Rachel Reeves delivering her spring statement in the Commons. Photograph: House of Commons
Labour is braced for a backlash from its MPs over welfare cuts called ‘appalling’ by a foodbank charity
Rachel Reeves was accused of balancing the books at the expense of the poor in her spring statement, as official figures showed three million households could lose £1,720 a year in benefits.
The chancellor confirmed welfare cuts of £4.8bn, but insisted the government’s priority was to restore stability to the public finances in the face of rising global borrowing costs.
Economists warned Reeves could be forced to come back with more tax rises in the autumn, with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) saying that any tariffs imposed by Donald Trump may upend their forecasts.
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Ruth Curtice, the director of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, said while Reeves was right to balance the books, she was “wrong to do so on the backs of low- to middle-income families, on whom two-thirds of the welfare cuts will fall”.
Helen Barnard, the director of policy at the food bank charity Trussell, said: “The insistence by the Treasury on driving through record cuts to disabled people’s social security to balance the books is both shocking and appalling. People at food banks are telling us they are terrified how they’ll survive.”
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Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
TORY 2015/LABOUR 2025 SPOT THE DIFFERENCE: (Above) Workers and disabled people protesting outside Norfolk County Hall against Norfolk County Council cuts to services on October 2015Photo: Roger Blackwell/flickr/CC
DR DYLAN MURPHY asks why Labour is continuing the Tory war on the disabled, when viable alternatives have been spelt out in detail
IN LATE February of 2025 the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a damning report into the failures of Labour to address income inequality and the deepening levels of poverty in the UK.
The UN committee criticised Labour for failing to address “income inequality or reducing poverty,” which hamper “the progressive realisation of economic, social and cultural rights.’’
Ironically enough, the UN called on Labour to increase spending on housing, health, education and social security in order to reverse the huge damage caused by blue Tory austerity from 2010 to 2024. Since this call the red Tories in power have announced their intention to make massive cuts to public spending across all government departments except defence and maybe health.
On the issue of social security, over which Labour is determined to make killer cuts, the UN expressed serious concern about the impact of blue Tory austerity which had “resulted in severe economic hardship, increased reliance on food banks, homelessness, negative impacts on mental health and the stigmatisation of benefit claimants.”
Of course, food bank usage under Labour continues to grow as does the stigmatisation of benefit claimants which Starmer and company have engaged in with relish over the last few months.
Starmer, Reeves and Kendall seem to take a sadistic glee in attacking the disabled through the platforms of the Tory media using ultra right-wing rags such as The Telegraph and Sun to stigmatise the sick and disabled.
The biggest irony in this recent UN report is its call for Labour to actually increase the value of disability benefits such as PIP so that the UK can meet “the recommendations made by the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.”
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.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), left, joins Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on stage before speaking at “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” rally Thursday, March 20, 2025, in North Las Vegas. (Photo: Ronda Churchill for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“People are starting to put the pieces together, and ironically the most divisive forces in this country are actually starting to bring more of us together,” said Ocasio-Cortez.
A stop on Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ nationwide town hall tour “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” in Tempe, Arizona that also featured Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on Thursday broke the record for the number of attendees at an event hosted by Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, in the state, according to his director of communications.
“This is a big deal,” wrote communications director Anna Bahr on X of the gangbusters turnout.
“Just to be clear about the moment we’re in: Bernie Sanders’ biggest crowd in Phoenix previously was 11,300 in 2015 when he was running for president. Tonight, in a non-campaign year, when he is running for nothing, 15,000 Arizonans turned out,” she wrote. Bahr also said that more than 123,000 people watched the livestream of the event online.
Just to be clear about the moment we’re in:@BernieSanders biggest crowd in Phoenix previously was 11,300 in 2015 when he was *running for president.*
Tonight, in a non-campaign year, when he is running for nothing, **15,000** Arizonans turned out.
Footage of the event shows a completely packed event space at Arizona State University’s Mullet Arena. At least a 1,000 people could not enter the arena because there was no room inside, according to the Arizona Mirror.
Sanders launched his “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” tour, which focuses on working-class districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020 but were won by a House Republican in 2024, in February, with the aim of talking to Americans about the “takeover of the national government by billionaires and large corporations, and the country’s move toward authoritarianism.”
In their remarks on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders spoke about Republican efforts to target programs like Social Security and Medicaid and billionaire Elon Musk’s influence over the GOP.
“The billionaires who are taking a wrecking ball to our country,” said Ocasio-Cortez—alluding to Musk’s efforts to slash federal spending and personnel with the Department of Government Efficiency, and other billionaires in U.S. President Trump’s orbit—”derive their power from dividing working people apart.”
“People are starting to put the pieces together, and ironically the most divisive forces in this country are actually starting to bring more of us together,” said Ocasio-Cortez.
“Their disdain for working people,” she continued, “is a shorthand for the right’s entire political agenda and a certain kind of ugly politics in this country—and that is lying to and screwing over working at middle class Americans so that they can steal our healthcare, Social Security, and veterans benefits.”
