Ending winter fuel payments for most pensioners is set to be a key factor in this week’s local elections, campaigners from Labour and opposition parties believe.

The governing party is braced for a poor performance when some English voters go to the polls on Thursday to elect county councils and mayors, with Reform UK favourite to win the Runcorn and Helsby by-election and the Liberal Democrats and Greens also expected to make gains.

Labour has fared badly in opinion surveys over recent months, amid flagging economic growth and questions over the Government’s strategy to improve public services.

Pensioner groups protested outside Parliament against winter fuel cuts (Photo: Guy Smallman/Getty)

But the decision to axe the annual payment of up to £300 a year for all but the poorest pensioners, taken within weeks of the general election in 2024, is said to be a key motivation for some of the voters who have turned against Starmer’s team.

Scrapping the payment “comes up on every door” knocked by activists, a Labour source revealed.

Canvassers for the Liberal Democrats also report that the policy is coming up on the doorstep as the single-biggest “totemic” example of disillusionment with the Government.

And a Labour MP said: “People elected us as the Tories had completely lost the trust of the public, we have not won that trust, decisions like [cutting] winter fuel payments have led to the opposite, Reform are filling that gap.”

A different Labour MP told The i Paper they were “deeply concerned”, adding: “I am watching Reform like a hawk. Labour are playing these elections very low-key. Reform are clearly positioning themselves in the media, but I expect that their operation on the ground is fairly weak, although there is some targeting. I am expecting their share of the vote to rise, and they will take seats, as will the Greens.”

Within the Government, allies of Starmer are said to be focused on the possible rise of Reform, given that Nigel Farage‘s party now holds a narrow lead in the average of national opinion polls.

“They have the data and know what the set of issues are, and it’s all about left-behind bits of the country that have really had four decades of a lack of investment,” one MP who has discussed the issue with No 10 said.

A group of Labour parliamentarians representing seats where Reform came second at the general election have been holding regular meetings to discuss ways to hold off the right-wing insurgents.

An MP from the West Midlands defended the Government’s approach, saying: “I think the Labour Government actually is responding to local government needs, especially given the underfunding that we’ve seen under the Tories. People are quite impatient for change, and it will take time.”