Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves (Image: Getty)
Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer face a massive rebellion from furious Labour MPs unless they back down over controversial benefit cuts, one critic has claimed. Labour MP Richard Burgon, a former frontbenchers, said: “I would say, and it’s no exaggeration to say, that if the government doesn’t rethink this policy in relation to disability benefits, I think it would be the mother of all rebellions. And the kind of rebellion of a scale I wouldn’t have thought, last July when we won the election, that we would see at all under the first term of this Labour government.”
He spoke out after disability and anti-poverty campaigners warned benefit cuts announced last week and in the Chancellor’s spring statement are "balancing the books at the expense of the poorest". An estimated 250,000 more people, including 50,000 children, will be left in relative poverty after housing costs by the end of the decade as a result of the Government’s squeeze on welfare, according to its own impact assessment. The changes will affect about three million families on incapacity benefits, while 800,000 claimants will have reduced personal independence payments (Pip).
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Mr Burgon, a left-winger, told Times Radio that Labour MPs in every section of the party were ready to fight the Government. He said: “This isn’t an issue just for the left of the parliamentary Labour Party. It’s not a left-right issue in the Labour Party. It’s a right or wrong issue.
“Plenty of people right across the board are really concerned. Plenty of MPs raised their concerns in a statement in Parliament yesterday, but also some MPs kind of bit their lip or bit their tongue yesterday because they thought it was a big parliamentary occasion. I wasn’t one of them, I raised my concerns, but there are many more MPs than people think who are really concerned about this.”
And he said Labour MPs believed there were too many willing to rebel for the party leadership to use the traditional method of punishing rebels, which is to remove the whip so they are no longer counted as Labour MPs.
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“I don’t think that MPs are believing that the party would be suspending the whip from a large number of Labour MPs, a large number who, if the government doesn’t rethink this policy, would feel obliged as a matter of conscience for their constituents to vote against it."
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Mr Burgon said: “But the vote hasn’t happened yet...There are some good things in the welfare reform bill, but this idea of saving ￡5 billion and making it harder for disabled people to get their personal independence payments, it’s not a Labour approach. We don’t view it as a moral approach. The government has to think again. If the government doesn’t find a way to drop this plan, and I’ve described some ways, then they will end up having a big rebellion on their hands.”
James Watson-O’Neill, Chief Executive of the national disability charity Sense, responded to the spring statement with a warning. He said: “It’s difficult to see the proposed welfare reforms as anything other than a cost-cutting measure, and we are deeply concerned that the government is attempting to balance the books at the expense of disabled people.
“The independent Impact Assessment on welfare reform paints a stark picture, surpassing even our worst fears – with millions of disabled people at risk of losing vital financial support, and those already most vulnerable set to be hit the hardest."
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Ms Reeves insisted today that the benefit cuts will ultimately make people better off. The Chancellor told Sky News: “I am absolutely certain that our reforms, instead of pushing people into poverty, are going to get people into work.
“And we know that if you move from welfare into work, you are much less likely to be in poverty.
“That is our ambition, making people better off, not making people worse off, and also the welfare state will always be there for people who genuinely need it.”