A Labour Party in Tory clothing? Why Starmer’s backbenchers are deeply uncomfortable

Published

15 hours ago

March 17, 2025

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Since taking office nine months ago Sir Keir Starmer has weathered party rows about winter fuel payments, the two child benefit cap, WASPI women, airport expansion and cuts to international aid.

All of these decisions have been justified in the name of balancing the books – filling that notorious £22bn black hole, sticking to the fiscal rules, and in the pursuit of growth as the government’s number one priority.

But welfare reform feels like a far more existential row.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting argued on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that the current system is “unsustainable”.

Ministers have been making the point for weeks that the health benefits bill for working-age people has ballooned by £20bn since the pandemic and is set to grow by another £18bn over the next five years, to £70bn.

But the detail of where those cuts could fall is proving highly divisive.

One proposal reportedly under consideration has been to freeze personal independence payments (PIPs) next year, rather than uprating them in line with inflation.

Charities have warned this would be a catastrophic real-terms cut to 3.6 million people.

Concerned left-wing backbenchers are calling on the government to tax the rich, not take from the most vulnerable.

The Sunday Times and Observer have now reported that Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has dropped the idea in response to the backlash.

Wes Streeting denied reports of a cabinet row over the plan, insisting the final package of measures hasn’t yet been published and he and his cabinet colleagues haven’t seen it.

Not the final version perhaps – but given all backbench Labour MPs who were summoned to meetings with the Number 10 policy teams for briefings this week, that response is perhaps more than a little disingenuous.

In his interview with Sir Trevor Phillips, he went on to make the broader case for PIP reform – highlighting the thousand people who sign up to the benefit every day and arguing that the system needs to be “sustainable”, to “deliver for those that need it most” and “provide the right kind of support for the different types of need that exist”.

To me this signals the government are preparing to unveil a tighter set of PIP eligibility criteria, with a refocus on supporting those with the greatest needs.

Changes to incapacity benefit to better incentivise working – for those who can – are also clearly on the cards.

The health secretary has been hitting out at the “overdiagnosis” of mental health conditions, arguing that “going out to work is better for your mental and physical health, than being spent and being stuck at home”, and promising benefit reforms that will help support people back to work rather than “trapped in the benefits system”.

Turning Tory?

Starmer said this week the current welfare system couldn’t be defended on economic or moral grounds.

The Conservatives don’t disagree.

Before the election, they proposed £12bn in cuts to the welfare bill, with a focus on getting people on long-term sickness back to work.

This morning, shadow education secretary Laura Trott claimed Labour denied that welfare cuts were needed during the election campaign and had wasted time in failing to include benefits reform in the King’s Speech.

“They’re coming to this chaotically, too late and without a plan,” she said.

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Notwithstanding the obvious critique that the Tories had 14 years to get a grip on the situation – what’s most striking here is that, yet again, the Labour government seems to be borrowing Conservative clothes.

When challenged by Sir Trevor this morning, Streeting denied they were turning Tory – claiming the case for welfare reform and supporting people into work is a Labour argument.

But, from increasing defence spending and cutting the aid budget to scrapping NHS England, there’s a definite pattern emerging.

If you didn’t know a Labour administration was in charge, you might have assumed these were the policies of a Conservative government.

It’s a strategy which makes many of his own backbenchers deeply uncomfortable.

But it’s doing a good job of neutering the Tory opposition.

Politics

Paul Atkins closes in on SEC chair role amid setbacks: Report

Published

16 mins ago

March 18, 2025

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Paul Atkins closes in on SEC chair role amid setbacks: Report

Paul Atkins could move one step closer to becoming the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s new crypto-friendly chair, with a Senate committee hearing reportedly in the works for March 27.

President Donald Trump nominated Atkins to lead the SEC on Dec. 4, but his marriage into a billionaire family has reportedly caused headaches with financial disclosures — delaying his potential start date.

While it isn’t clear whether the White House has produced those papers to the Senate, Senate Banking, House and Urban Affairs Chair Tim Scott is reportedly eyeing a March 27 hearing to review Atkins’ standing, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller said in a March 17 X post.

