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LONDON (Reuters) -Members of Britain's Labour Party narrowly voted against the government's decision to limit winter fuel payments to the elderly, a symbolic move piling pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer who has backed the cuts to help stabilise the economy.
Starmer, who sought to lift the mood at the governing party's annual conference with his speech on Tuesday, has stood by the cuts to payments to help the elderly cover fuel bills, saying short-term pain was necessary to spur economic growth.
But Labour delegates at the party's conference in the English city of Liverpool voted against the government with a show of hands on Wednesday following an impassioned speech by Sharon Graham, head of Unite, one of Britain's biggest unions.
To a standing ovation, Graham said she did not understand "how our new Labour government can cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners but leave the super rich untouched".
"This is not what people voted for, it is the wrong decision and it needs to be reversed."
Starmer says he was forced to make tough decisions after the previous Conservative government left a 22-billion-pound ($29-billion) black hole in public finances - a charge the Conservatives deny.
Asked about the vote, Starmer told GB News: "I understand why colleagues in the Labour movement feel very strongly about this. Conference policy doesn't make government policy and we've had to take a difficult decision."
"The reason this is so important is we want to and will stabilise the economy."
But the row over the cuts cast a pall over the conference and looks set to continue to be a point of conflict between some British unions, traditional backers of Labour, and a government focused on reining in spending to meet its fiscal targets.
Graham said the fiscal rules were "self-imposed".
"The decision to keep fiscal rules is hanging like a noose around our necks," she said.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, additional reporting by Kylie MacLellanEditing by Ros Russell)
