Exhausted from a long campaign but buoyed by an extraordinary victory, Keir Starmer stood on the steps of Downing Street just over one year ago to deliver his victory speech. “Your government,” the new prime minister said, “should treat every single person in this country with respect.”
This message of respect resonated strongly in the year leading up to the campaign, coming as close as anything to providing a central argument to Labour’s case for government. And, according to polling and focus groups that my team at UCL Policy Lab designed along with polling company More in Common, it seemed to work.
As our research at the time showed, voters felt that “respecting ordinary people” was the most important attribute that any politician could have, more important than having ideas for the future, managing effectively or having real experience. And they thought Starmer was the leader who displayed that respect most.
A year later, the picture looks quite different. In new polling, we asked a representative sample of over 7,000 people to evaluate the government one year on. On respect, the judgement has not been good.
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During the general election campaign, 41% of the electorate said that they believed that Starmer “respected people like them”. One year on, that stands at only 24%. At the same time, the number who say that he does not respect them has risen from 32% to 63%. Starmer is now outstripped on that question by Nigel Farage – 33% say the Reform UK leader respects people like them.
Losing support
This view has had crucial political consequences. Of those who voted for Labour in the general election, only 60% of our respondents say they would vote for the party in an election held tomorrow.
And that is not because some other political party is suddenly swooping in for their supporters. Labour’s voters are defecting in a host of different directions: 11% say they would vote Reform; 8% would vote Liberal Democrat; 4% would vote Green and 4% would vote Conservative. A further one in ten say they simply don’t know how they would vote.
Labour’s losses have been most dramatic among their first-time voters. Of those who voted for Labour in 2024 but not in any other general election since 2010, barely a third still support the party, while a fifth would vote for Reform UK.
These political failures, our report contends, are directly related to the declining sense of respect. The top reason voters gave for turning away from Labour are the broken promises and U-turns made by Labour in government, followed by the party’s failure to reduce the cost of living and changes to the winter fuel payment.
The idea of “respect” being key to the public’s sense of whether a government is on their side or not has been growing for many years now, both in academia and in politics itself. Since at least the 2007/8 financial crisis there has been a sense that large swathes of the public feel neglected, overlooked and even disdained by those who govern them.
When people talk about wanting to see “change” in Britain, this is often what they mean. It was a theme I touched on recently in two books, Out of the Ordinary and, with my co-author Tom Baldwin, England.
Just over a year ago, a happier Starmer delivers his victory speech. Shutterstock
But respect is not just an abstract idea. People appear to judge whether they are respected by those who govern them or not primarily on the basis of whether the government stands up for them against powerful vested interests.
Our earlier research demonstrated that there is a widespread sense among the British public that certain groups have had it too easy for too long. This is either because they have been able to intimidate the government, or because government ministers and advisers have themselves been recruited from among these groups.
In our new report, therefore, we see that the new government’s most popular act was their willingness to raise the minimum wage by £1,400 in April, against the objections of some in business who suggested that such a move was too burdensome on them.
Changes to the winter fuel allowance and proposed changes to the disability benefits system, on the other hand, registered poorly. They suggest that the interests of ordinary and vulnerable people count for too little in decision-making.
These judgements currently shape the mood of the country and probably top the list of issues that the government now needs to address. There is still time for the government to rebuild its appeal, of course. Indeed, our respondents who said they would vote for Labour said they would do so because the party needs more time to fix the problems they inherited.
But as it seeks to do so, voters will want to know who this government stands for. Whose interests does it put first? What kind of people does it respect?
Much of the electorate thought they knew the answer to these questions one year ago. Now they’re not so sure.
Marc Stears, Director of UCL Policy Lab and Professor of Political Science, UCL
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Keir Starmer chases Nigel Farage’s racist bigot vote.
The government’s landmark bill on welfare reform passed by 335 to 260 votes on Tuesday evening, after staving off a major rebellion from Labour MPs. To win over backbench MPs who had opposed the bill, the government made a series of concessions, including a last-minute compromise agreeing that any changes to personal independence payment (Pip) will not be introduced until the outcome of a review.