When Sanders took the stage, he said, “Trump and his billionaire friends have never, ever had it so good in the history of this country.”
.@AOC takes the stage to completely full arena in Tempe — with thousands more in the overflow outside the arena pic.twitter.com/t1YNu3Gp9e
Sanders also argued that if a Republican voiced opposition to Republicans’ plan to deliver tax cuts that will primarily benefit the wealthy, “Musk in five minutes would say, ‘we are going to primary you’… That is not a democracy.”
Musk—who donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump and other GOP candidates in 2024—has threatened to fund moderate candidates in heavily Democratic districts.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
A woman walks into a Social Security office in Houston, Texas on July 13, 2022. (Photo: Mark Felix for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“One has to ask why the world’s richest man—who has received in the tens of billions of dollars in federal contracts—is targeting the agency that helps so many Americans keep their heads above water,” said one advocate.
The Trump administration aims to “ultimately collapse the system” that allows tens of millions of Americans to collect their earned Social Security benefits each month, said one leading advocate for the system Wednesday after officials announced a major change to the Social Security Administration.
Acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek claimed the agency needs to “identity-proof” Social Security beneficiaries as he told reporters that millions of people will now be required to verify their identities using an online system—and will have to provide documentation at local field offices if they’re unable to use the SSA website’s verification system.
The change is set to take effect March 31 and comes as President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, his billionaire ally whom he named to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE) with the aim of slashing government jobs and spending, have baselessly claimed that the Social Security system is riddled with fraud and sends benefits to millions of deceased Americans and to undocumented immigrants.
A source at the SSA told Judd Legum, author of the newsletter Popular Information, that there are “no significant concerns about fraud at intake” and said the change is aimed at creating “additional hurdles to filing claims and [overwhelming] the system.”
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, noted that for decades, senior citizens and people with disabilities who rely on Social Security payments have been able to verify their identities over the phone when applying for benefits.
“The new process would force seniors and people with disabilities to navigate a needless technical hurdle in applying for their earned benefits. If these claimants (who do not always have computers or smartphones, reliable internet service, or the technical skills to complete the process online) cannot verify their identity online, they would have to call SSA via the already overburdened phone line to set up an appointment, and travel in person to an SSA field office,” said Richtman.
“The combination of fewer workers, fewer offices, and a massive increase in the demand for in-person services could sabotage the Social Security system.”
With DOGE pushing to cut 7,000 jobs within the SSA and close at least 47 regional and local field offices, the change would particularly harm the ability of people in rural areas, with mobility limitations, and with limited internet access to obtain their monthly benefits.
“The combination of fewer workers, fewer offices, and a massive increase in the demand for in-person services could sabotage the Social Security system,” said Legum, who reported on the SSA memo on Monday.
Doris Diaz, the SSA acting deputy commissioner for operations, is among those who have warned Dudek against forcing seniors to verify their identities online, saying the change would cause longer wait and processing times and would send an estimated 75,000-85,000 beneficiaries to increasingly understaffed field offices per week.
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, which works to counter right-wing claims about Social Security and lobbies to strengthen the system, told Common Dreams that “despite Leland Dudek’s claims, the only thing putting the American people’s personal Social Security data at risk is that Dudek turned it over to DOGE operatives.”
The new plan “will make it far harder for the American people to claim their earned benefits. It could even cause major delays, and ultimately collapse the system, by overwhelming the field offices,” said Altman.
“It is part of what appears to be an ongoing effort to cause Social Security to collapse,” she added.
Richtman said that the only “rational conclusion” regarding the coming change in SSA operations is that Trump and Musk want to “undermine public support for Social Security by rendering the SSA dysfunctional, so that the program can be squeezed for cash, cut, and privatized.”
“Intentionally erecting obstacles for the people who’ve earned these benefits (and who pay for SSA operations with every paycheck) betrays at the least an indifference—and more likely, an outright hostility—to the elderly, people with disabilities, their families, and survivors who rely on Social Security,” said Richtman. “One has to ask why the world’s richest man—who has received in the tens of billions of dollars in federal contracts—is targeting the agency that helps so many Americans keep their heads above water financially.”
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
LEFT-WING campaign group Momentum has begun lobbying Labour MPs to block cuts to welfare spending.
A Commons vote is expected after the government’s proposals to reduce spending on benefits sparked an angry backlash among Labour’s grassroots.
Sir Keir Starmer, who has described the benefits system as the “worst of all worlds,” was jeered at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions as he insisted that Labour had a duty to reduce social security costs.
Labour MPs urged him to “provide compassion” to those who cannot work, stressing that disabled people have become “frightened” after hearing their party use the “language of tough choices.”
Ministers have already pledged to cut £3 billion from the welfare budget over three years and next week are expected to announce in a green paper that billions more will be axed from the main disability benefit, the personal independence payment (PIP) and funding to help those with long-term illness to return to work.
Cutting PIP could push 700,000 disabled people into poverty, disability charities have warned.
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.
