Labour will make sick and disabled people poorer by up to £6,300 a year

What is the point of a "Labour" government which imposes misery on its most vulnerable citizens?

Let’s just consider who the major targets of this “Labour” government have been in the 7 months since it assumed office.

They’ve gone for pensioners, by attacking the winter fuel payment. They’ve gone for children, by voting to keep the Tories’ two child benefit cap, which drives so many kids into poverty - many of them in working households as it happens. And now they’re going for disabled people.

So we have a government which robs pensioners, which robs children and which is now determined to rob disabled people and those with serious health conditions. It’s like they’re going through a list of society’s most vulnerable people whose lives they can make a bit harder. What, you may rightly conclude, is the point of a “Labour” government which behaves like that?

To be fair, it’s not just Britain’s most vulnerable people they’ve got in their sights. They’ve gutted foreign aid so they can spend more money on weapons, so that means less aid for, say, Ukrainian refugees and the Palestinians in Gaza who they’ve helped Israel slaughter, not least by continuing to give them crucial parts for F35 jets to rain death and destruction on them.

So what have the dead-behind-the-eyes soulless hacks who run the Labour party got in store for disabled people, as they plunge the party into crisis by repelling anyone to the left of Genghis Khan? For the avoidance of doubt, I’m talking about the advisors who actually run the Labour party, as revealed by the recent book ‘Get In: The Inside Story of Labour Under Starmer’. Those advisors briefed that Keir Starmer thought he was driving the train, but they’d in fact sat him at the front of the driverless District Light Railway.

The Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall - who won 4.5% of the vote when she stood for Labour leader in 2015 - yesterday announced £5bn cuts in support for disabled people and those with serious illnesses. This is - in the words of Debbie Abrahams, Labour chair of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee - “balancing the books on the backs of sick and disabled people”.

Those unable to work will have their incapacity benefit cut. That includes those with the most severe disabilities and illnesses you can possibly think of. Large numbers of disabled and sick citizens will no longer receive Personal Independence Payment (PIP) - a benefit which goes both to those in and out of work in order to, as the name suggests, ensure their independence. That spending goes on, say, mobility or paying for carers.

As it is, even after receiving PIP, the average disabled household still faces extra costs of nearly a grand a month.

According to the Resolution Foundation thinktank, between 800,000 and 1.2 million people will lose support of between £4,200 and £6,300 a year by the end of the decade.

It’s worth just considering what reducing the number of people eligible for PIP will mean. As it is huge numbers with serious illnesses and conditions are being refused PiP - like 40% of people with multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy and around a quarter of amputees - for example.

As ITV’s Good Morning Britain pointed out this morning, people who can’t use the toilet on their own or dress themselves on their own will no longer qualify for PIP.

And the government plans to consult on talking away the health top-up to universal credit for people under the age of 22. That would mean stripping away that support for any young person, whatever their disability or condition.

The claim is that over diagnosis has led to a surging welfare bill. This had a good response from the ever wise John McDonnell, who was kicked out of the Parliamentary Labour Party for crime of voting against Tory benefit cuts which hammer children. He noted that MPs like himself warned that Tory austerity would strip away support for people, and the consequences would end up costing far more.

Even Ed Balls, the former Labour Shadow Chancellor who committed to austerity lite and then humiliatingly lost his seat says:

cutting the benefits of the most vulnerable in our society who can’t work, to pay for that, is not going to work. And it’s not a Labour thing to do … It’s not what they’re for.

Indeed, even former Tory chancellor George Osborne was forced into a humiliating retreat back in 2016 when he tried to attack disability benefits, and found himself criticised over that by even Boris Johnson.

In order to justify stripping away support from the most vulnerable, the government is relying on that age-old tactic - myths and deceit. The government has claimed that the numbers “considered too sick to work” had surged by 383% since the pandemic. But as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation point out, it’s closer to 40%. And as the New Economic Foundation’s Tom Pollard also points out, the government has falsely stated that “a person is placed in binary categories of either ‘fit for work’ or ‘not fit for work’”. This erases a middle group of claimants receiving less benefits who are mandated to look for employment. He also points out that they’re spreading myths that those who receive help are there permanently - with many going on to resume work.

A crucial point here is that Labour isn’t starting from the point of ‘how can we help disabled people’. It’s starting from the point of ‘how can we cut spending’.

As it is, the Financial Times revealed that Britain’s social security net is amongst the weakest in the world, with our poorest citizens worse off than their equivalents in Slovenia. And it’s a Labour government set to make that even weaker.

So rather than increase taxes on those who have too much money, Labour are going to hit the poorest in society. Diane Abbott, who Keir Starmer tried to purge, is amongst those arguing for a wealth tax.

A few years ago, a Wealth Tax Commission set up by leading academics and tax experts found a one off wealth tax on multimillionaire couples paid at 1% for five years would raise £260bn.

But do we really expect a Labour government whose leading figures get showered with freebies is going to get the booming rich to contribute more? Unless we get the rich to pay more - and after all, their wealth being created by the effort of millions of people is being sucked into their bank accounts - then we are going to be faced with endless decline, endlessly told by governments we’ve got to cut and cut and cut.

This government is already despised by most of the country, and rightly so. Some of us did predict how they would behave in office, and we were widely ridiculed for it. As I wrote over four years ago, there was an:

increasingly obvious truth: the party’s leadership lacks a political soul and is devoid of any meaningful coherent vision for the country it seeks to lead

And as my brilliant colleague at the Guardian, Nesrine Malik, wrote, the idea this government would prove more leftwing and radical in office - and was just playing 3D chess to win - has been devastatingly discredited.

The truth is - they’re only going to worse. For those who want an alternative, that means doing something - fast.