In March, the government introduced the universal credit and personal independence bill. The aim was to create a sustainable welfare system in response to changing demographics and population health.
In recent years, the UK has seen an increase in people claiming benefits for long-term health conditions, with one in ten people of working age claiming a sickness or disability benefit. Welfare expenditure has increased, and is projected to be £70 billion a year by the end of the parliament.
Recalibrating the welfare system is not an easy task. The government has said reform is needed to support those with highest needs and assist more people into work. However, critics of the bill, raised concerns that it would result in an overly restrictive disability benefits system and push more people into poverty.
Here’s what’s the bill initially proposed and what was changed ahead of the vote.
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Personal independence payment
The bill initially proposed significant changes to personal independence payments (Pip) from November 2026. Pip is a working-age benefit to help people with the costs associated with a long-term health condition or disability. It has two elements, a daily living component and a mobility component.
A points-based system is used to assess eligibility for Pip. Currently, to qualify for the daily living component a claimant must have limited ability in relation to a range of ten activities. These include washing and bathing, dressing and undressing, eating and drinking and managing medication or therapy.
Eight to 11 points leads to qualification for the standard rate and over 12 points for the enhanced rate. On the current system, a claimant can score one or two points across a range of activities, it doesn’t matter how the points are made up.
In March, the government announced that from November 2026, claimants will need to score at least four points on at least one of the ten activities to qualify. The amount of points available ranges from zero to 12, depending on the activity.
Critics argued that this places the bar at too high a level, making it more difficult for people whose health problems are spread across a range of activities, rather than meeting the criteria in one.
Needing assistance managing medication is one area where Pip points are measured. Yuri A/Shutterstock
Concerns were raised that this change could disproportionately affect people with mental health problems. Research shows that previous changes to Pip have caused uncertainty and anxiety for many people with mental health problems.
Typically if the help required relates to being reminded or encouraged to compete a task, only two points are awarded. This can be a common way for people with mental health problems to qualify for Pip, including those with severe conditions such as bipolar disorder. It is estimated that between 800,000 and 1.2 million people would have lost entitlement to Pip under the four-point proposal.
After it became clear that dozens of Labour MPs planned to vote against the bill, the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, announced a concession on the Pip proposals. First, that four-point rule should only apply to new claimants, with people already in receipt of Pip remaining within the current rules. Second, there will be a review of the Pip assessment led by Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, alongside people with disabilities and representative organisations.
But for some MPs and campaigners, this raised the spectre of a two-tier system which protects existing claimants but not future ones. Two hours before the Commons vote, Timms announced that no changes would be made to Pip eligibility before the review. The bill passed without any changes to Pip.
Universal credit
What remains in the bill are changes to universal credit, the UK’s main means-tested benefit, primarily for claimants who are unfit for work.
Over 3 million claimants (out of a total of over 7 million) are not required to look for work as a result of a health condition. They receive an additional health-related payment of more than £400 per month. The bill reduces the health element for new claims from £97 to £50 per week from April 2026 and restricts payment to claimants over the age of 22.
Under original proposals, the higher health-related rate was to be frozen for existing claimants. This will now be increased every year for the rest of the parliament, at least in line with inflation.
A £1 billion back-to-work support package, originally scheduled to be introduced in 2029, will be accelerated.
The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that 730,000 future universal credit claimants will lose an average of £3000 per year compared to current claimants.
Labour minister Pat McFadden has ruled out raising income tax, VAT or national insurance, but questions remain on how these concessions will be paid for.
The government technically won the vote on welfare reform, but was unable to push through its most significant reforms. The debate over the future of the welfare system will continue (and probably intensify) as the Timms review begins.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer won Commons backing for his welfare Bill this evening after making further concessions to Labour rebels which leave the legislation eviscerated.
MPs rejected an amendment to sink the bill by 328 votes to 149 after an impassioned debate, suggesting a significant backbench revolt.
A further vote on approving the Bill was passed by 335 votes to 260, with the Tories voting against, cutting the government’s majority in half. It is believed 42 Labour MPs voted against the whip on the amendment.
Still facing defeat after earlier retreats that left benefits to disabled people already claiming Personal Independence Payments (PIP) untouched but threatened cuts for future claimants, Starmer backed down further at the eleventh hour.
