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Guest Essay

By Moya Lothian-McLean

Ms. Lothian-McLean is a contributing Opinion writer and a journalist who covers British politics and culture. She wrote from London.

It was meant to be a moment to celebrate. A year ago, after nearly a decade and a half in the wilderness, the British Labour Party returned to power — and the man who led them there, Keir Starmer, became prime minister. Yet the anniversary of that achievement has been anything but joyous, soured by rebellion and steeped in bitterness.

A month of mutinies, forcing the government into successive humiliating U-turns, lie behind the miserable milestone. The most recent really stung. When the government announced cuts to welfare payments for 800,000 mostly disabled people, it surely assumed, with its large majority in Parliament, that the legislation would easily pass. Instead, as one estimate suggested the change would push 250,000 people into poverty, discord in the party only grew,........

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