WELFARE, NOT WARFARE – NO AUSTERITY 2.0

JOIN THE PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY NATIONAL DEMO, SATURDAY 7 JUNE 2025

This Branch/Region/Committee notes:

1. Massive cuts to public spending announced in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ 2025 Spring Statement targeting Personal Independence Payments for disabled people and Universal Credit for the poorest people in our country.
2. Labour’s latest cuts follow 15 years of Tory austerity, and Labour’s 2024 decisions to maintain the two-child benefit cap, cut winter fuel payments for pensioners, and betray their promise to compensate WASPI women.
3. Labour’s ‘Austerity 2.0’ means job cuts for civil servants, the NHS, and other public services.
4. Labour’s cuts to foreign aid to fund an increase in military spending from 2.3% to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 will mean £13.4 billion extra arms spending per year with Keir Starmer’s stated ambition to raise military spending to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament.

This Branch/Region/Committee believes:

1. Labour’s Austerity 2.0 is a brutal attack on working-class people. Austerity is a political choice. Starmer’s government is impoverishing the vulnerable, instead of taxing the richest.
2. Our public services need funding – not more cuts. Our NHS is in the worst state it has ever been. Our schools are crumbling. Local authorities are bankrupt. Public transport and infrastructure are dilapidated.
3. Labour’s increase in military spending makes the world more dangerous and shows governmentpriorities are to boost profits of US and UK arms companies. Arms spending diverts investment and resources away from working people, our public services and communities.
4. That attacking public services and working-class communities while demonising migrants, refugees, benefit claimants and protesters will only benefit the far right.
5. We need a mass anti-austerity movement that demands ‘Welfare, NOT Warfare – NO to Austerity 2.0’. 

This Branch/Region/Committee resolves:

1. To support and build the People’s Assembly national demonstration in central London onSaturday 7 June 2025 and to join the march with our banner
2. To make a donation of £—– towards transport costs to the demonstration.
3. To affiliate to the People’s Assembly https://thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/