Winter fuel backlash and union heat shows Starmer’s honeymoon is well and truly over

If you want a sense of the “change” government, Sir Keir Starmer becoming the first prime minister in 15 years to address the Trade Union Congress is it.

The Tories out and Labour in is what the trade union movement has yearned for. This has been a patient base, waiting for a new deal.

But in the conference hall in Brighton, the mood was far from euphoric.

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Delegates seemed subdued. Yes, they welcomed the Labour prime minister’s pledge to overturn restrictive union laws and improve workers’ rights.

But the biggest cheer in the hall wasn’t for the leader on the stage, but the delegate who asked Sir Keir what he was going to do to alleviate child poverty, given he is not scrapping the two-child benefit cap.

Afterwards, when I spoke to union bosses Sharon Graham of Unite and Mick Lynch of the RMT, the message was similar – think again on cutting winter fuel allowance for most pensioners.

This might be a Labour prime minister, but his message about improving union power or workers’ rights is being drowned out by warnings over “tough decisions” around future public sector pay settlements and spending cuts.

Downing Street is not backing down. There will be no reversal over the winter fuel decision.

The only slight chink I noted on Tuesday was when one senior insider told me there was “no plans” for mitigation measures amid the backlash. That is not, in my book, a firm no.

But if you ask loyal cabinet ministers, they tell me the “first line on the first page of the manifesto is our commitment to economic stability”, adding: “We are all really clear economic trust was a key reason we won.”

However, many in the Labour movement – like Mr Lynch and Ms Graham – heard another pledge from Labour too: there will be no return to austerity.

“They told us they would end austerity and wouldn’t bring in these measures,” said Mr Lynch. “And the first measure they seem to have done, which has hit the headlines, is an austerity step.

“So he’s going to have to think about that and get back onside with the rest of the Labour movement.”

Ms Graham simply said that Sir Keir had picked the pockets of pensioners instead of the wealthy, “and that was the wrong choice to make”.

The tension between “economic stability and tough choices” versus austerity is only going to grow as we head into the budget and beyond.

Sir Keir won the vote on withdrawing winter fuel allowance, but 52 MPs abstained. That tells you all you need to know – that these divisions are opening up so soon after that massive landslide.

Number 10 does not appear to want to fan the flames any further, with dozens of MPs slipped – sources in government are keen to stress there were but a dozen unauthorised abstentions – to avoid the vote entirely.

A “change government”, beset by infighting from the off, is not the impression this prime minister wants to give the country.

But this week’s TUC and winter fuel rebellion is a reminder the honeymoon for what was already a loveless landslide is well and truly over.

All Sir Keir can hope for is that the country will give him the benefit of the doubt, even if his base might not.