The UK parliament is currently debating a petition with 2.8 million signatures to call a new general election after only a few months of Labour in power. Here we look at how the Labour Party has governed in its first few months. 

The First Hundred Days of Labour in Power

 More than three months have passed since the British General Election of July 4, which saw the incumbent Conservative (Tory) Party lose to the opposition Labour Party. This article will look at what has happened since the Labour Party came to power and what it means for workers and the world.

 The first hundred days of the new Labour government were dominated by the ongoing genocide in Gaza and regional war in the Middle East, government decisions that punish children and retired workers, political corruption, and the introduction of the new Employment Rights Bill for workers.

Election results can be misleading. Though Labour won a clear majority in the election, there was no great enthusiasm for them among the electorate. It was more a story of the Tories losing than Labour winning. The right-wing vote was split between two parties: one discredited as a result of fifteen years in government, and the other, a rising far-right party. The votes of the two right-wing parties approximate those of the Labour Party. This rewarded Labour at the expense of the incumbent party because the electoral system is not representative; it allocates seats on a winner-takes-all basis by constituency. Labour’s leader, Keir Starmer, is not a popular figure—he lacks charm and personality. He led the right party at the right time. In fact, Labour even lost some seats to independent candidates who ran on a platform of a ceasefire in Gaza and came close to losing several others. Independents do not normally win seats in the British electoral system, which demonstrates the disquiet that exists over the elite consensus regarding Gaza. Shortly after October 7, Starmer said during a radio interview that Israel had the right to defend itself and that this ‘right’ included cutting off water and power to the enclave. This caused outrage within his party and society. Many councillors and members resigned. He was forced to triangulate and try to parse his original comment in a more palatable way.

 Labour in power realised they were on the wrong side of the issue and sought to recalibrate their stance without fundamentally changing their approach. They resumed funding for the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians after suspending it in response to baseless allegations from Israel that its staff had been involved in the October 7 attacks. Also in July, Britain lifted a formal objection to the International Criminal Court’s right to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant before suspending some weapons exports. Opinion polls show that there is clear majority support for going further than they have, but they are unwilling to.

Now onto domestic affairs. Shortly after taking office, Labour chose to maintain the controversial two-child benefit cap, a policy introduced by the Conservatives in 2017 and widely criticized for worsening child poverty, which currently affects 1.6 million children. Removing the cap could lift 330,000 children out of poverty at an annual cost of £3.4 billion. When seven Labour MPs supported an amendment to abolish the cap, they were suspended by Starmer, showcasing the party’s unwillingness to shift course on key welfare policies.

Not long after, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the end of universal winter fuel payments for pensioners. Previously, these payments provided up to £300 annually to help older adults manage energy costs. The new policy, designed to save £1.3 billion this year and £1.5 billion annually moving forward, restricts the payments to only those receiving pension credit, leaving many retirees anxious about increased financial strain.

 After attacking children and pensioners, it emerged that Starmer and his inner circle had benefited from free gifts and hospitality from a wealthy donor to the Labour Party.

It was revealed, in what became known as the ‘passes for glasses’ scandal, that Starmer had accepted over £107,145 worth of gifts and hospitality, including tickets to high-profile events, from Labour donor Waheed Alli. Although the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards declined to investigate, the revelations sparked suspicions of “cash for access” and cronyism. In response, Starmer and other Labour members pledged to stop accepting donor gifts.

The other major development in the first hundred days was the introduction of the Employment Rights Bill on October 10. The bill’s 28 provisions address working conditions, including restrictions on fire-and-rehire tactics (with exceptions for financially struggling companies), first-day sick pay, and making flexible working the default option, which employers can reject only for specific reasons. It was billed as a big step forward for workers’ rights, but the reality is that many of the measures originally proposed were diluted after negotiations with business groups. While the bill includes “day one” unfair dismissal rights, these changes will not take effect until autumn 2026. Labour claims that this measure will bolster job security for nine million workers and over one million low-paid employees on zero-hours contracts, yet it stops short of banning such contracts outright, allowing workers to request guaranteed hours only after a 12-week period.

However, some manifesto promises remain unfulfilled. The proposed single employment status that would clarify the blurry line between employees and the self-employed has been deferred for further consultation, and the “right to disconnect” after working hours has been reduced to a non-binding code of practice.

The Labour Party’s record on Gaza, child poverty, pensioners’ winter fuel payments, corruption, and employment rights demonstrates why we hold a different conception of politics than the parties in parliament. The parties in parliament must put the needs of the economy before those of humanity as a whole because that is what the imperatives of a profit-driven system demand.

 We have a different view of politics than the one found in parliament. We do not think politics is a manager’s game, far removed from us. Though, that is, what it is at present. On the contrary, for us, politics is the things in our  everyday lives that we are unhappy with and want to change. We can only do this in association with others that share our interests and goals. When we struggle over pay and conditions at work, against discrimination, against landlords, and over all the other social questions that we face in this society—these are the real sites of politics. We can only begin to address these issues when we see them as things we must change ourselves; nobody else is going to do it for us. No matter what legal protections exist, they are only as strong as our collective organisation and will to fight for them and enforce them, and to go beyond them to fight for what we currently do not have. Politics is also about power: either we have it, or they have it. When they have it, they are able to conduct their wars, inflict poverty on children and pensioners, reward themselves and their friends, and decide what rights we should have at work. When we are powerful, we can stop wars and put our needs before profit.