“No clarity yet on whether the committee has Atkins’ paperwork in hand, but either way, this is the most momentum we’ve seen so far.”

Atkins would, however, need to be voted in by the Senate at a later date.

Mueller also said the Senate banking committee is also planning to hold a bipartisan meeting on Atkins’ nomination on March 21.

It follows an earlier March 3 Semafor report, where Mueller said financial disclosures had held Atkins back from scheduling a Senate hearing to review his standing.

His wife’s family is tied to TAMKO Building Products LLC — a manufacturer of residential roofing shingles that reportedly turned over $1.2 billion in revenue in 2023, Forbes said on Dec. 14, 2024.

“It’s a lot to go through,” one former Senate Banking Committee staffer reportedly told Mueller on March 3.

“But he got named so early on, so I think that’s why people are starting to be like, ‘What the hell’s taking so long?’”

Atkins previously served as an SEC commissioner between 2002 and 2008 and worked as a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in New York before that. He is expected to regulate the crypto arena with a more collaborative approach than former SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

It’s been almost four months since Atkins was chosen by Trump to lead the SEC on Dec. 4, and over two months since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20.

A late start for an SEC chair wouldn’t be too unusual, however.

The two most recent SEC chairs, Gary Gensler and Jay Clayton, started on April 17, 2021, and May 4, 2017 — months after presidential transitions occurred in those years.

Meanwhile, Mark Uyeda has been serving as the SEC’s acting chair since Gensler left on Jan. 20.

Since then, the Uyeda-led SEC has established a Crypto Task Force led by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce and canceled a controversial rule that asked financial firms holding crypto to record them as liabilities on their balance sheets.

The SEC has dropped several investigations and lawsuits that the Gensler-led commission filed against the likes of Coinbase, Consensys, Robinhood, Gemini, Uniswap and OpenSea over the last month.

The SEC is also looking to abandon a rule requiring crypto firms to register as exchanges and may even axe the Biden administration’s proposed crypto custody rules, Uyeda said on March 17.

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered

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SEC could axe proposed Biden-era crypto custody rule, says acting chief

Published

2 hours ago

March 18, 2025

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SEC could axe proposed Biden-era crypto custody rule, says acting chief

The US Securities and Exchange Commission could change or scrap a rule proposed under the Biden administration that would tighten crypto custody standards for investment advisers, according to the agency’s acting chair, Mark Uyeda.

In prepared remarks to an investment industry conference in San Diego on March 17, Uyeda said the rule proposed in February 2023 had seen commenters express “significant concern” over its “broad scope.”

“Given such concern, there may be significant challenges to proceeding with the original proposal. As such, I have asked the SEC staff to work closely with the crypto task force to consider appropriate alternatives, including its withdrawal,” Uyeda said.

The rule was floated under the Biden administration during Gary Gensler’s tenure leading the regulator. It aimed to expand custody rules for investment advisers to any and all assets held for a client, including crypto, and upped the requirements to protect them.

This meant that investment advisers would have to custody their clients’ crypto with a qualified custodian. Gensler said at the time that investment advisers “cannot rely on” crypto platforms as qualified custodians due to how they operate.

The proposal caused friction with Uyeda and Commissioner Hester Peirce, along with industry advocacy bodies who claimed the rule was unlawful and dangerous.

“How could an adviser seeking to comply with this rule possibly invest client funds in crypto assets after reading this release?” Uyeda remarked at the time. He did, however, support the proposal despite disagreeing “with a number of provisions.”

Peirce, who was the sole commissioner of the five to vote against the rule, said at the time that the proposed rule “would expand the reach of the custody requirements to crypto assets while likely shrinking the ranks of qualified crypto custodians.”

Uyeda’s latest remarks come days after he said on March 10 that he had asked SEC staff “for options on abandoning” part of a proposal pushing for some crypto firms to register with the regulator as exchanges.

The Trump-era SEC has also killed a rule that asked financial firms holding crypto to record them as liabilities on their balance sheets, called SAB 121.

In December, President Donald Trump picked former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins to take over from Uyeda to chair the agency. This is now a step closer, with a Senate hearing reportedly slated for March 27.

