Keir Starmer Watered Down Workers Rights Bill

Keir Starmer is facing yet another Labour revolt after he watered down the government’s flagship workers’ rights bill.

In a U-turn which breaks another election manifesto pledge, plans to give employees day-one protection against unfair dismissal have been ditched.

Instead, workers will have to be in a job for at least six months before the protection kicks in.

Business secretary Peter Kyle said the “compromise” had been reached between business leaders and the trade unions after the legislation became bogged down in the House of Lords.

But Labour MPs reacted angrily to the move, which they said was a clear breach of the party’s election manifesto, which promised to give workers “basic rights from day one to parental leave, sick pay, and protection from unfair dismissal”.

Former minister Justin Madders said: “It might be a compromise. It might even be necessary to get the Bill passed asap. But it most definitely is a manifesto breach.”

Left-wing backbencher Andy McDonald branded the move a “complete betrayal” and vowed to push for its reversal.

“When Keir Starmer asked me to work with our trade unions to develop a programme for the biggest uplift in workers’ rights and protections in a generation, I did exactly as I was asked and we produced the New Deal for Working People,” he said.

“The plans announced today to merely reduce the qualifying period for unfair dismissal, from two years to six months is a complete betrayal.”

He added: “This is a wrong-headed move and I will campaign to have this concession reversed.”

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the bill had become “a shell of its former self”.

But TUC boss Paul Nowak said the “absolute priority” was to get the legislation on to the statute books.