DISABLED activists inflicted the first major political defeat on Keir Starmer — and see ending his “pathetic and failed” government as unfinished business, a Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) protest outside Labour conference heard yesterday.

Campaigners from the Merseyside, Leeds and York branches of DPAC were joined by Amnesty International and Unite North West disabled members’ committee, listening as the names of people who died after their benefits were cut were read out, before slamming Labour for continuing the Tory war on welfare.

Labour had tried to “push harder and further” than the Conservatives with attacks on social security, activist Rick Burgess said, but “we defeated them.

“They had to drop the entire Clause 5 of the [personal independence payment] proposals in their Bill. And it almost became a problem of confidence in Starmer and the fall of the government.”

Merseyside DPAC called on people to lobby their MPs to oppose welfare cuts, and called on unions to cut financial support from the Labour Party.