Changes to PIP payments for future disabled claimants will now be paused until the conclusion of a review by Welfare Minister Stephen Timms, rather than being imposed from November 2026.
The latest retreat leaves the Bill bereft of most of its original purpose and without the £5 billion savings Chancellor Rachel Reeves was eager for.
And it leaves the Prime Minister’s authority radically diminished after bruising criticisms from normally loyal Labour MPs.
Keir Starmer in The Hague on Wednesday, where he called the rebellion over the welfare bill ‘noises off’. Photograph: Kin Cheung/Reuters
MPs describe receiving veiled deselection threats as No 10 sought to quash revolt before finally backing down
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MPs say they received a litany of threats, including the possibility of a general election. Those on the right of the party were warned their actions could bring about a leadership challenge that would be won by Angela Rayner. The same threat was made to those on the left, but with Wes Streeting as the looming spectre.
Others say they have received veiled threats of deselection, or that their funding for the next general election would be decided on the basis of whether or not they toed the line. One party official allegedly rang a rebellious MP’s husband in order to get her to back down.
“I don’t even think some of this is sanctioned by No 10,” one MP said. “Until Wednesday they had their fingers in their ears. But those who are responsible for party management have been absolutely losing it.”
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Yet the number of rebels continued to grow, and No 10 finally bowed to the inevitable. On Thursday morning, the prime minister used a Commons statement ostensibly about international affairs to promise a welfare rethink.
Until that point, Starmer had seemed oddly detached from the issue, surfacing intermittently at summits to bat away questions about the revolt – or “noises off” as he termed it – as a distraction from the vital task of transforming welfare.
Some MPs view this as indicative of a prime minister more than usually disconnected from the everyday grid of parliamentary business, as illustrated by the statistic that since winning the election he has voted in the Commons just seven times.
A few have begun to openly speculate about what the situation means for Starmer’s leadership. “It is very bad for Keir. It is one in four of his MPs [that intended to rebel]. He is toast,” one MP said.
While campaigners take to the streets, fossil fuel interests lobby governments directly, and often without scrutiny, a new report has found | Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Oil and gas firms were able to water down or change Conservative policies without scrutiny, new report finds
The British government weakened key climate policies after fossil fuel giants lobbied ministers and used legal loopholes to avoid public scrutiny, a new report has found.
Climate-focused think tank InfluenceMap has uncovered that industry influence appears to have led to the delay and dilution of UK policies on the roll-out of heat pumps, the development of ‘sustainable’ aviation fuel and the granting of new oil and gas licenses.
In each case, it found that lobbyists representing fossil fuel actors that stood to lose billions from progressive climate regulations were able to influence the Conservative government’s policy without scrutiny.
While InfluenceMap’s report looks at policies relating to the UK’s net-zero ambitions, its findings on the way the UK’s lax laws allow lobbying to be conducted in secret can be applied across sectors. The think tank is calling for reforms to address this and close the “major transparency gap”.
The secrecy around lobbying, which has been at the heart of many government scandals in recent years, is a major driver of the disillusionment in British politics.
InfluenceMap’s findings illustrate “how inadequate and opaque lobbying rules undermine effective policymaking”, said Alastair McCapra, the CEO of the UK lobbying industry body.
He added: “Business engagement should help to build sounder policy with better outcomes for the public, but unaccountable lobbying breeds public mistrust. This important report removes the guesswork needed to piece together what kind of lobbying is taking place.”
Weak lobbying laws
openDemocracy has previously reported extensively on the ways that the UK’s weak lobbying laws allow corporate influence to secretly shape policy.
Our investigations have now been backed up by InfluenceMap, which has found a huge gap exists between the lobbying that takes place and that which is disclosed. This means the British public often has no way of knowing who is swaying policy.
Comparing transparency rules in the UK, the European Parliament, the US, Canada and France, InfluenceMap found that the UK has by far the worst system.
Of the five, only the UK exempts lobbyists who work in-house for a company, rather than for an agency or consultancy, from registering with a statutory lobbying watchdog. Less than 15% of lobbyists working in the UK need to register because of this rule.
