LABOUR leader Keir Starmer rounded on Labour MPs who are threatening to rebel and vote against the welfare cuts being forced through Parliament, insisting that the welfare system is not ‘working for taxpayers’.
Over 150 Labour MPs have written to say that they will oppose the proposed laws to change eligibility for sickness and disability benefits when legislation comes before Parliament in the coming weeks.
Starmer intends to slash benefits in order to cut £5 billion from welfare spending by changing the eligibility criteria for all those claiming personal independence payments (PIP).
Up to 1.2 million people with disabilities will lose thousands of pounds under the proposed new laws while the proposed legislation will make it harder for new applicants to qualify for PIP.
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) assessment, around 800,000 people currently eligible for PIP will lose eligibility.
This savage cut has enraged Labour MPs who are asserting that they did not stand for election on a platform of attacking the lives of disabled people and that they will not support Starmer in the forthcoming vote.
Such a revolt by Labour MPs threatens a defeat for Starmer and the entire strategy of his government to force through cuts to the Welfare State in order to bring down the UK’s massive national debt and pay for the increased military budget.
The disabled and welfare claimants are expected to pay for the expansion of the imperialist NATO war machine by being forced into destitution.
Starmer, when asked by reporters if his legislation could be defeated by a revolt this size, replied: ‘We’ve got to reform the welfare system’ while insisting that there would be no concessions to those Labour MPs who are begging the government to delay changes in order to carry out a more detailed independent assessment of their impact.
Starmer contemptuously rejected the threatened rebellion of Labour MPs, secure in the knowledge that this legislation would pass with the support of the Tory Party, whose only complaint is that the cuts to PIP don’t go far enough.
Less than a year after being elected with a huge majority, Starmer’s Labour is splitting apart, and relying on a coalition with the Tories and Nigel Farage’s Reform Party to carry out its war to destroy the Welfare State.
In another development, the Labour government is pushing forward a new ‘fraud bill’ that will give mid-ranking civil servants the power to forcibly freeze bank accounts and seize funds if they ‘reasonably believe’ that money is owed to the taxpayer. This will be done without any court order!
The civil liberties campaign group, Big Brother Watch, wrote to the Daily Telegraph that the ‘dangerous new bank spying powers’ would ‘effectively turn banks into agents of the state, tasked with spying on everyone’s bank account and reporting back to the Government.’
The banks, as said, will become agents of the state with powers to invade, seize money and freeze accounts without any need for any court order and entirely at the whim of lowly civil servants, acting on behalf of their employer, the Labour government.
The banks are to be prevented from informing their customers if the government is prying into their account. They will only find out when money disappears or the account is suspended!
With the working class breaking with the Labour government, causing massive splits amongst its MPs, Starmer is increasingly turning towards some form of coalition with the Tories as the only way to impose the requirement of British capitalism to destroy all the gains of the Welfare State in an attempt to avoid total collapse and bankruptcy.
At the same time, Starmer is intent on bringing all the previously ‘independent’ organisations of capitalism, such as the banks, firmly under the control of the capitalist state to be used to intimidate and discipline the working class.
The working class must now use its power to force the trade unions to call a general strike to kick out the Labour government and bring in a Workers Government and Socialism. This is the only way forward!
