Keir Starmer’s biggest U-turns since he came to power

The government is dropping plans to require workers to sign up for its digital ID card scheme, and allowing people to use other digital forms of ID to prove their right to work in the UK.

The scheme, originally framed by Keir Starmer as part of a “crackdown on illegal working”, has been watered down out of concern it “could undermine public trust and lead to a cabinet revolt”, said The Times.

Following the concessions on inheritance tax thresholds for farmers just before Christmas, this is the second major U-turn within a month, and the 13th since Starmer came into office. Here are some of the other major rowbacks since the 2024 election.

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Winter fuel payments

Mere months after their election victory, Labour announced plans to reduce the number of pensioners receiving up to £300 in winter fuel payments by restricting eligibility to those receiving pension credit. This would have cut claimant numbers from 11 million to one and a half million, and saved the government about £1.5 billion a year.

Less than a year later, the government backtracked on their winter fuel policy, restoring the payments to pensioners with an income of £35,000 a year or less, meaning that around three quarters of pensioners (about 9 million) in England and Wales will still receive the payment.

The debacle was an “administration-defining mistake”, said the Financial Times. What was meant to be a fairly innocuous cost-cutting measure, and arguably “the right thing to do politically”, snowballed into protests and endless media coverage. It “dealt a blow to the government’s popularity from which it has yet to recover”, and then the rowback set the perception that “the government retreats under pressure”.

And, since the U-turn, even the revised expected savings have “evaporated”, said The Times. The wall-to-wall media coverage has increased awareness of pension credit, meaning 46% more pensioners now claim it, costing the Department of Work & Pensions millions more than before.

National insurance

Famously, the 2024 Labour election manifesto promised not to “increase taxes on working people”, with a pledge not to raise VAT, national insurance or rates of income tax.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said, as she delivered her first Budget in October 2024, that “working people will not see higher taxes” and “that is a promise made and a promise fulfilled”. However, in that same Budget, she increased the rate of national insurance contributions from employers – not employees – from 13.8% to 15%, in a move that “risked indirectly hitting workers”, said The Telegraph.

That decision looked a “fairly clear violation of the pre-election promise”, said The Guardian. Paul Johnson, then director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, called it a “straightforward breach” of the manifesto.

Welfare reform

In March 2025, Labour unveiled plans for sweeping changes to the benefits system that it said would save £5 billion a year by 2030. The new “pro-work system” would make it harder for those with “less severe conditions” to claim disability benefits, said the BBC. It would also freeze extra health-related payments for current claimants and nearly halve the number of successful new claims.

But this “tweak of the assessment criteria” was met with “fierce opposition from campaign groups” and many Labour backbenchers, said The Independent. It was undoubtedly the “biggest rebellion” of Starmer’s premiership, said Sky News. More than 100 Labour MPs signed a “reasoned amendment” in opposition to the government's proposals, which would effectively have killed the legislation if it went forward as it stood. The main concerns of the mutineers were that the cuts were “too harsh” and would “penalise” the “most vulnerable”.

Starmer made a “dramatic climb-down”, hollowing out much of the bill’s “central planks”, and leaving his “political authority badly damaged”, said The Guardian.

Grooming gangs inquiry

At the start of 2025, the grooming gangs scandal was a “point of fierce political discussion”, said ITV’s Maya Bowles, as the government “repeatedly insisted” there was no need for a national inquiry, launching five “locally-led” investigations instead.

Widespread public interest in the scandal had been “sparked in part” by X posts from tech tycoon Elon Musk, as well as repeated calls for a national inquiry by both the Conservative Party and Reform UK, said the BBC. Musk shared a series of posts on X accusing Starmer of failing to prosecute the gangs and also called for safeguarding minister Jess Phillips to be jailed.

In response, the prime minister argued that those in favour of a national inquiry, instead of locally-led investigations, were “jumping on a bandwagon” and “amplifying” the demands of the far right.

Then in June, after “resisting calls for months”, Starmer launched a national inquiry – after a review of the whole issue by crossbench peer Louise Casey.

Anne Longfield will now lead the £65 billion three-year inquiry, after other leading candidates pulled out. Since June, four women have resigned from the inquiry’s survivors committee.

‘Day-One’ workers’ rights

One of the big promises of the Labour manifesto pledge to improve workers’ rights was reducing the qualifying period for unfair dismissal from two years’ employment to the first day of employment.

But in November, Business Secretary Peter Kyle announced that the qualifying period would be reduced to six months instead.

Labour’s Employment Rights Bill had become caught in parliamentary “ping pong” between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, slowed down by persuasive resistance from business owners. The government was forced to compromise to get the bill passed into law.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told Sky News that “sometimes you do have to adopt some pragmatism if you want to make sure that you get the wider package through”.