Keir Starmer will be forced to hold a 'humiliating' vote of confidence in his own Government if he loses a showdown with Labour's welfare rebels, Lord Blunkett has warned.
The former Labour work and pensions secretary said the Prime Minister should delay next week's crunch vote on a £5 billion package of benefit cuts until the autumn to allow more time to reach a compromise with mutinous MPs.
Lord Blunkett last night suggested the PM had failed to focus on the peril the Government is in because he has spent so much time abroad.
And he warned that losing the vote could trigger a crisis for the Government. The Labour grandee told LBC: 'If they lost it, they'd have to go for a vote of confidence, I think.
'But the embarrassment of that one year in leaves you with two problems. One is you've been humiliated, and the second is you've still got the problem. The welfare issue has not gone away. So, solving the problem, not taking the hit, is the sensible solution.'
