KEIR Starmer has been dealt a blow by Labour’s union backers – as they voted to call for cuts to pensioners’ fuel payments to be reversed.
A Unite motion calling for the end to universal Winter Fuel Payments was passed on the final day of Labour Party conference on Wednesday – in a symbolic defeat for the leadership.
The resolution is non-binding meaning Labour are free to ignore it.
The vote was preceded by a blistering speech by Unite general secretary Sharon Graham (below), who said she could “not understand how our new Labour Government can cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and leave the super-rich untouched”.
She said: “This is not what people voted for. It is the wrong decision and needs to be reversed.
“Friends, we are the sixth richest economy in the world. We have the money. Britain needs investment, not austerity mark two.”
The union chief also hit out at the Chancellor’s “self-imposed” adoption of Tory fiscal rules, a decision she claimed was “hanging like a noose around our necks”.
Graham added: “Yes, Britain is broken. Yes, the Tories have left a mess and yes, they are to blame.
“But Labour is now in Government, and we can't keep making everyday people pay.”
The vote had been arranged to take place as the party's conference in Liverpool wound down and Starmer made his way to the US for the United Nations general assembly in New York.
The Labour leadership’s defeat has sparked calls for Starmer to “listen to voters, admit he got it wrong, and U-turn” on the policy.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn (below) added: “The fact that the Prime Minister's own party members feel obliged to speak out, and demand he reverse these cuts, should tell him just how angry voters are at his cuts.
"Voters are furious that while Keir Starmer and Labour Government ministers have been lining their own pockets with more than £800,000 of designer clothes and freebies, they are imposing austerity cuts on the rest of us and robbing £500 from pensioners this winter.
"It's shameful that Anas Sarwar and Labour MPs in Scotland voted for these cuts, which will hit around 880,000 Scottish pensioners and cut Scotland's budget by more than £100 million.
"That's not the change that Scotland was promised at the election – and it should embarrass them that on this issue Labour are even worse than the Tories.”
But speaking ahead of the vote, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall (below) doubled down on the cut.
She said: "Focusing winter fuel payments on the poorest pensioners wasn’t a decision we wanted or expected to make, but when we promised we could be trusted with taxpayers’ money – we meant it.
“And when we were faced with a £22 billion black hole, which the Tories left this year, we had to act, because we know what happened when Liz Truss played fast and loose with the public finances. It was working people and pensioners on fixed incomes who paid the highest price.
“We took what I know is a difficult decision, but let me tell you, this Labour Government has done more to help the poorest pensioners in the last two months than the Tories did in 14 years."
