Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has made 13 major policy U-turns since taking office around 18 months ago, according to a January 2026 tally compiled by LBC that includes the latest reported row-back on plans for a mandatory digital ID approach linked to right-to-work checks.
The count is not drawn from any official government register. There is no UK-government “U-turn register”, and whether a change is labelled a U-turn is often a political or media judgement. To make the figure as evidence-based as possible, the LBC list applies a practical test used in many media round-ups: it treats an item as a “U-turn” only where a major, identifiable policy position is later reversed or materially diluted and is explicitly described in reputable, dated reporting as a “U-turn”, “climbdown”, “backtrack” or “row-back”, or where the reversal is clearly described in the policy timeline.
On that basis, the LBC list—published in mid-January 2026 and covering Labour’s period in office since the 2024 general election—sets out 13 alleged U-turns, with the digital ID shift treated as the latest.
The newest flashpoint has centred on digital identity and employment checks. Labour had trailed a “flagship” mandatory digital ID approach tied to right-to-work verification. The reported change is that the mandatory element would be abandoned or substantially watered down, with alternative digital documents permitted. The move has been widely framed as the government “rowing back” from a central pledge.
Separate from the overall government tally, a narrower count focusing on Starmer personally—where he is reported to have announced the reversal himself, or where the reversal is explicitly framed as his backtracking on a flagship stance—comes to five, using the same LBC-ledger approach. Those five are the winter fuel payments climbdown, the decision to open a new statutory national inquiry into grooming gangs after initially resisting calls for one, a dilution of welfare reforms affecting Personal Independence Payment (PIP) after internal pressure, a shift in Starmer’s public wording on trans rights after a Supreme Court ruling, and the reported watering down of the mandatory digital ID plan.
The 13-item list spans taxes, welfare, employment rights and fiscal policy, as well as a series of politically sensitive social-policy decisions. Among the most high-profile changes is the reversal on winter fuel payments. The government had moved early in its term to tighten eligibility through tougher means testing; it later partially reversed course, with reports describing a policy that would provide payments to all pensioners except those earning above £35,000.
Another prominent reversal involves grooming gangs. Ministers had initially emphasised implementing existing recommendations and resisted calls for a fresh national inquiry. The government later announced a statutory national inquiry, a move described in reporting as a climbdown after pressure and review activity.
On welfare, Labour had set out reforms designed to change eligibility rules and reduce spending, including changes affecting PIP. The later shift, described as a U-turn or dilution, removed PIP eligibility changes from welfare legislation following opposition from Labour MPs, according to the same round-up reporting.
Several of the changes listed are primarily budgetary or Treasury-led and are therefore more contested as “U-turns”, even where they have been labelled as such by some outlets. These include reported moves on National Insurance thresholds—where Labour had criticised or ruled out further threshold freezes in opposition, but later extended the freeze in office while arguing the pledge applied to rates rather than thresholds. The list also includes a reported income tax rise that was later dropped, with reliance instead placed on threshold policy—an approach that some coverage framed as an “income tax U-turn”.
The LBC compilation also includes an impending support package on business rates for pubs, after budget plans implied a sharper increase as Covid-era relief unwound; the government’s position on compensation for women affected by changes to the state pension age (WASPI), where ministers previously said blanket compensation was not justified but later signalled reconsideration; and the decision to scrap the two-child benefit cap from April after initially defending it and disciplining MPs who rebelled.
Employment rights have also featured. The government had proposed “day-one” unfair dismissal protections by removing the qualifying period. The later change described in the list shifts unfair dismissal protection to a six-month point, while leaving other “day one” rights to proceed.
Two other entries in the tally concern tax relief and fiscal framework choices. The government faced sustained protest over inheritance tax relief for farmers, after lowering relief thresholds; the later change raised the relief threshold from £1 million to £2.5 million in a move described as a climbdown. Separately, the list includes a change to how “debt” is measured in the fiscal rules under Chancellor Rachel Reeves, moving to a broader measure and, according to the coverage cited in such round-ups, creating additional headroom—again framed by some as a reversal.
Whether 13 U-turns in 18 months is unusually high is difficult to assess in any definitive way, because there is no single agreed dataset across governments and the term “U-turn” is applied inconsistently. Comparisons that do exist tend to come from media-compiled lists that use their own definitions, and they often mix full reversals with partial dilutions, technical budget decisions and re-interpretations of earlier commitments.
Even so, those snapshots suggest the current rate is not unprecedented in modern Westminster politics. The Financial Times previously referred to “nine rapid U-turns” during Theresa May’s premiership in roughly a year, according to summaries of her record. The New Statesman has also run lists of major U-turns during David Cameron’s early period in office. By contrast, Sky News once listed 11 reversals in a 14-week period under Boris Johnson in 2020, during the Covid era—a period widely viewed as exceptional for policy churn.
On a simple pro-rata basis, 13 U-turns over about 18 months equates to roughly 8.7 per year, though that crude rate can mislead because reversals tend to cluster around budgets, legislation crunch points and early-term “settling in” periods. It also depends heavily on what is included: for example, whether a change in thresholds is treated the same way as dropping a central policy plank.
The government has, at different times, rejected the idea that it is U-turning and argued that it is responding to evidence, stakeholder concerns and changing circumstances. Critics, meanwhile, have used the run of reversals to question the stability of Labour’s programme and the reliability of its pre-election commitments.
With the next phases of welfare and employment legislation still moving through Parliament, and further fiscal events expected this year, Westminster will be watching whether the pace of reversals slows—or whether the January tally grows.