It’s reported that Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, will make swingeing welfare cuts ahead of the Government’s Spring Statement on March 26th. Her self-imposed ‘fiscal rules’ have been used to justify the cuts, which will hit the most vulnerable in our society, including many disabled people.

Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood even had the temerity to claim that there was a “moral case” for the cuts, to make “sure that people who can work are able to work – and there’s a practical point here as well, because our current situation is unsustainable,”

At the same time, Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is planning a huge overhaul in the social security system, claiming that increased claims since Covid are “holding back the economy” and “bad for people’s wellbeing and health”. She has argued that the sickness and disability bill for working age people has risen by £20billion since the pandemic and forecast to hit £70 billion over the next five years.

It should be noted that the same austerity doesn’t seem to apply to military spending, with Keir Stamer pledging to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from 2027, spending £13.4bn more on defence every year, to fund the war in Ukraine – while cutting spending on foreign aid. Last year the UK spent £53.9bn on defence. Starmer also said the UK would also set out a “clear ambition” to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP after the next general election.

We all know where this is leading – an entrenched Austerity 2.0.

A failed model which, far from solving the UK’s economic problems, has deepened them, with depressed wages, cuts to public service jobs and financial insecurity across the board.

Ben Sellers, National Secretary of the People’s Assembly said:

“As the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, we knew this attack on welfare was coming. After the cuts to the winter fuel allowance, the refusal to lift the two-child benefit limit & the WASPI betrayal, it was clear that they’d come for social security next.

Of course, there are a hundred alternatives to targeting the disabled, the poorest & most vulnerable – such as taxing the rich, borrowing to invest, creating the finance for the long term recovery of the UK economy, alongside a ‘full fat’ worker’s rights package, but Keir Starmer & Rachel Reeves are not interested, precisely because they are wedded to a pernicious & militaristic neoliberalism which is failing all over the world. We say welfare, not warfare.”

Steve Wright, Fire Brigades Union general secretary, said any welfare cuts “would be an outrageous attack on the poorest and most vulnerable”:

“Cutting billions of pounds from Welfare would be a return to the austerity of George Osborne and the Tories. It would be an outrageous attack on the poorest and most vulnerable.Many workers who are in receipt of income support and other benefits would suffer from any cutbacks. Food bank use and ‘In Work’ poverty remain widespread after nearly 15 years of Tory austerity.

To make further cuts to the already derisory levels of welfare support would be to declare war on poverty-stricken families. Hard pressed families must not be made to pay the price of nearly a decade-and-a-half of Tory mismanagement of the economy. The Chancellor must use her Spring statement to tax the rich to properly fund public services and increase pay. Rachel Reeves must not become Labour’s ‘Austerity Chancellor.”

The need for a mass anti-austerity movement is more urgent than ever. The ‘enemies’ that Keir Starmer is arming us against have not killed a single UK citizen, while Austerity has killed hundreds of thousands. Join the People’s Assembly in campaigning against Labour’s Austerity 2.0 and keep an eye out for our national demo in central London on June 7th. #WelfareNotWarfare