What sort of government would cut the benefits of some of the poorest people in order to spend more on weapons and wars? What sort of government boasts that it is able to make cuts that even the Tories did not dare to do? The government of Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting, that’s what. And it even has the temerity to argue that it’s very name – the Labour party – means that it is the party of work.
This grotesque caricature means that the present government either doesn’t know or is too callous to care that the party’s name stems from trade unions’ desire to have a political voice in parliament to stand up for workers against the system of exploitation. No one founded it thinking its plan was to force the sick and disabled into work through vicious cuts to their already miserly incomes.
It is enough to make you sick to your stomach – and even some Labour MPs can’t stand it. That’s the meaning of the hasty likely retreat on freezing PIP payments, which give disabled people a very small amount a week in order to offset the considerable extra costs involved dealing with everyday life and work. But we know that whatever concessions are made this week, they are a result of fear of rebellion from normally docile Labour MPs, and the onslaught on the poor and sick will continue. This will be through scapegoating and impoverishing the most vulnerable, while giving free rein to the privatisers, developers and deregulators, all in the name of growth.
Wes Streeting may well live to regret his foolish boast in parliament that the Tories were too weak to cut benefits, unlike Labour. He should be ashamed of his claim that there is an ‘overdiagnosis’ of mental health conditions. But the whole Labour government has now been confirmed as callous and brutal towards the very people it is supposed to represent. We have had the axing of the winter fuel payment for pensioners, refusal to lift the two-child cap on benefits, the refusal to compensate the WASPI women who had to work several years longer to receive their pensions, the raising of bus fares by 50%, and continued austerity to public services. The cuts in overseas aid to some of the poorest people in the world have been justified to finance arms spending. And all the while there has been a complete refusal to tax the rich or in any way encroach on the profits of the major corporations.
It’s worth remembering that we’ve been here before. While Labour is strongly associated with the creation of the modern welfare state through the 1945 government, its first majority government, in 1929, tried to implement savage attacks on the poor and unemployed in 1931, in the middle of the Depression. This led to a split in Labour with prime minister Ramsay McDonald (a much more talented and originally left-wing figure than Starmer) joining with the Tories to form a National Government, and rump Labour left in the wilderness until the postwar election.
So far the economic crisis is not so deep, but living standards have not recovered from the 2008 banking crisis, and the British economy is stagnant, not growing. We can only imagine how much more draconian cuts would be in a time of further contraction – and how much Labour would cling to its militarism and weaponry in those circumstances.
The signs that there is dissent within cabinet and even the most right-wing Labour ministers are sensing unrest over this question show how weak this unpleasant bunch are. The government has a big majority but it has little support on the ground. Its supporters find they are greeted with anger when canvassing. Starmer’s pathetic mock Churchillian language and pretence is galling – his latest being ‘let the guns fall silent’ when calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine which he rejected only weeks ago. His poll ratings remain abysmal despite these attempts.
This weakness can be turned to our advantage. We must fight very hard against these latest cuts, but also against the whole priority of this government, which is backing genocide in Palestine, urging massive increases in arms spending, and doing nothing to alter the record levels of inequality at home.
Only a minority voted Labour last year, and few who did signed up for these atrocious policies. Stop the War has launched a #WelfareNotWarfare campaign, because organising for it has never been more urgent.
Source: Counterfire