Up to Wednesday, Labour prime minister Keir Starmer was in a state of complete denial about the depth of the rebellion amongst his own MPs over the brutal cuts to personal independence payments (PIP), dismissing it as ‘noises off’ and insisting that he will ‘press forward’ with cuts to raise £5 billion by forcing up to 1.2 million disabled people into abject poverty.
To crush the rebellion, Starmer sent out his government enforcers to threaten Labour MPs who had signed a wrecking amendment that will kill his ‘welfare reform bill’ with threats of expulsion from the Labour Party and de-selection.
The original wrecking motion was signed by just over 100 Labour MPs but following the barrage of threats and intimidation only one pulled out and more joined in to put their names forward.
Over 120 have signed and more still are said to be joining.
From contemptuous dismissal of this rebellion and the humiliating failure to impose his will on Labour MPs, Starmer is desperately scurrying around Westminster seeking a way to avoid a crushing defeat while still insisting that a vote on his benefit-cutting bill will take place next Tuesday.
Sources within the Labour government have told the press that Starmer’s regime is split into three camps, with one telling the Guardian paper: ‘There is a camp for pulling it, a camp for concession and a small but insane camp for ploughing on’ with the suggestion that Labour’s chancellor Rachel Reeves was firmly in the camp of attempting to drive the bill through whatever the consequences.
No surprise there, as Reeves has led Starmer’s Labour government assault on benefits and the welfare state with her super-austerity attacks and demands that workers must pay for British capitalism’s massive debt crisis.
Labour was elected almost exactly one year ago with a massive majority of 165 MPs with Starmer pledging that a Labour government would stand ‘for change. For national renewal. And a return of politics to public service’ after 14 years of Tory rule.
In these 12 months since election, the Labour government has proved that far from being an alternative to the Tory government it has embraced and gone further in its savage cuts and brutal treatment of the working class, culminating in this vicious attack on the disabled.
Starmer’s government has been driven by the demands of bankrupt British capitalism to force the working class to accept ‘sacrifices’ for the profit of the bosses and bankers and if that means cutting off benefits for those unable to wash, cloth or feed themselves then Starmer and Reeves are more than willing to comply.
The working class would not sit back and allow the Tories to wage a class war to dump the capitalist crisis on their backs and they are not prepared to live with a Labour government attempting to do exactly the same.
The rebellion by Labour MPs is only a reflection of the rebellion amongst workers and youth that is fast transforming into a revolutionary uprising against capitalism and all the Labour leaders, who have revealed themselves to be nothing but tame servants of the bosses and bankers.
The immediate question now is not minor concessions – Starmer and Reeves would only try to get £5 billion by cuts to other parts of the welfare state and benefits – but for a complete regime change in the Labour government.
The trade unions, who built and funded the Labour Party to fight for the working class, must demand an emergency conference of the Labour Party to expel Starmer and his administration.
The unions must nominate a new leadership to take over the Labour government and implement socialist policies that meet the needs of the working class not the bosses and bankers.
The political crisis that has exploded under Starmer is a sharp reflection of the revolutionary nature of the crisis of British capitalism – a crisis that must be resolved by the working class taking power and establishing a workers government that will expropriate the bosses and bankers and go forward to a socialist planned economy.
This is the only way forward today.