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.
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
DR DYLAN MURPHY challenges the idea that social security places an economic burden on the public
THE current Labour government of red Tories has doubled down recently on its propaganda against those people claiming benefits in the UK.
These reactionary comments range from Starmer’s pledge in the Sun to be ruthless in his cuts to benefits, to Reeves making inflated claims in the same paper that spending on benefits has “spiralled out of control.”
In the same interview with the Sun Reeves bragged that Labour is “introducing the biggest welfare fraud and error package in recent history.”
The implication is clear: those claiming benefits, including those workers on low wages claiming elements of universal credit, are an undeserving burden on the British economy.
In the “golden days” of the Victorian era they at least maintained a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor. Under Starmer’s Labour all people who claim benefits are clearly in the undeserving poor category and should be made to suffer ever greater poverty all to help “turbo charge” economic growth.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves at the Labour Party Conference at the ACC Liverpool, September 23, 2024
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One of Labour’s few redistributive policies attempting to tap the immense wealth of the filthy rich — a crackdown on the abuse of non-dom status to avoid tax — is to be softened, Chancellor Rachel Reeves says, because she has been “listening to the concerns” raised by the non-dom “community.”
She won’t listen to concerns over children trapped in poverty by the discriminatory two-child benefit cap.
Or over the impact of restricting winter fuel payments when energy prices are twice what they were a couple of years ago, even when those concerns convince her own party to vote against the policy at its conference, and prompt Labour’s biggest affiliate Unite to challenge the government in court.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Or even over the U-turn on compensating the Waspi women, despite leading Labour politicians having championed their cause for years.
Reeves’s selective approach to people’s concerns applies to the environment too, even as yet another severe storm closes schools and transport systems, and despite years of worsening floods and failing crops. Sod the science, says Reeves, growth trumps net zero.
Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Limiting action on the accelerating climate catastrophe to measures which don’t affect corporate profits is one reason the world continues to warm uncontrollably.
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Labour’s growth policies across the board simply turn government into a doormat for big business. Rather than publicly fund infrastructure projects in the public interest, Labour will scrap regulations to weaken rights to object to construction by the private sector.
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.
The same deference to the right of construction firms to do as they please applies to housing. But it is not over-regulation which stymies house-building in Britain but land-banking aimed at keeping prices high. Urban development in major cities like London and Manchester is blighted by developers’ lack of accountability to communities, as working-class neighbourhoods are driven out by construction of luxury flats designed to accumulate value, not house locals.
Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest.
The question of the day is democracy versus capitalism. Defending our communities and rights as citizens means building resistance through any means we can: trades councils, People’s Assembly branches, even Morning Star supporters’ groups can be hubs to bring activists together. The future is looking ugly if we cannot unite to do that.
