LABOUR’S left clearly has Keir Starmer on the run. Thousands of disabled people across the country will be grateful for that.

Of course, the rebellion which has — for now — put paid to the massive cuts Starmer and Rachel Reeves were planning for disability benefits stretched well over into the centre of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

But that is the way of successful politics — it extends the reach of those at the core, and there is little doubt that Labour’s left was at the core of the resistance to this manifestation of a new austerity.

It is remarkable that 49 Labour MPs voted against the legislation even after ministers had been forced to drop the most obnoxious provisions. It was the clearest sign that Starmer has lost the confidence of the MPs elected to support him just a year ago.

The number of rebels meant that it was impossible for him to respond by removing the whip, as he would have preferred. 

The rebellion is a vindication of the seven MPs who were suspended for opposing the continuation of the two-child benefit cap, and of Jon Trickett who voted, alone among Labour MPs, against the cut to the winter fuel allowance, now also scrapped.

It is important for the Labour left to consider how it builds on this achievement, particularly when the idea of a new left party has a lot of wind in its sails.

There is no sense that the government has learnt its lesson, nor that Starmer is trying to conciliate the sections of the party he has built his leadership around excluding and marginalising.

Indeed, left MPs are looking to rebel again tonight, against planned changes to universal credit, and ministers could blunder into a further crisis over cuts to special needs education provision.

In this situation, the left in Parliament and Labour more generally needs a strategy. For years, simple survival has been the priority but that can no longer be sufficient.

There are weaknesses that need to be addressed. The very day after the welfare vote, just 10 Labour MPs voted against the shameful proscription of Palestine Action. It is no use opposing austerity without also challenging authoritarianism.

An urgent priority must be forcing a substantive shift in Starmer’s support for Israel’s genocide — ending all arms sales and diplomatic support, recognising a Palestinian state. Moving Labour to line up with the world’s majority in support of the Palestinians would be the clearest sign that the government has changed.

Also the dots must be joined up — the attack on welfare does not exist in a parallel universe to the vast projected increases in military spending. 

The idea that social needs can be accommodated alongside a drive to war is a fantasy, but one too many Labour MPs continue to indulge.

Starmer’s plan is to make the poor pay for war, the left’s slogan “welfare not warfare” should be raised in Parliament at every opportunity.

There are other more limited demands to press on — the overdue nationalisation of Thames Water is one, and reining in the broad attack on the right to protest is another.

In parallel, there must be a drive to win affiliated unions to back rule changes to undo Starmer’s clampdown on party democracy, designed to asphyxiate the left. 

One key here must be changing leadership election rules designed to make a serious left challenge in future impossible.

None of this will be easy, and many will be sceptical, with some justification, about prospects of success. But the left in Parliament and within affiliated trade unions must drive forward or risk the perception of redundancy.