The Labour leadership has lost a highly anticipated motion at the party’s conference that called on ministers to reverse the cuts to winter fuel payments.
The defeat will come as a blow to Downing Street, as the prime minister and his ministerial team repeatedly said throughout the party conference that the move demonstrated they could be trusted with taxpayers’ money.
The vote was carried by a show of hands in the noisy conference hall, with members cheering as it was announced that Downing Street had lost the motion.
Members of Unite and the Communications Workers Union co-sponsored the motion and accused party officials of seeking to silence the unions as the debate had been moved from Monday, to the very end of the gathering on Wednesday after ministerial speeches had taken place.
Many delegates and union members had also left conference early in order to make the funeral of the former assistant general secretary of the CWU, Andy Kerr.
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, opened the debate, criticising Starmer for removing the allowance while “leaving the super-rich untouched”.
Speaking to a loud applause, she told delegates: “Our public services and British industry need investment now.
“It’s no good having sympathy for workers at Grangemouth losing their jobs: They don’t need pity, they need Labour to step up to the plate and not allow a billionaire, who buys a football club as a hobby, to throw these workers on the scrapheap.”
She added: “We are the sixth richest economy in the world, we have the money. Britain needs investment, not austerity mark II.
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“We won’t get any gold badge for shaving peanuts off our debt.”
“It’s the wrong decision, and it needs to be reversed.”