Fight Labour’s welfare onslaught

Lynda McEwan

Starmer‘s Labour government has only been in office for 9 months and has already attacked pensioners, Waspi women and the poorest mothers. He now has the sick and disabled in his crosshairs, looking to axe billions over the next five years by slashing the welfare state. 

This Labour government, for the bosses and the rich, couch this blitz on disability benefits, the biggest since the Tory/Lib Dem attacks over a decade ago, as necessary to fulfil their fiscal responsibility to get “the country working again” but in reality it is brutal austerity carried out on the most vulnerable members of society to prove that capitalism is in safe hands under Sir Keir. 

Changes to eligibility criteria for PIP, Personal Independence Payment, will make an already difficult benefit to receive, almost impossible now. Claimants who require assistance washing or supervision or prompting to go to the toilet will no longer be awarded enough points and be refused the daily living component of the benefit. Millions face a massive hit to money they need to have dignity and survive. 

The Resolution Foundation think tank say as many as 1.2 million people will lose £4,300 a year by 2029 but changes to how universal credit is paid to those receiving the health element will mean those who no longer qualify for PIP daily living will lose a further £5,300 per year. 

Labour’s chancellor then followed up those attacks by announcing in the Spring spending review yet another slashing of the welfare budget. Three million families will be more than £1700 a year worse off by 2029/2030 as a result of the freezing of the health element of universal credit. 

The Trussel Trust reports that disabled people are already three times more likely to face hunger and that 75% of food bank recipients are disabled or live with someone who is. 

terrified and angry

Disabled people are terrified and they are angry. They are struggling now to meet the costs of living with an illness or disability, if they lose their benefits many will die or be pushed into ending their lives. Disabled people should not be shouldering the burden of capitalism’s failure.

The welfare state was fought for and won by working class people, to provide a safety net for hard times, and for Labour to callously slash that net is not just irresponsible but cruel and entirely unnecessary. 

Young people are also in the firing line. Under 22s with a long-term illness or disability will no longer be able to claim the health element of universal credit. Some 66,000 18-22 year olds will be thrown off. Labour are choosing this in the midst of a mental health crisis amongst young people, worsened by the pandemic and by cuts to mental health services. Rather than fulfilling their potential, as Starmer’s said, they are deliberately abandoning them to a precarious job market, low wages, zero hours contracts and possible homelessness.

In Scotland benefits are devolved and PIP has been replaced by ADP, Adult Disability Payment, but first minister, John Swinney when questioned, won’t rule out mimicking Reeves’s cuts to welfare benefits, only saying it will have a damaging effect on the Scottish government’s budget.

Why can’t the SNP Scottish government say they will mitigate these welfare cuts, demand full control over benefits and set a no cuts/needs budget to return the billions stolen in austerity by Labour and the Tories? 

Both in England and Scotland, benefit claimants are assessed by private companies who put profit before health. These assessments are dehumanising and stressful for people which often puts them off applying for benefits they are entitled to and in England these assessments will be increased. 

It is barbaric to impose these cuts particularly when Labour is increasing defence spending. Funding war instead of welfare alongside allowing rampant profiteering by energy companies, supermarkets and banks shows there’s plenty of money in society, it’s just in the wrong hands and being used to make the rich, richer. 

wealth transfer

This level of transferring the wealth from the working class to the capitalist class is today’s reality under this rotten system. The political and social consequences will be severe. Pushing people into poverty whilst simultaneously enriching others is a move straight from the Tory playbook and is already being loudly opposed by many.

Such is the anger that Labour councillors in England have quit the party and members of Starmer’s cabinet have begged him not to freeze PIP. In Scotland, Neil Findlay the former left MSP has resigned from Scottish Labour in protest. He and others alongside the trade unions could play an important role in helping to build a new party for the working class in Scotland.

The trade unions have also opposed the cuts which is a good start. Now they should capitalise on the mood against disability benefit cuts and organise a mass movement united with claimants to not only have them removed but to win back all money lost through austerity. 

Mass lobbies of Labour and SNP politicians and protests must be organised by trade unions and disabled campaigners to say, we won’t starve, we will fight your cruelty and we demand the government’s vicious Pathways to Work Green Paper is scrapped.

Socialist Party Scotland played a key role in defeating Thatcher’s hated poll tax and in forcing the SNP Scottish government to mitigate the bedroom tax. We call for a fully, publicly funded, fair, based on the principles of rights and dignity, social security system. Benefits must rise to meet the cost of living.