Sir Keir Starmer has called the current benefits system unsustainable, indefensible and unfair, and said the government could not “shrug its shoulders and look away”.
Addressing Labour MPs on Monday evening, the prime minister said the current welfare system was “the worst of all worlds”, discouraging people from working while producing a “spiralling bill”.
The comments come as Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall prepares to set out changes to the welfare system and cut the benefits bill in the coming weeks.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has earmarked several billion pounds in draft spending cuts to welfare and other government departments ahead of the Spring Statement.
There is unease over the plans within the party, with Labour MP Rachael Maskell warning against “draconian cuts” that risk “pushing disabled people into poverty”.
Maskell told the BBC she had picked up “deep, deep concern” among Labour MPs.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Armed state policeman in Bremen, Germany. Photo: Wikicommons
The German state has unleashed a fierce and sweeping crackdown on the Palestine solidarity movement in the country.
Germany’s policy of harsh repression of any expression of solidarity with Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinian people has continued unabated. In their attempt to silence all mentions of Palestine, German authorities have canceled events, censored activists and academics, violently repressed protests, and passed new legislation to further undermine support for Palestine solidarity.
However, despite their best efforts, people in Germany continue to defy what they see as illegitimate bans on speech and activity, and continue to express support for the Palestinian cause.
2024 ends with new attacks
In November 2024, the German parliament had passed a so-called “antisemitism resolution,” which though non-binding, sought to stifle any domestic activity to discourage participation in pro-Palestine movements.
At the beginning of December, Ramsis Kilani was expelled from the Left Party (Die Linke). The young Palestinian, who lost his father, stepmother and five siblings–ages four through twelve–in an Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip in 2014, was accused of “relativizing Hamas terror, selectively criticizing violence against women as a weapon of war, and rejecting Israel’s right to exist.”
Two weeks later, an “anti-colonial and peace Christmas market” in the west German city of Darmstadt provided the opportunity for several well-known politicians, the media, the local chapter of the “Central Council of Jews in Germany” and “concerned” evangelicals to file criminal charges and even make death threats towards the local Palestine group and church congregation that were jointly responsible for the Christmas market.
A raid to ban a no-longer-existing solidarity group
Less than a week later, on January 22, the police stormed several apartments in Frankfurt and Darmstadt. The reason given was to secure evidence to help ban the association “Palästina e.V.” However, the group had already dissolved in November 2024 and no longer existed.
Hitting children costs 800 euros
On January 24, a court dropped a case against a teacher who had punched a 16-year-old student in the face at a school in the Neukölln borough of Berlin on October 9, 2023. The teenager was attacked for bringing a Palestinian flag to school and displaying it in the playground. The fine for a teacher physically assaulting a minor in public was set by the court at just 800 euros. While the teacher has been on sick leave ever since–i.e. presumably on vacation–the student had to change schools. It is still unclear whether legal action will be taken against the student, for responding to the teacher’s assault by kicking him.
Further professional bans are being prepared
In line with the above court decision, the following week the German parliament passed a resolution that was ostensibly directed against “antisemitism and hostility towards Israel in schools and universities.” In reality, it was an addition to–and tightening of–the previous antisemitism resolution of November 2024. However, unlike the earlier resolution, this parliamentary motion received hardly any public attention and so the relatively broad criticism that had been voiced in October and November, which had extended into bourgeois circles, failed to materialize.
The new resolution is a massive attack on the freedom of research and science in Germany. It promotes the cooperation of teaching institutions with repressive and surveillance authorities, and new professional bans (Berufsverbote), which have a long and dark anti-communist tradition in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Arabic? Forbidden!
At the beginning of February, the Berlin police issued language restrictions for Palestine demonstrations: speeches, posters, slogans and music are only allowed in the German or English language. This is, therefore, a de facto ban on Arabic. This measure is not entirely new: in the last two years there have already been such bans imposed on Palestine demonstrations in various cities. In the summer of 2024, at the Palestine camp in front of Berlin’s Reichstag, Hebrew was banned alongside Arabic. What is new is that the Berlin authorities have declared that this ban applies to all gatherings in the German capital “until further notice.”
