us were thinking of abstaining at second reading and then using the extra time to push for more concessions,” said one MP. “But the problem is this was the tactic Harriet used in 2015, and that backfired badly.”
Conservatives were gleeful. “While we’ve been here debating it, the bill has more or less disintegrated,” said Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary. “Describing this as chaos now feels like an understatement.”
Many Labour MPs agreed. “I’m absolutely amazed at what’s happened even this afternoon,” Ian Lavery told the Commons during Tuesday’s debate. “This is crazy. This is outrageous.”
As they reflect on a bruising 48 hours, some government officials are contrite. “It is clear we failed to take people with us,” said one Downing Street aide.
Others were more defiant. “It’s the Brexiteers all over again,” said one government official, likening the Labour rebels to the Brexit-supporting Conservative MPs who caused such problems for a succession of Tory MPs. “They don’t know when to take yes for an answer.”