The firms on the register must publish a list of clients on whose behalf they have lobbied each quarter. But they do not have to publish any details about the lobbying, including whether it involved written correspondence or a meeting and what legislation or policy was discussed.
Registered lobbyists also only need to declare clients for whom they lobbied government ministers and senior officials. There is no requirement to name clients when they approached other MPs and peers, including those on select committees, or influential government advisers.
The Committee for Standards in Public Life, an independent public body that advises the prime minister on lobbying and other aspects of public office, has consistently recommended the government publish a single, searchable database of all meetings with lobbyists.
Its recommendations would expand the scope of the current register considerably, requiring lobbyists to disclose the specific policies or legislation they discussed at meetings with government ministers and special advisers.
InfluenceMap has also called on the government to take up this recommendation and address the fundamental flaws in the lobbying act by including in-house lobbyists and publishing all responses to government policy consultants as standard.
Susan Hawley, executive director of Spotlight on Corruption, said the report “starkly demonstrates how major transparency gaps in the UK’s lobbying regime are undermining the development of good climate policy.”
“We fully support their recommendations to make lobbying much more transparent and bring the UK in line with international best practice. These reforms would support more participatory and open decision-making to help rebuild public trust and ensure better decision-making, widening the evidence base for policy making and reducing risks of policy capture by vested interests,” she said.
Oil and gas licensing
In 2022, the UK government quietly dropped two criteria from its ‘Climate Compatibility Checkpoint’ after lobbying from the fossil fuel industry. The checkpoint is used to assess whether proposed oil and gas licenses align with the UK’s climate change goals.
Oil giants BP and Shell and their industry association, Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), responded to a consultation on the checkpoint by objecting to the inclusion of two key metrics for measuring the impact of fossil fuels, according to InfluenceMap’s analysis of consultation responses obtained via Freedom of Information requests.
The measures they opposed would have required the government to consider ‘Scope 3 emissions’ and the ‘global production gap’ when issuing new oil and gas licences.
Scope 3 emissions are produced during end-use and contribute the largest share of all emissions from oil and gas production, while the production gap tracks the discrepancy between planned fossil fuel production and what’s needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C or 2°C.
The government dropped both criteria from the final checkpoint, which instead focuses solely on operational emissions, which represent only a fraction of total emissions from oil and gas projects.
This outcome, InfluenceMap’s report notes, strongly aligns with the positions advocated for by BP, Shell, and OEUK, suggesting their lobbying efforts were successful.
The following year, the government approved 100 new North Sea oil and gas licences, which had a potential emissions footprint equivalent to Denmark’s annual output.
InfluenceMap’s report also highlights the issues around government consultations on proposed policies, pointing out that, as in this case, lobbyists typically use these to suggest amendments in favour of their clients, but their responses are not published as standard.
Similarly, unlike in the other four Parliaments InfluenceMap looked at, corporations in the UK are not required to declare their engagement on policies, how much they spend on lobbying, or which legislation or decisions they are targeting.
It highlights that this can lead to a situation in which companies make voluntary corporate disclosures that fail to capture the true extent of this advocacy. In this case, InfluenceMap found BP published a summary of its response to the checkpoint that omitted key lines of its opposition, which were only revealed later through Freedom of Information requests.
Rachel Davies, advocacy director at Transparency International UK, said: “This report highlights, yet again, the glaring gaps in our lobbying transparency regime and the potential risks of favouring a small group of vested interests at the public’s expense.
“The UK needs to catch up to other comparable democracies and act swiftly to introduce a comprehensive lobbying register with meaningful disclosures.”
Domestic hydrogen
It is broadly agreed that, in the UK, hydrogen is not a viable solution for decarbonising domestic heating and is an especially bad alternative to heat pumps. Much of our hydrogen comes from burning gas or coal and it cannot be transported through our existing pipelines without massive and costly infrastructure changes.
This reality has been set out by different independent bodies advising the UK government.
In 2021, the Climate Change Committee warned that hydrogen had “not yet been proven at scale and should not be a cause to delay other options” such as the roll-out of heat pumps or low-carbon heat networks. Two years later, the National Infrastructure Commission said the government “should not support the roll-out of hydrogen heating” because there is “no public policy case” for its use.
