Keir Starmer has shrugged off mounting Labour unrest over his flagship welfare cuts, dismissing the backlash as “noises off” and insisting his party remains “pretty united” behind the need for change.
The prime minister is facing the biggest revolt of his premiership as more than 120 MPs signalled in an amendment they could vote against the welfare bill on Tuesday in a rebellion led by select committee chairs and previously loyalist Labour MPs.
Ministers have told the Guardian they do not believe the government has the option to press ahead with the bill in the face of such unrest. However, senior sources in both the Department for Work and Pensions and No 10 have insisted it will be voted on next Tuesday.
Speaking at the Nato summit in The Hague, the prime minister rejected suggestions he lacked political instinct, pointing to Labour’s landslide election win as proof of his judgment.
Asked whether he had failed to read the mood of his MPs on welfare, Starmer said critics had made similar predictions before and had been proven wrong. “I’m comfortable reading the room and delivering the change the country needs,” he said.
“We’ve got a strong Labour government with a huge majority to deliver on our manifesto commitments. And that’s the work that we did over many years to win the election. Now we start the work over many years to change the country. Having changed the party, we now change the country.
“And is it tough going? Are there plenty of people and noises off? Yes, of course, there always are, there always have been, there always will be. But the important thing is to focus on the change that we want to bring about.”
Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minster, said the government would press ahead with a Commons vote on the bill next Tuesday.
MPs have been lobbied privately by cabinet ministers including Rayner to remove their support for the reasoned amendment, which would kill the bill if passed. On Wednesday MPs said they expected more names to be added to the list of rebels by the end of the day.
Rayner said the package included £1bn for tailored employment support and pledged to end repeated assessments for the most severely disabled people, framing the bill as a step toward a “modern, fair and compassionate” welfare system.
The legislation, aimed at changing personal independence payments (Pip), has triggered a major internal test of Starmer’s premiership.
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Senior Labour figures, including the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the Treasury select committee chair, Meg Hillier, have broken ranks to warn the party against pursuing benefit cuts that echo austerity.
Starmer defended the proposals as necessary to build a “fairer and more efficient” system and said they were squarely in line with Labour’s manifesto mandate.
He said Labour was the best party to reform welfare. “The argument I would make is that it is a Labour government that should reform welfare,” he said.
“If the welfare system isn’t working for those that need it, and it is not, it’s a Labour government that should make it work for the future. Just as it was a Labour government that created the welfare system, it falls to this Labour government to make sure we’ve got a welfare system that’s sustainable for the future to come.
“We created the health service, and now we have to ensure that it’s fit for the future. Same with welfare. That is a progressive argument, that is a Labour argument, and it’s the right argument to make.”
