The UK Government has taken its neo-liberal agenda to our society’s most vulnerable, slashing up to £5 billion from welfare in a brutal act of class warfare.
The Labour Party is committing social murder. A study analysing European data from 1980 to 2005 found that a £70 reduction in welfare spending per person was linked to a 1.19% rise in deaths, particularly from heart disease and alcohol-related causes.
Labour’s plans to strip one million people with disabilities of PIP and cut the highest level of Universal Credit will drive many into poverty, debt, and worsening health. Experts warn these cuts will deepen the mental health crisis, push more people into destitution, and ultimately cost lives. This isn’t just austerity – it’s a deliberate attack on the working class.
The Department for Work and Pensions, led by Liz Kendall, isn’t just targeting the poorest and most vulnerable, it’s coming for us young people. The welfare reforms include restricting incapacity benefits for those under 22, replacing them with a so-called “youth guarantee” of training and employment. But there is no guarantee, only an ultimatum.
Kendall admitted in Parliament this week that she is working with the Ministry of Defence to push more young people into the armed forces, a scheme similar to that carried out by the warmongering Blair governments of the noughties.
The cuts are going to hit Scotland hard. Whilst Scotland administers its own disability benefits system, funding is still linked to the UK welfare budget, and many people in Scotland are still receiving the UK PIP benefit instead of the new Adult Disability Payment launched by the Scottish Government.
As a result, these reductions in UK welfare spending will directly affect Scotland’s ability to fund its developed services. Experts estimate that for every £1 billion cut in UK welfare, Scotland’s budget could shrink by £90-115 million, enforcing austerity on the Scottish people by default.
These actions by the Labour led UK Government reinforce two things: The need for socialism, and the need for Scottish independence.
Liberal capitalist governments, no matter the colour of tie worn by their leader, will always hover the mud-soaked sole of their (most likely paid for by expenses) boot over the faces of our class before questioning their bourgeois masters. The time for lesser-evilism and concessions is over. Our future lies not with the Labour Party, the Greens, nor the SNP, but in socialism. Our future is as a united class, because then and only then will we not be sold out for corporate profit, exploited for imperial gain, and spat on by every ‘left-leaning’ politician we ever voted for.
As socialists, it is up to us to put in the groundwork for that: volunteer in mutual-aid initiatives, educate and agitate your friends, family, and colleagues, and join your local SSY branch. Even in power, a true alternative is only possible under Scottish independence. For as long as UK Governments can forcefully instigate these acts of class warfare upon the Scottish people, or block laws such as Gender Recognition Reform, we lie at their mercy.
Westminster will forever serve the interests of the wealthy elite and imperial ambitions, regardless of who holds the reins. The constraints of the Union leave socialist change impossible, and only through the breakup of Britain can we free both ourselves and our comrades across England, Wales, and the six counties from this system.
Featured Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
