SUPINE Labour MPs have voted to plunge pensioners into poverty, after approving winter fuel benefit cuts for millions of older people.
The Commons backed Sir Keir Starmer’s austerity move by 348 votes to 228, with many Labour MPs abstaining.
A larger-than-expected 53 Labour MPs seem to have not backed the government in the vote, although some may have had permission from the whips to skip the debate.
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John McDonnell, speaking in the brief debate which preceded the vote, said that the cut “flies against everything I believe in as a Labour MP about tackling inequality and poverty within our society.”
He slammed the government’s claim that those with the “broadest shoulders” should bear the burden of the crisis, saying that it was the poorest who have been hit hardest.
Independent Exclusive: Energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh confirmed her department has assessed the impact the policy change will have on pensioners living in fuel poverty, but said only that it will be published ‘in due course’
The government has assessed the number of people who will be pushed into fuel poverty by its winter fuel payment cuts, but will not publish the figures until after MPs vote on the measure, The Independent can reveal.
But, asked by Mr McDonnell and The Independent, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero refused to say when the document would be published, only promising that it would be “in due course”.
Her answer suggests that while the department has carried out the analysis, it will not be published until after MPs have voted on the measure. Mr McDonnell said “it is no way to implement policy” and he is “fearful of the impact on those who will be put at serious risk”.
The left-wing MP told Lewis Goodall on LBC that he will not vote for the changes if there is no adjustment before they are put before Parliament.
Mr McDonnell said: “I will vote against it. We’ve had 14 years of austerity I don’t think my community can cope with it anymore.
“My fear is, as a result of this, there will be more deaths.”
On the policy, Mr McDonnell added: “It’s the wrong route to go down – it will disillusion people. This is not what a Labour government should be doing I’m afraid.
“My fear is there may be other austerity measures coming down the track”.
People take part in a pro-Palestine march in central London, organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, February 17, 2024
PALESTINE solidarity campaigners told Home Secretary James Cleverly today they will not stop marching — rebuffing his demand for an end to the demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Mr Cleverly, desperate to bring a halt to the protests which brought down his predecessor Suella Braverman and have shaken the establishment, said the marches should stop as they had “made their point” — the latest government attempt to halt the movement.
But the six organisations which have come together to organise the solidarity movement made it clear that they would not consider pausing their campaigning until there was at least a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Instead, at a Westminster press conference, they united to slam the mounting assault on the right to protest being conducted by the government and other right-wing politicians.
“There is a growing attack on the right to protest,” Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal told the press conference.
“Demonising the protesters for Palestinian rights by pro-Israeli politicians serves to deflect attention from Israel’s genocide.”
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Left MP John McDonnell criticised proposals being circulated to insulate politicians from mass protests.
He said: “This is the operation of our democracy. We should welcome it and be proud of it.”
People take part in the National March for Palestine in London on Saturday November 11, 2023. (Photo: Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)
“In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians,” demonstrators chanted at Saturday’s march, described as one of the largest political protests in U.K. history.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of London on Saturday to demand an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as Israeli forces ramped up their aerial and ground assault on the Palestinian enclave’s hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, intensifying the territory’s humanitarian crisis.
Described as one of the largest political demonstrations in U.K. history, the march moved ahead despite criticism from British Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who suggested earlier in the week that the protest should have been banned by London police given that it coincided with Armistice Day. Braverman accused the police of giving favorable treatment to “pro-Palestinian mobs.”
“I am horrified by the tone, language, and incitement our own government is using to whip up hatred against its own citizens—citizens who are standing up in solidarity with the besieged and bombed citizens of Gaza,” British Army veteran and march participant Nadia Mitchell wrote for OpenDemocracy. “Personally, I cannot think of a more appropriate day to demand a cease-fire than on the day we remember the mother of all cease-fires, to remember and honor those who sacrificed their lives in pursuit of peace and an end to war.”
Some U.K. lawmakers, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Labour MP John McDonnell, joined Saturday’s march alongside hundreds of thousands of peace activists, union members, and people of all faiths.
“In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians,” demonstrators chanted.
(Photo: Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)
Reuters reported that “police said far-right groups opposing the march were present in central London in ‘significant numbers,’ leading to skirmishes with officers near the Cenotaph war memorial, close to the Houses of Parliament and in Westminster.”
“Officers in riot gear sought to contain the far-right protesters, some of whom threw bottles at them, and police vehicles sped around the city to respond to reports of tensions in the streets,” the outlet added.
Participants in the mass demonstration, meanwhile, marched from London’s Hyde Park to the U.S. Embassy to protest the Biden administration’s unwavering military and political support for the Israeli government as the death toll in Gaza continues to climb.
The head of the World Health Organization told the United Nations Security Council on Friday that Israel’s bombing and siege are killing one child on average every 10 minutes in Gaza.
“Nowhere and no one is safe,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Mohammed Abu Mughaisib, deputy medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, toldThe Washington Post on Saturday that hospitals in northern Gaza have become “a graveyard” due to mounting Israeli attacks.
Medical workers at al-Nasr pediatric hospital were forced to leave babies in incubators behind as they evacuated south, Abu Mughaisib said.
“The medical staff evacuated because of the shelling on the pediatric hospital, and they couldn’t save the babies to take them out, so they left five babies alone in the intensive care on the machines and the ventilators,” he told the newspaper. “That’s the situation: leaving babies now alone on the ventilators.”
(Photo: Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)
Saturday’s march was organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and other advocacy groups.
“We march to call for an end to the indiscriminate bombing of civilians and a #CeasefireNOW,” PSC director Ben Jamal wrote on social media. “We march in respect of the rights of all to live in freedom and with dignity.”
The demonstration is part of a growing international movement supporting a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip as Western leaders, including Sunak and U.S. President Joe Biden, refuse to demand an end to Israel’s siege and relentless bombing campaign.
Earlier this week, as Israeli forces encircled northern Gaza, Biden told reporters that there is “no possibility” of a cease-fire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly rejected a proposed five-day cease-fire in exchange for the release of some of the hostages held by Hamas.
(Photo: Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)
Video footage of Saturday’s march shows the streets of central London packed with demonstrators expressing solidarity with the people of Gaza and demanding an end to Israel’s assault, which began after a deadly Hamas-led attack in southern Israel last month.
An estimated 300,000 people took part in Saturday’s march, according to London authorities.
“This footage shows the true will of the British people,” wrote Ahmed Alnaouq, a London-based Palestinian journalist and co-founder of the nonprofit We Are Not Numbers. “Hundreds of thousands are protesting peacefully despite rounds of vicious smear campaigns and intimidation. “All say in one word: CEASE-FIRE NOW!”
