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Keir Starmer has said he did not get a grip on the Labour rebellion over disability benefits earlier because he was focused on foreign affairs.
The prime minister acknowledged he had not got it right, and said he would have wanted to make the concessions earlier. “I’d have liked to get to a better position with colleagues sooner than we did,” Starmer said in an interview with the Sunday Times. “I’m putting this as context rather than an excuse.
“I was heavily focused on what was happening with Nato and the Middle East all weekend. From the moment I got back from the G7, I went straight into a Cobra meeting. My full attention really bore down on this on Thursday. At that point, we were able to move relatively quickly.”
He insisted there had been “a lot of outreach” over the bill to backbench MPs but acknowledged more should have been done. “Would I rather have been able to get to a constructive package with colleagues earlier? Yeah, I would. [But] I believe in the world we live in, not the world we want to live in,” he said.
It is Starmer’s third admission of having taken the wrong course in recent days, indicating he may be moving to try to reset his premiership. He gave an interview to the Observer saying he “deeply regrets” having used the phrase “island of strangers” about immigration and that he made the wrong choice in having appointed the former civil servant Sue Gray to be his chief of staff.
Starmer will be attempting this week to draw a line under the welfare rebellion, with whips working to persuade Labour MPs to back the bill with new concessions on Tuesday.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, offered the changes at midnight last Thursday, which would protect all existing claimants of personal independence payments (Pip) and raise the health element of universal credit in line with inflation.
However, dozens of Labour MPs remain unconvinced, with No 10 facing a battle over the next 48 hours to minimise the size of the revolt.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said he was confident the government would win the vote on Tuesday, telling Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that the changes “have put us in a much better position”.
“As a result of the changes, it means anyone watching this morning who’s in receipt of personal independence payments now has the peace of mind of knowing that their situation is protected,” he said.
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One of the original leading rebels, the former transport secretary Louise Haigh, said she would now vote in favour as long as the details confirmed the changes that were promised by Kendall. She said Starmer should now reset the government’s relationship with the public and party backbenchers.
She told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme it was welcome that Starmer had “acknowledged that mistakes have been made and that things need to change”. She said: “I think this is a moment and an opportunity to reset the government’s relationship with the British public and to move forward, to adopt a different approach to our economic policy and our political strategy.
“And I think that has been accepted from within government and a lot of people, both in the parliamentary Labour party, but crucially, the country, will really welcome that.”