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered

Politics

Kemi Badenoch says UK target to reach net zero by 2050 ‘impossible’

Published

3 hours ago

March 18, 2025

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Kemi Badenoch says UK target to reach net zero by 2050 'impossible'

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has dismayed green Conservatives by declaring the UK’s target to reach net zero by 2050 “impossible”.

In a speech on Tuesday, the Conservative Party leader is expected to tell what she says is the “unvarnished truth” that the net zero goal cannot be achieved without “a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us”.

Ms Badenoch will say she is not making a “moral judgement” on net zero or debating whether climate change exists.

But, as she begins to renew party policy, she will say that current climate policies are “largely failing” to improve nature and “driving up the cost of energy”.

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Net zero means cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, which cause climate change, to virtually zero, and absorbing the rest elsewhere.

Scientists say the world must reach that point by 2050 to avoid even worse flooding, wildfires, and other damage – but that action is lagging behind.

The UK has already cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half.

The next half is expected to be more challenging as it requires changes to people’s heating, cars and diet – things that often need upfront costs, but could save people money in the long run with the right government support, advisers have said.

Ms Badenoch’s plans take the Conservative Party to its most sceptical position on net zero yet – a target set in law by Tory Prime Minister Theresa May in 2019.

And it comes at a time when Reform UK is questioning climate science and US President Donald Trump, leader of the second most polluting country in the world, is dismantling nature protections.

Ms Badenoch’s “policy renewal” she is outlining on Tuesday will see shadow cabinet members set core priority questions as a move towards formulating new policy for the party.

Sam Hall, of the Conservative Environment Network of 50 MPs, said it was “a mistake” for Ms Badenoch to have “jumped the gun on her own policy review and decided net zero isn’t possible by 2050”.

He said the Tory leader was right to question Labour’s climate plans, but that the target is driven “not by optimism but by scientific reality; without it climate change impacts and costs will continue to worsen”.

Abandoning the science would risk losing voter’s support, he added.

This may be an inflection point for goodwill towards climate action in Tory Party

The UK public has long been supportive of government climate action – that’s true across voters of different parties too.

Labour capitalised on this in last year’s general election and swooped to victory with a green mandate.

Rishi Sunak’s attempts to roll back some climate policies flopped, and polling by More In Common found Labour’s arguments that clean power and climate action are the best way to tackle the cost of living cut through with people. For now, at least.

The tide of climate scepticism has been rising since Sunak’s days, with Reform UK questioning climate science altogether and Kemi Badenoch now calling the 2050 target “impossible” – though she did stress she doesn’t want to dismantle it and that she does believe in climate change. And she’s not wrong that it is going to be hard.

Given the strong public support for climate action, it’s not surprising Sunak’s attempt to politicise the issue didn’t work out for him.

But now others following in his footsteps have been emboldened by US President Donald Trump. Their attacks are gathering speed – and they might start to take root.

This may be an inflection point for goodwill towards climate action in the Conservative Party – which has a long legacy of supporting it – and more broadly in the UK.

Labour cannot take public support for its net zero plans for granted at a time when political consensus on it is fracturing.

And given the next stage of the country’s climate action is about to get more disruptive for people, it is just when it needs this public support more than ever.

Four in five Conservative voters in last year’s general election and two thirds of Reform voters thought it was important that the government cared about tackling climate change, according to polling by More in Common.

Shaun Spiers, executive director of thinktank Green Alliance, called it “disappointing” to see Ms Badenoch “turn her back on cleaner, cheaper, homegrown energy”.

“It is even more disappointing to see the leader of the opposition take cues from climate deniers across the pond,” he added, in a veiled swipe at President Trump.

“Net zero is not ‘nice-to-have’, it’s an achievable, evidence-based target designed to protect the UK from the worst impacts of climate change.”

The UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), which advises governments on how to reach net zero, said last month the goal is “ambitious” but “deliverable”.

But it also warned as Labour took office last summer that, at that time, just one third of the cuts to greenhouse gases needed to reach an interim 2030 target were covered by a “credible plan”.