Palestinians to be deported
On the evening of February 12, two Palestinians from Gaza were arrested and detained in Berlin: the young men were to be deported to Greece the next day. After protests in Berlin, numerous angry calls to the Greek airline that was to carry out the deportation, and legal intervention, the deportation was apparently postponed. With its “asylum compromise” in 1993 (the de facto removal of the basic right to asylum from the German constitution) and the Dublin II Regulation of the European Union in 2003, the Federal Republic of Germany created the legal basis for deporting almost all asylum seekers to “safe third countries.” As an EU member state, Greece is considered a “safe third country,” however Greek camps are notorious for their inhumane living conditions, which is why a suspension of deportation seems realistic.
The two victims are said to come from Khan Younis and to be well-known for their activism against the Gaza genocide. The right-wing Springer press called them “conductors of the Palestinian protests” in Berlin and in its usual racist manner, described them as “clan” members. They are not the first Palestinians to be affected by deportations since October 7, 2023. The German state appears to be using its racist policies not only to divert attention from grievances and to divide the population, but also to get rid of political opponents who are standing up against racism, war, and genocide.
Another “scandal” at the Berlinale
This year’s Berlinale, which took place in Berlin from February 13 to 23, made headlines in the German mainstream media due to alleged “antisemitism scandals.” The Chinese director Jun Li read out a speech by Iranian actor Erfan Shekarriz, in which he said that millions of Palestinians were suffocating under Israel’s brutal settler colonialism. He accused the Federal Republic of Germany of supporting the genocide of the Palestinians. The Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, who was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear for her life’s work, declared her respect for the BDS movement at the press conference. Once again, the German media handled these statements in a scandalous manner, while the Central Council of Jews in Germany ranted about the voicing of “Hamas slogans”.
Preparations for further ban on solidarity group
At the same time, a newspaper article revealed that the German domestic intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) in the east German state of Saxony is apparently monitoring the Leipzig-based “Handala” solidarity group. Although this group has appeared in the intelligence service’s regional report since 2023, the state of Saxony’s Ministry of Science is now also keeping an eye on it, as some of its members allegedly work at Leipzig University. The domestic intelligence service categorizes Handala’s solidarity work as a form of “secular foreigner extremism,” claiming it’s “particularly opposed to the idea of international understanding” (Völkerverständigung) and shows solidarity with Hamas.
The last two accusations are alarming because last summer, the group “Palestine Solidarity Duisburg” (PDSU) was banned by North Rhine-Westphalia state’s Ministry of the Interior on the basis of exactly the same unfounded allegations. The repressive Saxony authorities thus appear to be preparing for a ban on Handala by first creating a favorable mood in the ministries and the bourgeois media.
No stage for the UN Special Rapporteur
Most recently, two events of the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, in Munich and Berlin were canceled due to political pressure. Albanese was supposed to speak at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich on February 16 and at the Freie Universität (“Free University”) of Berlin on February 18. After the second venue was canceled on short notice, the event was still able to take place in the editorial offices of the left-wing daily newspaper Junge Welt. Though the event was not shut down, as was the Palestine Congress last year, the police followed the example set in Duisburg in December 2023. There, authorities had declared a discussion featuring Zaid Abdulnasser and myself a “closed-door meeting,” surrounded the venue with police cars, and insisted that the state security forces had to attend in order to be able to “intervene.” This is what happened this time in Berlin, too.
Austria: An impending party ban and a “Hamas journalist”
In Germany’s neighboring countries, things are also looking anything but good when it comes to freedom of expression in connection with Palestine.
In Austria, for example, the right-wing FPÖ and the conservative ÖVP are apparently planning to ban the “Gaza List,” which was founded last year and took part in the National Council elections in September 2024. In addition, the British journalist Richard Medhurst was arrested in Vienna at the beginning of February: according to his report, he was summoned by the Austrian immigration authorities, but was confronted on the spot by secret service agents who showed him a search warrant and then drove him to his apartment and confiscated his technological devices. The accusation against the journalist, who has lived in Austria for years, was “membership of Hamas,” or the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. He was threatened with ten years in prison.
