CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves doubled down on her cruel cut to pensioners’ winter fuel allowance at the party’s conference today.

Defying mounting pressure to change course, Ms Reeves pledged “iron discipline.”

She said: “I made the choice to means test the winter fuel payment so that it’s only targeted to those most in need.

“I know that not everyone in this hall or in the country will agree with every decision that I make.

“I will not duck those decisions for political expediency, not for personal advantage.”

She dug in on the policy as party managers manipulated the conference agenda to delay a vote on motions calling for a U-turn.

A critical resolution from the Unite union, scheduled for debate on Monday, has been pushed to the end of conference on Wednesday to avoid embarrassing Ms Reeves or Sir Keir Starmer before his leader’s speech.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham accused the party of working to block debate and said: “Labour leaders have tried to silence the voice of pensioners, workers and communities at party conference in this blatant manoeuvre.

“There will be real anger among everyday people.”

Unite organiser Joe Rollin, protesting outside conference, said: “This is just another sickening example of the Labour Party trying to close down democracy.”

Ms Reeves told delegates that there “will be no return to austerity” in her first Budget next month, adding that “Conservative austerity was a destructive choice,” a formulation which implied that “Labour austerity” is forthcoming.

She claimed that dealing with the Tory legacy would mean “tough decisions, but I won’t let that dim our ambition for Britain.”

Her address was interrupted by protesters from Climate Resistance, who demanded an end to arms sales to Israel. 

They were bundled out of the hall and briefly arrested.

Climate Resistance spokesperson Sam Simons said: “Labour promised us change — instead we’re getting more of the same.

“The same pandering to the fossil fuel industry, the same arms licences that are fuelling a genocide in Gaza, and the same austerity that sees the poorest hit hardest.”

Ms Reeves won the approval of most delegates for her speech. 

She displayed an unexpected talent for tub-thumping and began almost manically cheerful, as if to dispel the doom-and-gloom of the government’s messaging to date.

She won cheers for the announcement of a commissioner to investigate Tory-sanctioned corruption over contracts during the Covid pandemic.

“I won’t turn a blind eye to rip-off artists and fraudsters, who used a national emergency to line their own pockets,” she said.

“That money belongs in our police, our health service and our schools. We want our money back.”

She also unexpectedly slapped down Treasury conventions, which she has otherwise scrupulously observed.

“It is time that the Treasury moved on from just counting the costs of investments in our economy, to recognising the benefits too,” she said, pledging an end to “trickle-down economics” and the advent of an active industrial strategy.

Ms Reeves robustly defended the settlement of public-sector pay disputes, telling delegates she was “proud to stand here as the first Chancellor in 14 years to have delivered a meaningful real-terms pay rise to millions of public-sector workers.”

It was an imperial chancellor’s speech in the Gordon Brown mould, roaming freely over the portfolios of her Cabinet colleagues. 

If it went down well at conference, it was less warmly received outside.

Suspended Labour MP John McDonnell was “bitterly disappointed” that Ms Reeves was “ploughing on” with the winter fuel cut “despite all the evidence of the hardship and suffering this would cause.  A dreadful mistake.”

Campaign group Momentum ridiculed her claim to have abandoned austerity.

“It’s clear she is ideologically committed to more of it while attacking the living standards of the majority,” it said.

Unite executive member Angela Duerden said there was “no need” to cut the fuel allowance.

She said: “We have enough money if we tax the people who have the most money.

“Do not make our pensioners pay for the deficits.”

Simon Francis of the End Fuel Poverty coalition accused Ms Reeves of gambling “with older people's lives to fill a budgetary black hole” and called for the cut to be reversed.

However, TUC general secretary Paul Nowak welcomed the speech, saying: “Rachel Reeves today set out crucial first steps for rebuilding and repairing Britain. 

“We share her vision for a country where work pays for all and where the proceeds of economic growth are felt in working families’ pockets.”