What does Starmer's climbdown on disability sanctions actually mean?

Labour rebels forced Keir Starmer to drop most of his economic assaults on disabled people at the last second, but what does this actually mean?

Keir Starmer has gutted his economic sanctions on disabled people in order to rush the legislation through parliament, but what does this actually mean?

Last week Starmer tried to see off a Labour Party rebellion over his economic sanctions on disabled people by offering a two-tier system under which existing PIP claimants could keep their subsistence benefits, while new claimants would be forced to jump through much higher hoops in order to receive much lower levels of support.

Despite a barrage of threats and intimidation from the Labour Party whips, this backtrack wasn’t enough to see off the rebellion, so just 90 minutes before yesterday’s vote, Starmer decided to remove the entire section of the bill aimed at reducing PIP payments, and making them much harder for genuinely disabled people to claim (Clause 5).

This last minute concession was sufficient to see off the rebellion and pass the legislation, but it’s come at the cost of making Starmer’s government look like the bunch of incompetents that they are.

Just like their strategic withdrawal over pensioner’s Winter Fuel Allowance, their retreat on sanctioning disabled people isn’t going to help their reputation with decent people either.

They still chose to try and impose economic sanctions on pensioners and disabled people as their legislative priorities, instead of making economic reforms to reduce some of the obscene advantages enjoyed by the incredibly wealthy.

They wanted to harm the elderly and the disabled, and they were only stopped from doing so by the unpopularity of their actions.

The Tories and the right-wing dominated professional media class are having a field day over this absolute farce of Starmer’s own making, claiming that Labour are an incompetent rabble, and wittering on about how these concessions on PIP have created a "black hole" in Rachel Reeves budget.

There’s an element of truth in these criticisms, and an element of absolute drivelling bullshit too.

Yes they’re an incompetent rabble who tried to push a deeply unpopular piece of legislation through parliament as quickly as possible, only to fold and remove the most unpopular part at the last second to get it through.

But the idea that these concessions create a terrible "black hole" in the government’s budget is utterly deceptive bullshit.

Rachel Reeves’ sanctions on disabled people were aimed at saving something like £4.8 billion per year. Even if that’s completely wiped out by the last-minute concessions, it’s still just a tiny drop in the ocean compared to the overall government budget.

Think of the £14 billion the government has pledged to create another expensive Hinkley Point C type white elephant at Sizewell.

Think of the hundreds of £billions Starmer is pledging to splurge on the military and munitions factories to bring Britain’s military spending up to absurd proportions of overall economic activity.

Think of the fact that the Bank of England could save tens of £billions per year, just by stopping the interest payments on the bailout cash that they gave to the private banks for free after the 2008 financial sector insolvency crisis.

Think about the tens of £billions the government could raise by removing or reducing some of the tax-breaks and handouts they’re intent on continuing for the mega-rich. Stuff like tax relief on the pension contributions of the extremely wealthy; lower tax rates on idle profits (Capital Gains Tax) than on actual work (Income Tax); and the National Insurance taper that allows people on six or seven figure salaries to pay lower NI rates than the majority of people on ordinary salaries.

As always, capitalist media coverage of the situation is deceptive, and concentrates much more on the personal aspect of this climbdown being a defeat for Starmer and Reeves, than on providing relevant context; explaining what’s actually happened; and considering what comes next.

So what does come next?

The gutted remains of the legislation that passed still creates a two-tier system for the disability element of Universal Credit, reducing it to £50 per week for new claimants after April 2026, while existing claimants will stay at £97 per week.

Why should people who become disabled in the future receive less help than those who are already disabled now? Nobody seems to care to explain.

Starmer’s mob now say they won’t be making reforms to the PIP system until after a review by the disability minister Stephen Timms, which is scheduled for next year.

This raises the question of why they tried to rush through a load of devastating cuts to PIP as quickly as possible without doing this review first; without consulting disability organisations; and without conducting economic impact assessments on the changes they were trying to make.

Then there’s the issue of the political repercussions.

Will Starmer see sense and remove the people who pushed him into trying to rush diabolical sanctions against disabled people through parliament as quickly as possible (Rachel Reeves, Liz Kendall, the right-wing policy gonks he’s surrounded himself with …)?

Of course not.

Given his proven track record of vote-rigging; ideological purges; and punishment of any kind of dissent, we should all be wary of what’s coming next.

Starmer’s fury isn’t going to be aimed at the malicious idiots who steered him into this mess. His vengeance is going to be aimed at the Labour MPs who stood up and prevented most of the worst abuses contained in this legislation.

Perhaps the most important aspect of this climb-down is the "trust me bro" manner of it. We’re just supposed to trust the very people who tried to rush these inhumane changes through parliament as quickly as possible, to come back with something fairer next year?

We’re supposed to trust a guy who lied his way into the Labour leadership; bragged that he’d lie again for more political power; and habitually breaks his promises, bins his stated policies, and tears up his pledges are we?

In conclusion it is a good thing that the Labour rebels managed to force this last minute climb-down. Most of the depravity has been avoided (for now at least).

But there will be no retribution on Starmer, nor the people who pushed him into attempting to rush through such needless cruelty so quickly, only to be forced into the political humiliation of withdrawing most of it at the last second.

The retribution will be aimed at those who defied him, while disabled people and those with conscience enough to care about their welfare are left with nothing but a "trust me bro" from one of the most serially dishonest people in British politics.