As InfluenceMap’s report notes, this has not prevented the gas industry from waging a successful lobbying campaign in a bid to shore up its market position – with a clear impact on government policy.
The think tank found the industry pursued its cause in a number of ways, including setting up Hello Hydrogen, a campaign fronted by TV star Rachel Riley, to make the case for using hydrogen in homes to the public in 2022. While the campaign did not declare its funders, its director was also a director of Cadent Gas, the UK’s largest gas distribution network.
Cadent is one of the funders of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hydrogen, which has publicly called for hydrogen to play a part in domestic heating. The APPG’s other funders include Equinor, Shell and the Energy and Utilities Alliance, a lobbying body run by Mike Foster, the former Labour MP for Worcester (home to Worcester Bosch, a major manufacturer of gas boilers).
Other fossil fuel firms and industry lobbying bodies have also consistently pushed for the use of hydrogen in domestic heating in letters to parliamentary select committees and responses to government consultations.
Ahead of last year’s general election, Centrica (formerly British Gas) wrote to the Public Accounts Committee, which examines the value for money of government projects, to call for further public investment in hydrogen for home heating. The firm had written to the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee in support of the technology less than 12 months earlier.
This industry lobbying has led to indecision and disruption on government plans. A February 2023 report by the House of Lords Committee blamed mixed messages on the effectiveness of hydrogen from the government and industry for the poor uptake of a publicly subsidised scheme for heat pumps, which would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create many jobs.
The lords’ report concluded: “Hydrogen is not a serious option for home heating for the short to medium-term and misleading messages, including from the government, are negatively affecting take-up of established low-carbon home heating technologies like heat pumps.”
The UK’s heat pump roll-outs have lagged behind those of its neighbours. Just 55,000 heat pumps were installed in the UK in 2019, compared to 600,000 in France, according to a study cited in the InfluenceMap report.
In the UK, this reportedly created around 2,000 jobs and reduced emissions of CO₂ by 0.08 million tonnes (MT); in France 30,000 jobs were created and 0.84 MT of CO₂ emissions avoided.
‘Sustainable’ aviation fuel
InfluenceMap also uncovered how industry significantly influenced the government’s so-called ‘Jet Zero’ strategy for cutting emissions in the UK’s aviation industry, which is heavily reliant on fossil fuels.
Biofuels, largely made up of used cooking oils, are often suggested as an option for producing Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), although they are generally accepted to be worse in terms of scalability than other, more advanced fuels, and much worse than just reducing the number of flights.
The government initially proposed limiting the use of used cooking oil for SAF to alleviate competition on the resource – which is increasingly in demand for other uses, such as producing biodiesel for cars – and to encourage investment in new technologies for the aviation industry.
The proposals included two options; either banning the use of used cooking oil for SAF altogether, or rapidly phasing down its use so that it would make up just 8.5% of total sustainable aviation fuel by 2040.
But the government’s final SAF policy was more closely aligned with industry preferences than scientific warnings, InfluenceMap found. It allows used cooking oil to make up 100% of SAF uptake in 2025 and 2026, 71% in 2030, and 35% in 2040.
InfluenceMap’s analysis reveals the weakened SAF mandate came after pressure from Shell, BP, the International Airlines Group (which owns several airlines), Airlines UK (the trade body for UK-registered airlines) and Virgin Atlantic airline.
It also found that business interests were overrepresented in parliamentary meetings on SAF while the policy was being shaped.
This can be seen in the make-up of Parliament’s Jet Zero Council, “a partnership between industry academia and government”, which was run by Heathrow’s chief operating officer, while the International Airlines Group chaired the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Delivery Group.
The council comprised 24 members from industry, three from academia and one from civil society. Ministers were also directly involved with the council, with then-prime minister Boris Johnson attending the group’s first meeting along with four ministers.
Transparency failures again played a key role. Not a single ministerial meeting on SAF referenced the weakening of the cooking oil cap in official records, and industry responses to consultations were only obtained through Freedom of Information.
Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Keir Starmer
