Labour’s recent benefit cuts have brought with them a strong sense of déjà vu. In their dying days prior to the 2024 election, Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives began throwing out all manner of ill-thought-out policies to see what stuck, in a desperate attempt to save themselves from the upcoming electoral disaster after 13 years in office.
After Johnson and Truss lost the Party the widespread support they had built up previously, they increasingly moved further to the right, going all in on culture war narratives to try and prevent further loss of their key support to Nigel Farage’s Reform.
Scraping the barrel
A number of largely performative proposals came out under Sunak that appeared mostly concerned with going after some of the most common scapegoats in the country. One prime example was the plan to ship refugees to Rwanda which, leaving aside purely moral concerns, was clear from the start to be a legal no-go that would only end up costing taxpayers more to implement.
Then, in April of last year, there was the announcement that they planned to overhaul the benefits system, as well as tackling Britain’s so-called “sick note culture”, with the DWP, not doctors, being the ones to decide if someone was unfit to work. It was the last desperate gasp of a government that was finished and knew it. There could be no better rounding off of their 13 years of austerity.
A new dawn?
At the 2024 election they met with a defeat that the country appeared to think was very much deserved, with a landslide victory to Keir Starmer’s Labour. Starmer came in emphasising fiscal responsibility and moderation, while at the same time still promising change. Some policies, such as the Rwanda bill, were immediately chucked out.
Not long after Labour assumed power, however, the new government attracted controversy for its decision not to scrap the two-child cap that had been imposed on benefits. This policy, which had been introduced under Theresa May in 2017, had attracted widespread criticism for leaving many families struggling to make ends meet, and remained controversial among Labour supporters in spite of the fact that Starmer had been elected on a commitment in the Labour manifesto to keep this cap in place.
Several MPs on the left of Labour defied the whip over this and were suspended from the party – an act that still does not appear to have been reviewed, despite it now being over six months since this suspension occurred. More significantly, a larger number of MPs abstained on the vote and now seem likely to mount their own rebellions over the new plans announced on disability benefits earlier this month.
Labour’s benefit cuts
These plans include sweeping cuts to PIP, a key benefit for disabled people, which is currently being claimed by 3.6 million people, and show a doubling-down on the negative narrative around those on benefits that has existed even prior to the years of austerity. This stereotype of spongers living off the state is one that has been around for decades, even under governments such as Thatcher’s, which was notorious for its levels of mass unemployment.
For those such as myself, who grew up during the Blair years, this narrative only deepened in that period. Television programmes such as Benefits Street, the Jeremy Kyle Show, or even Little Britain were ubiquitous, amplifying a particular image prevalent about those reliant on welfare. Media attention rarely seemed interested in why so many people were part of this system, and even Labour, supposedly the party of working people, seemed content with this section of society being largely written off as a new ‘underclass’.
The costs of austerity
Yet, in spite of this stereotype, it was evident there were real deprivations existing in society which could not be resolved simply through demanding claimants get on their bike and find work. Following the implementation of austerity under George Osborne during the Coalition, newspapers began to report ever more stories of individuals who had been found fit to work despite severe health conditions or being forced below the poverty line following cutbacks.
Stories such as those of Mark Barber, the disabled veteran who had taken his own life after his benefits were slashed, made headlines, while government figures showed rising rates of child hunger and in-work poverty. In spite of this, the narrative throughout the austerity years remained entirely one around reckless overspending by central government.
The wrong approach?
Where Labour did try to challenge this narrative, it got trounced at the polls come election day, so it was not surprising Starmer and his team went to great pains to emphasise a more moderate approach than previous Labour leaders, stressing the need for tighter controls on spending and fiscal responsibility. It is essential, however, that now they are in government Labour do not remain stuck in the mindset of opposition, more concerned with how they fare in a Tory press that is already against them than how they represent the actual values of the Labour Party. As in 1997, they have been given a huge mandate with which they could usher in real change but instead, the current government seems intent on continuing with the kinds of rhetoric the Conservatives had touted about those on sickness benefits, likely with much the same voting base in mind considering Reform’s success at the polls.
The proposed cuts, which were confirmed 19 March by Welfare Secretary Liz Kendall, are set to cut the benefits bill by as much as up to £5bn. While this comes with an increase to Universal Credit, as well as an extra billion to “tear down barriers to work” according to Kendall, the proposed cuts will nevertheless leave only the most severely disabled people eligible for PIP, alongside cuts to incapacity benefits. This is despite continued rumblings of rebellions from many Labour MPs, as well as concerns from charities and other front-line organisations that this will only serve to harm some of our most vulnerable within society.
Looking at the alternatives
The Disability Benefits Consortium has labelled the proposed cuts as ‘cruel’ and likely to hit those unable to work and reliant on benefits to survive. Meanwhile, the mental health charity Mind released a statement emphasising that mental health problems were not a choice, and asserting that cuts to benefits will “only deepen the nation’s mental health crisis.”
Labour has blamed the previous government for leaving them with a broken social system. The government has also committed to increasing spending on defence following Donald Trump’s recent aggressive moves towards Ukraine, something which saw a boost in Starmer’s personal popularity recently. But Britain’s continued support for Ukraine should not come at the cost of its most vulnerable, and there is a high chance that Labour could face a real rift within its ranks over this policy, which one MP, Diane Abbott, has described as “not a Labour thing to do.”
Instead, a wealth tax, as proposed by figures such as Abbott and Andy Burnham, would allow the government to stick to their commitments without hurting the most vulnerable, as well as fulfilling Starmer’s stated aims of ensuring that “those with the broadest shoulders should bear the heavier burden.”
