Row threatens to blight party conference

United Kingdom Labour Party leader Keir Starmer's first annual party conference since becoming prime minister began on Sunday with an internal split overshadowing what should have been a celebratory event.

Labour's win at the general election in July returned the party to government after 14 years of Conservative Party rule. It had been hoped the conference would be an opportunity for it to set out its plan for how to govern.

But the government's decision to limit winter fuel payments to the elderly as a way of taming what has been described as a "fiscal black hole" left by the previous government has drawn criticism from all sides, including from within.

Previously, all pensioners in England and Wales, regardless of income, were entitled to the payment, which was worth between 200 and 300 pounds ($266 and $399), but now around 10 million people will be denied the benefit.

The government's justification is that it will save around 1.3 billion pounds in the year 2024-25, and then 1.5 billion pounds in years to come, freeing up resources to stimulate economic growth, which is Labour's main policy priority.

When the proposal was put to the vote in Parliament, only one Labour Party lawmaker, Jon Trickett, who is to the left of the party and an ally of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, voted against the move, but more than 50 showed their opposition by abstaining.

"I could not in good conscience vote to make my constituents poorer. I will sleep well knowing that I voted to defend my constituents," said Trickett, who explained that the change could be "a matter of life or death" and that it would force "many more pensioners into poverty this winter".

The Guardian newspaper quoted an unnamed Labour MP as saying: "I don't think there is a Labour MP who isn't worried. We're talking to our constituents, reading our emails, this weekend we'll be in our constituencies. I've had more people stopping me in the street than over Brexit. Pensioners just pleading that we don't do this."

Caroline Abrahams, director of charity Age UK, said of the policy "we just don't think it's fair to remove the payment from the 2.5 million pensioners on low incomes who badly need it, and to do it so quickly this winter, at the same time as energy bills are rising by 10 percent".

Starmer said he had "every sympathy with anyone who is struggling with any of their bills. But the question we've got to answer is, how are you going to make up for a 22-billion-pound shortfall this year, which we hadn't expected to find? I didn't want to do what the last government did, which is pretend it's not there".

The row comes at the same time as Starmer and other senior government figures have been criticized for accepting significant donations of gifts and hospitality.

"Donations… and monetary donations have been a feature of our politics for a very long time," Labour's Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner told the BBC. "People can look it up and see what people have had donations for, and the transparency is really important. I get that people are angry, I get that people are upset. I think the transparency is there so people can see that."