By Al Jazeera Apps Support
The United Kingdom鈥檚 Labour government hopes to limit a rebellion over welfare reform from its own politicians in a key vote in Parliament, just days after attempting to win them over with concessions.
Almost a year after his party won a landslide election victory, Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces one of the toughest tests of his premiership on Tuesday, when MPs vote on his government鈥檚 welfare plans.
Angered by proposals to change the eligibility criteria of the country鈥檚 main disability benefit and to reduce health-related support received by those on low incomes, more than 120 Labour politicians signalled last week that they would be voting against the bill.
In a bid to appease them, Downing Street announced a set of concessions on Friday, including a pledge that current claimants of the disability benefit, which is known as the personal independence payment (Pip), would not be affected by the cuts.
The government also promised to launch a review into Pip, led by Disability Minister Stephen Timms.
Speaking on Friday, senior Labour backbencher Meg Hillier, one of the rebels, described the U-turn as a 鈥渨orkable compromise鈥.
However, shortly ahead of Tuesday鈥檚 vote, it appeared that dozens of Labour politicians still opposed the bill, with British media reporting that at least 35 were planning to go against the government.
The vote comes after 86 disability and human rights groups issued a joint statement on Monday urging politicians to vote against the welfare reform bill.
Rachael Maskell, a Labour MP and critic of the proposal, wrote on X on Monday evening that disabled people 鈥渉ave yet to have agency in this process鈥.
鈥淚t is time their voices were heard,鈥 she added.
The disputes around the government鈥檚 welfare reform bill have led to questions being asked once more about Starmer, who has a working majority of 165 in the House of Commons.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a failure of leadership for a prime minister with such a big majority to not be able to get their agenda through,鈥 said Rob Ford, a politics professor at the University of Manchester.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 think of many examples of a prime minister in post-war politics suffering such a big setback when presiding over such a strong position in the Commons,鈥 Ford noted.
Friday鈥檚 concessions were not the only time Starmer had made a U-turn in recent weeks. On June 9, his government announced that it was reversing a policy to scrap a winter heating benefit for millions of pensioners.
The latest polling shows that Labour is trailing the right-wing populist party Reform UK, which outperformed its rivals in local elections in May.