Ahead of the general election, figures close to Keir Starmer had briefed journalists on the importance of Labour’s first hundred days in government. There was a small window, they argued, to demonstrate the new government’s priorities to the country. This week, Keir Starmer did just that.

After seven Labour MPs voted for an amendment to the King’s Speech calling for the abolition of the two-child benefit limit, the Labour leader suspended them for six months. Given Labour’s recent history of arbitrary suspensions of the party whip, it remains to be seen whether the rebels — Zarah Sultana, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Imran Hussain, Apsana Begum, and John McDonnell — will be permitted to rejoin the parliamentary party once their suspension ends.

The rebel MP’s case for abolishing the two-child limit is a powerful one. Introduced in 2017 by the Conservative government, the policy limits families from claiming benefits for a maximum of two children. A record 1.6 million children are living in families affected by the policy, and it is widely recognized as the single largest driver of child poverty in Britain. Abolishing it would immediately lift 330,000 children from poverty. And at an eventual cost of just £3.4 billion a year, there is no quicker or more cost-effective way to combat child poverty available to the government.

By contrast, the arguments in favor of keeping the limit are far weaker. While the Conservative government that introduced the policy framed it as a disincentive against families having children they could not afford, the current government is not prepared to defend the policy on the grounds of social engineering. Instead, it insists that maintaining the policy is necessary to demonstrate its economic competencies, stressing that it would be irresponsible to make “unfunded promises.” At the same time, it refuses any tax rises on the wealthy to fund the abolition of the limit. Adding insult to injury, just last week, the government showed that money can be found when there is political will, committing £3 billion a year to Ukraine’s war effort “for as long as it takes.”

For Team Starmer, support for the two-child limit functions as a litmus test. Prior to the vote, the leader’s team briefed sympathetic journalists that enforcing support for the policy in the face of internal opposition was a “virility test” for the new administration, with the impacted families the collateral damage. For the MPs who defied the party whip, the limit was also a sort of litmus test. Abolishing the two-child limit is the lowest hanging fruit in the fight against child poverty, and a refusal to do even that would call into question the purpose of a Labour government.

In any case, it is important to emphasize how unprecedented Starmer’s decision to suspend the whip is. In no other point in the Labour Party’s history would vehemently opposing child poverty be seen as a matter of exclusion and punishment for MPs. When the Tony Blair government cut benefits for single parents in 1997, it didn’t remove the whip from the forty-seven MPs who voted against it. Similarly, Clement Attlee did not suspend the forty-five MPs who rebelled against his 1947 King’s Speech. The control freakery on display this week stands firmly outside the democratic traditions of the party and is revealing of the character of the new government.

In February, after Labour blackmailed the speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, into canceling a vote on a Gaza cease-fire, I wrote that an alarming pattern was emerging, where, as the faction around the Labour leader grew in power, their authoritarianism became more unrestrained. Their behavior this week was only the first taste of the despotic impulses of the Starmer government and a signal that a large parliamentary majority has emboldened their intolerance of debate and dissent.

However, if this week’s expulsion was a display of organizational strength, it also signaled the political fragility of Starmer and his project. Elected with a landslide majority on a historically low turnout, it is a government with a paper-thin mandate and no popular constituency. As a result, it is insecure and paranoid about any potential challenges to its authority.

There is some comfort to be taken in the fact the government appears to be aware that its support for the two-child limit is both morally indefensible and politically untenable. While this week’s rebellion was confined to a handful of MPs from the Socialist Campaign Group, opposition to the policy is deeply felt across the Labour benches and by the party’s affiliate trade unions and cannot be contained indefinitely.

The “child poverty task force” recently established by the government in response to political pressure is a sign that it knows its position is unsustainable. The task force, which has no terms of reference or time frame, was clearly cobbled together in a panicked response to criticism of Labour’s inaction on child poverty. It also demonstrates the government’s lack of confidence in its arguments in defense of the policy. This same insecurity was evident in their refusal to put forward any ministers in the media to justify the vote and the suspensions.

In what is meant to be the new government’s honeymoon period, it has succeeded in drawing the battle lines on the issue of child poverty and placing itself firmly on the side of immiseration. It has also shown itself to be brittle and intolerant, paving the way for larger, more serious rebellions in the future. Whether they realize it yet or not, a government elected on a mandate of “change” that holds that the number of children in scarring poverty is just right will not hold.