News

Keir Starmer places Labour MPs on 'resignation watch list' as PM faces benefits cuts civil war.

Lisa Nandy, culture secretary, said in bbc interview, that she "had not seen signs of a major rebellion brewing" and "a handful of backbenchers had expressed concern about the detail" of the proposals.

Disabilityrightsuk have done a great blog on what it means to you and the consequences to you. Sorry don’t know how to import link, so have copied and paste below, “In defending the Green Paper proposals, Liz Kendall told the Guardian “When we set out our reforms we promised to protect those most in need, particularly those who can never work” and “That is why we are putting additional protections on the face of the bill to support the most vulnerable and help people affected by the changes. These protections will be written into law – a clear sign they are non-negotiable.”

Now that the new Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill has been published, it is clear that these protections will not actually cover a very substantial proportion of those people Liz Kendall had in mind.

The key protection in the bill is that those with lifelong conditions would automatically get a higher rate of universal credit (equivalent to the current limited capability for work-related activity (LCWRA) element). It reflects the current criteria for the LCWRA element, in that you need to meet one of a set of stringent descriptors (set out in Section 7 of the Universal Credit regulations), but with the added provision that this must ‘constantly (apply) to the claimant and will do so for the rest of the claimant’s life’. The insertion of the word ‘constantly’ will make it extremely difficult for claimants with variable conditions, such as MS, Parkinsons Disease, Rheumatoid arthritis and schizophrenia, to meet the new criteria. In these cases, it will be rare for one of the criteria to be met constantly; ie all the time. The new criteria will therefore not protect many of the very groups of people that it would be reasonable to assume would need such protection – in fact, they are deliberately excluded.

The bill will also provide 13-weeks of additional protection to existing claimants affected by the cuts to the personal independence payment daily living component. The DWP describe this transitional cover as ‘one of the most generous ever’. However, this cover compares poorly with the equivalent Scottish short-term assistance, which allows payments of Scottish disability benefits to continue at the rate of the earlier award while you are challenging a decision. In March 2025, Social Security appeals were taking 32 weeks to clear; prior to this mandatory reconsiderations are taking more than ten weeks to clear – 42 weeks in total. A 13-week protection will be of very little use with such delays.” 

Is it even legal to sack someone for doing their job? What's the point in having a vote if you're being blackmailed to vote against what you actually want? This government knocks me sick. 

Labour MP Brian Leishman told The Independent “these welfare reforms are wrong”.

“The leadership would do well to remember the words of two past Labour PMs – in Harold Wilson, when he said the party is a moral crusade or it is nothing, and in Gordon Brown, when he said that leaders come and leaders go, but the mission of the party remains,” he added.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/starmer-benefit-cuts-labour-mps-welfare-b2773217.html

Around 50 Labour MPs are believed to be planning to vote against the government, with many more set to abstain on the plans. But the party’s whips have threatened serious consequences for those who rebel or abstain.

Whips have even sought to recruit popular Labour MPs to convince their colleagues to back the measures in a bid to stave off the rebellion.

I wrote to my mp jack Abbott four times regarding this, various campaign  emails, though writetothem.com doesn't like copy and paste at all, which really isn't good for us who have to write letters in other programmes and then paste them. I wrote a supportive email to vicky Foxcroft too. I have sent my mp info from this site too. I hope they get to read my concerns and the concerns of cab and others too.

Yahoo News (couldn’t work out how to share the link from FB):

A rebel said: “This would be unprecedented, deeply authoritarian action from a Labour government. Besides, it's not realistic – they can't withdraw the whip from all of us.
“On being blacklisted for government jobs, I think I'll get over it.”

HEROES!

I am continuing to bombard my MP’s inbox with letters and articles.