Labour Party members deal a blow to Starmer a day after his appeal for unity

LIVERPOOL, England — Members of Britain's governing Labour Party dealt Prime Minister Keir Starmer a blow on Wednesday, rejecting his decision to cut payments that offset winter heating costs for millions of retirees.

The vote on the final day of Labour's annual conference is not binding, but it's a setback to Starmer's efforts to unite his center-left party around the contentious measure.

Since winning office in July, Starmer has cautioned that the dire state of the public finances inherited from the last Conservative government means he must make hard choices such as ending the winter fuel allowance, worth between 200 and 300 pounds ($262 and $393), for all but the poorest pensioners.

Trade unions that are among Labour's funders and allies organized resistance to the cut at the conference in Liverpool, northwest England. They forced a vote on a demand for the decision to be reversed. It was narrowly passed in a show-of-hands vote amid cheers and jeers in the conference hall.

''I do not understand how our new Labour government can cut the winter fuel payment for pensioners and leave the super-rich untouched," said Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, to applause from delegates. ''This is not what people voted for. It is the wrong decision and it needs to be reversed.''

The government has promised the withdrawal of the heating allowance will be offset by an above-inflation increase in the state pension and other measures to reduce poverty.

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall told delegates that the cut ''wasn't a decision we wanted or expected to make.'' But she argued that ''this Labour government has done more to help the poorest pensioners in the last two months than the Tories did in 14 years.''

Starmer tried to unite the party and appeal to a skeptical electorate in his first conference speech as prime minister on Tuesday, telling voters exhausted by years of political and economic turmoil that better times are on the way — if they swallow his recipe of short-term pain for long-term gain.

He said he would make ''tough decisions'' — code for public spending restraint and tax increases — to achieve economic growth to fund schools, hospitals, roads, railways and more.

Starmer acknowledged some of those decisions would be unpopular, but said: ''We will turn our collar up and face the storm.''