{"id":83430,"date":"2025-06-25T09:39:51","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T08:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=83430"},"modified":"2025-06-25T09:39:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T08:39:51","slug":"taxi-for-starmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/06\/25\/taxi-for-starmer\/","title":{"rendered":"Taxi for Starmer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is in the FT this morning<\/a>, with regard to the now 128 (or more) Labour MPs who are threatening to vote against Labour over cuts to disability and other benefits:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So, the logic is that\u00a0Starmer is over according to the Labour whips, and so the country must go to the polls and return Farage, which I have always assumed is what Starmer really wants. That is the threat here.<\/p>\n

What the whips are saying is that if Starmer is beaten, he will not resign as Labour leader, as he should, but will try to call a general election.<\/p>\n

But, actually, he does not have the right to do that.<\/p>\n

The motion opposing the government is not on a confidence issue.<\/p>\n

Nor is it actually challenging the policy; it is simply asking that it be deferred.<\/p>\n

And Labour can still, very obviously, command a majority in the House on a confidence issue, meaning that there can be no justification for a general election.<\/p>\n

So, this suggestion that there will be a general election is absurd. The King has no right to grant one to a party that can command the confidence of the House, but which has blundered on an issue.<\/p>\n

But that does not mean that Keir Starmer's government might not fall, because that is entirely possible.<\/p>\n

All it means is that Starmer might be consigned to political oblivion. There will be no tears about that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is in the FT this morning, with regard to the now 128 (or more) Labour MPs who are threatening to vote against Labour over
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83432,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83430\/revisions\/83432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}