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Sir Keir Starmer is facing fresh pressure from his work MPs to return cuts to allowing winter fuel as government welfare decisions were partially blamed for party obstacles in Thursday’s local elections.
Removing the winter fuel subsidy from 10MN pensioners was a major reason voters told work activists that they would not support the party in last week’s elections, MPs and party figures said.
The policy, which limits the benefit of up to £ 300 a year for the poorest pensioners only, was announced just weeks after work took power last year.
Labor MPs and party figures said the masses, along with a recent decision to reduce disability benefits, had contributed to the party to lose in some of its traditional heart lands in the Nigel Farage reform in the United Kingdom.
Some have provided privately that Starmer will be forced into a partial turn in winter fuel cuts before the end of the year.
A moderate labor lawmaker said the party had won a “cost of living choices” last July, but then failed to improve the situation for people’s cost of living, while actively making it worse for the elderly and with disabilities.
“This would be a very difficult sale anyway, but when accompanied by millions of countless, the government can find shelter young people who arrive by boat daily, it is unstable to say that we simply cannot allow the payment of winter fuel or Pip,” he said, referring to personal payments of independence, a form of benefits.
“Restoring winter fuel and reviewing PIP changes are the minimum that needs to be done if we want to prevent a reform deletion,” he added.
Another work MP who is seen as a supporter of Starmer said: “I am sure the government is reflecting on issues that contributed to losses last week, including winter fuel payments and disability and health benefits.”
Labor lost her former Runcorn and Helsby form to reform in an additional choice, while also lost the Doncaster council in the right-wing Populist Party of Farage. The reform also approached the overthrow of the job in the race of the mayor of the Northern Tyneside.
Starmer has dealt with the right in recent months in an effort to oppose the increase in reform, including reducing the budget of aid overseas and presenting measures against illegal immigration.
But many work campaigns said that benefits cuts were a more powerful issue in local elections in the so-called “Red Wall”, former Hoartlands of Midlands and Northern England.
Over the weekend, some MPs have shared research suggesting that the proposed changes in PIP may have a “destructive” effect on some of the most deprived communities in England.
The report from Health Equity North, a group of academics, said the cuts would fall more north-east and northwest of England. “The 10 worst hit areas are all kept at work, and in the” Red Wall areas, “she said.
Labor MP Stella Creasy said Saturday that the party should be careful to “imitate” the reform.
“Everyone new reform adviser is a warning, not a way forward. A warning that imitates their plans to share the British public and echoes their rhetoric nor gives votes in the ballot box nor better results for anyone,” she said on Instagram.
Instead, she called for urgent measures to handle the cost of the living crisis, including the completion of the two -kid lid in the benefits and the completion of the cuts in Pip.
Ros Jones, re -elected the work leader for Doncaster last week with a significantly reduced majority, warned after her victory for the damage done by Starmer cuts for benefits such as Pip and allowing winter fuel.
A Labor Party figure said he was expecting a partial U-turn for the winter fuel cuts before Christmas with the autumn budget to be the most likely moment.
“No one in Downing Street now thinks this was a good idea. They all realize it was a mistake. Every one of them. For now, they are saying they will do nothing about it, but feel like” no yet “than” never “,” they said.
One option would be to raise the bar for acceptability so that only the richest to be excluded, they said. At the moment the subsidy is limited to pensioners receiving pension loans or other benefits.
Another government assistant said it was still “the first days”, but he predicted that work would not be able to “hold the line” over politics by the end of the year.
But he asked if Starmer would take over politics, a Downing road official said Sunday: “I’m not aware of any plan to do it, though people look at things all the time.” The treasure did not immediately respond to a comment request.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves shorten the compensation of winter fuel last July after elections to strengthen public finances, claiming the previous conservative government had overloaded.
“It was something that the treasure had tried to leave for centuries,” said a figure of the former High Government.
They said Morgan McSweeney, then the chief of the Starmer political strategy, but now the head of the Staff, “pretty much hanging his head” when he learned about the decision “because he knew what he would say politically”.
