Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during a meeting at Downing Street in London with regulators. She is expected to use the meeting to announce more detail on how the Government will cut the cost of regulation by a quarter and set out plans to slim down or abolish regulators themselves, March 17, 2025
CHANCELLOR Rachel Reeves is set to announce a huge new programme of spending cuts as unemployment rises and anger at Labour’s assault on disability benefits mounts.
She will use her spring spending statement next week to unveil a fresh austerity programme as the government continues to rule out tax rises on the wealthy as an alternative.
Despair is turning to anger among backbench Labour MPs and trade unions at the government’s course, which is already seeing Labour plunge to record lows in the opinion polls.
Ms Reeves’s death-wish economics come as official statistics showed joblessness increasing, including among young workers.
Unemployment is up by 0.1 per cent, with a youth unemployment rate of 12.9 per cent.
Commenting on the figures, Public and Commercial Services union general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “The labour market figures today highlight the cruelty of the government’s reforms to disability benefits.
“Unemployment is rising, and the wider measure of underemployment is now at 4.75 million with only 816,000 vacancies in the economy — meaning there are already nearly six people chasing every vacancy.
“Those figures exclude disabled people currently deemed unable to work or with only limited capacity for work.
“The reality is that the government’s proposals will not help disabled people off of benefits and into work, but off benefits and into deeper poverty.”
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 explains the moral case for cutting disability benefits. He says work will set you free.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during a reception to celebrate St Patrick’s Day at 10 Downing Street, London, March 19, 2025
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[T]he Starmer-Reeves agenda is entirely dictated by the needs of finance capital, mediated through the Treasury and the military.
There is no question, of course, of arms spending being affected by this renewed austerity — on the contrary it is slated to carry on rising for the next decade. Critics of the welfare cuts should not be reticent about making this connection.
Trying to protect spending on services without challenging this renewed militarism hands the Starmerites a free pass by allowing a key argument to go unchallenged.
Starmer’s priorities have a mounting number of victims. Again in Commons questions, Northern Ireland social democrat Colum Eastwood identified one, a deeply disabled constituent able to access benefits under the Tories but now facing destitution as her personal independence payments are withdrawn.
Eastwood then asked the key question. Given all that — what is the point of Labour?
It is a question millions across the country, including many who voted Labour last July, are now asking. This is governance in the interests of capital, not labour by any stretch.
The left in Labour must transition from protest to action against the government if there is to be any positive answer to Eastwood’s question. Issuing statements is not enough if Starmer and Reeves can continue to count on votes in Parliament and canvassers in the country for their anti-worker programme.
Absent that fighting approach, the logical conclusion must be that something new, articulating the values of socialism, is needed.
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 commits to play the caretaker role for Capitalism through the “hard times”.
Far from addressing the causes of ill-health and disability, Starmer, Reeves and Kendall are committed to unleashing more misery for disabled people, argues Dr DYLAN MURPHY
In 2016 the UN Committee for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities conducted an investigation into the treatment of disabled people in Britain.
It produced a damning report, which concluded that disabled people in this country faced systematic discrimination on multiple levels.
In 2024, following the submission of evidence by Disabled People Against Cuts and other disability rights groups, the UN investigated Britain for a second time.
In late April the UN committee for disabled people issued a 14-page report which concluded that Britain “has failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and has failed to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination.”
It also called on Britain to take measures to prevent disabled people on benefits from killing themselves. At the UN committee hearing in March 2024 it noted how hundreds of disabled people had killed themselves due to sanctions and other repressive measures of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which really should be called the Department for War on the Poor.
Since this UN report Labour has been elected with a landslide majority. Yet in the many Bills announced for the new parliament not one addresses the serious issues raised by the United Nations.
Sadly, both Liz Kendall, new boss of the DWP, and Rachel Reeves the Chancellor, between them have made it clear that people on sickness benefits are a burden on our society and that the money spent on sick people claiming universal credit, employment support allowance (ESA) and personal independence payments (PIP) could be better spent on more “important things” in our society. They have repeated reactionary Tory propaganda which the UN cites as a reason for a spike in disability hate crime which is massively under reported and rarely investigated by the police.
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.
The Chancellor held meetings with a number of finance bosses in the weeks following the budget, including Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman | UK government / Treasury
Revealed: Head of world’s biggest asset manager lobbied chancellor on tax rules weeks before policy was tweaked
Rachel Reeves changed the government’s position on non-doms weeks after one of the world’s most powerful financiers asked her personally not to increase the tax burden on the super rich.
Documents released to openDemocracy under the Freedom of Information Act reveal Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of leading asset manager Blackstone, raised “concerns” with Reeves about her plans to reform the tax treatment of non-domiciled individuals at a meeting in Downing Street in December.
The chancellor had previously used the autumn Budget in late October to re-commit to Labour’s manifesto promise to abolish the non-dom tax regime, which allows wealthy individuals who live in the UK to be domiciled elsewhere for tax purposes.
But around a month after meeting with Schwarzman, Reeves watered down this commitment.