Switzerland: Journalist arrested and deported
Ali Abunimah, the journalist and managing director of the internationally renowned online independent news media outlet The Electronic Intifada, was arrested in Switzerland on January 25 and subsequently deported after two nights in custody. Abunimah had been invited to give a lecture. He had already been questioned for an hour by the authorities when he arrived at Zurich airport the day before his arrest. During his detention, he was questioned in the absence of a lawyer and was denied the right to call his family, as he reported after his release. It later became known that the Zurich cantonal police had submitted an application to the Swiss national authorities to ban the journalist from entering the country. However, they had rejected the request. Apparently, massive pressure was then exerted to get the ban passed on the second attempt–this time successfully. According to the Tages-Anzeiger, Mario Fehr was also involved. The right-wing Social Democrat and law-and-order hardliner is a well-known supporter of Israel. He publicly described Abunimah as an “Islamist Jew-hater” and accused him of inciting violence.
France: ban on solidarity group and life imprisonment
French courts dealt the Palestine solidarity movement two blows at once on February 20. First, the ban on the “Collectif Palestine Vaincra,” which was issued in March 2022 and provisionally suspended in April of the same year, has now been upheld. The organization thus meets the same fate as “Samidoun” and Palestine Solidarity Duisburg in Germany, which were banned in November 2023 and May 2024 respectively. Secondly, on February 20, it was decided to postpone the appeal hearing on the release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah until June, because France’s “National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office” lodged an objection. The Lebanese communist and pro-Palestinian freedom fighter has been in a French prison for 40 years and was originally due to be released on December 6, 2024.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves attending the Make UK Conference at the QEII Centre in London, March 4, 2025
UNIONS, MPs and campaigners reacted with fury after the Treasury backed plans to slash billions from welfare spending in an “outrageous attack” on the poorest.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves was today urged to tax the rich instead after government sources said the cuts were necessary as the “world has changed” since her autumn budget.
The furore was sparked after an early draft of Budget watchdog the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) forecast was leaked to the BBC.
It suggests that the £9.9 billion of headroom it said she had against her self-imposed fiscal rules in October have been wiped out by lower expected economic growth and higher government borrowing costs.
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Prime Sir Keir Starmer last week announced a £6bn a year rise to military spending, to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027.
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National secretary of the People’s Assembly Ben Sellers said that Sir Keir Starmer and Ms Reeves are not interested in the alternatives to targeting the disabled and most vulnerable as they “are wedded to a pernicious and militaristic neoliberalism which is failing all over the world.”
And a Momentum spokeswoman said: “The Labour government’s decision to prioritise military spending whilst cutting welfare budgets will bring further austerity to Britain.”
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn MP accused Labour of “a total betrayal of what voters were told at the election.”
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
As we speak, 4.3 million children in the UK are living in relative poverty. Over 350,000 people are homeless in England.
Millions are worried about the cost of heating their home, braced for yet another hike in energy bills. Meanwhile, billionaires are richer than ever.
So what is the government doing?
They could lift children out of poverty, if they wanted to, by scrapping the two-child benefit cap.
Keir Starmer says that a changing world means we have to increase defence spending (Picture: Ministry of Defence)
They could help pensioners with energy bills, if they wanted to, by restoring universal winter fuel allowance.
They could ensure nobody had to sleep rough on the streets, if they wanted to, by launching a massive council-house-building programme.
Instead, they have signed off on a 13.4 billion increase in military spending. With that money, the government could scrap the two-child benefit cap 10 times over.
Now, today, we’re told the government is preparing to cut billions from welfare budgets.
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Even David Lammy admits Gaza is in ‘rubble’ (Picture: Getty Images)
Put simply: there is never any money for the poor, but always enough money for war. I just wish the government was honest about that.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.Keir Starmer justifies why he has to travel abroad so much