Speaking at World Economic Forum in Davos in January, she announced that she had been “listening to the concerns of the non-dom community” and would soften the government’s plans.
The government blocked a request from openDemocracy for details of the discussion between Reeves and Schwarzman, as well as other meetings between senior ministers and major financial institutions, including BlackRock and JP Morgan, but has released a heavily redacted follow-up letter.
openDemocracy approached both the Treasury and Blackstone for comment, but neither had responded at the time of publication.
Reeves’ heavily redacted letter
Schwarzman and a senior lobbyist from Blackstone met with the chancellor and her top advisers on 5 December, as part of a series of meetings between the government and the finance sector.
The Treasury told openDemocracy that the meeting’s purpose was “to gather perspectives on the UK as an investment destination and how to strengthen the UK’s position as a world leading investment management hub”.
While the government has so far rejected openDemocracy’s Freedom of Information requests about what was discussed at the meeting, it did release a heavily redacted follow-up letter that Reeves sent to Schwarzman a week later.
Despite the redactions, the letter shows that the tax treatment of high-net worth individuals was a major topic of discussion between the pair.
“Dear Stephen,” the chancellor wrote, “It was my pleasure to meet with you last week. Thank you for your time and the ideas you shared on how I and the government may seek to achieve our ambitions for growth across the UK.”
A section titled “the tax regime for non-domiciled individuals” reveals that Schwarzman “mentioned concerns” about non-dom tax treatment and inheritance tax.
“You noted the significant contribution that non-domiciled individuals make to the UK and mentioned concerns around non-domiciled individuals leaving in response to the reforms announced at the Budget,” Reeves wrote.
“I want to reassure you that I do value the contribution that non-domiciled individuals make to the economy and want to encourage them to spend and invest more of their money in the UK.”
Reeves also used the letter to highlight that some non-doms will be able to “take advantage of a three-year Temporary Repatriation Facility”, a scheme created by the Conservative government that enables former non-doms to bring foreign income and gains into the UK at a discounted tax rate for the first three years.
Reeves also sought to assuage Schwarzman’s apparent concerns about the UK’s inheritance tax (IHT).
“New arrivals to the UK will benefit from 100% UK tax relief on their [foreign income and gains],” she wrote, “provided they have been non-UK tax resident for the previous 10 years.”
The majority of Reeves’ letter to Schwarzman was redacted, raising questions about what else the giant asset manager lobbied for during the meeting.
A Labour MP, who spoke to openDemocracy on condition of anonymity, said: “The chancellor needs to come clean about why she reversed the policy on non-doms. She was lobbied by Blackstone then the policy was quickly dropped.
“She had no similar response to pensioners or Waspi women when she decided not to fulfill their needs. Who’s side is she on?”
The government has also refused to release any records from a number of other meetings with leading financial institutions in response to a series of Freedom of Information requests by openDemocracy.
‘Listening to the non-dom community’
The previous Conservative government announced plans to phase out the non-dom system, which allows wealthy people who live in the UK but are domiciled elsewhere for tax purposes to only pay tax on money they earn in the UK, rather than on all their earnings.
Unveiling the plans in last year’s Spring budget, Tory chancellor Jeremy Hunt said there would be a two-year transition period in which existing non-doms would pay a reduced rate on their overseas income.
The following month, Labour went one step further, with Reeves promising that if elected the party would raise £2.6bn by closing “loopholes” in the plans to abolish non-dom exemptions.
The new chancellor repeated this pledge at the Autumn budget in late October. She said the non-dom tax regime would be replaced with “a new residence-based scheme with internationally competitive arrangements” and the transition period upped from two to three years.
Weeks after the Blackstone meeting, Reeves attended the gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where she sought to reassure the international business community that the UK is an attractive place to invest.
She announced that the government would alter the policy, in effect allowing current non-doms to pay the reduced rate of tax on more of their earnings throughout the already-extended transition period.
“We have been listening to the concerns that have been raised by the non-dom community,” she said.
Many organisations and individuals have lobbied the government about the policy, including a group formed specifically to oppose the plans, the Foreign Investors for Britain, which has reportedly been in regular contact with No 10’s business adviser, Varun Chandra.
But an intervention from Schwarzman would carry considerable weight.
Schwarzman’s firm, Blackstone, is the largest asset manager in the world, controlling more than $1trn in assets globally. As CEO, Schwarzman’s personal remuneration package for last year was worth over $1bn, and a Forbes estimate in November 2024 put his net worth at around $53bn.
Schwarzman is a Republican donor who worked with the first Trump administration and backed the president’s re-election campaign in 2020. He said he would not support Trump at the 2024 election, calling on the party to “turn to a new generation of leaders”, but later U-turned on this to endorse the now-president.
Blackstone is believed to be the largest commercial landlord in history, holding huge swathes of residential real estate. In 2019, the UN’s special rapporteur on housing said in an open letter that the firm was “having deleterious effects on the right to housing” and accused it of “using its significant resources and political leverage to undermine domestic laws and policies that would in fact improve access to adequate housing consistent with international human rights law.” The firm disputed the contents of the special rapporteurs’ letter.
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.
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.
