The Coming Storm: Labour’s War on the Vulnerable Has Only Just Begun 

When Sir Keir Starmer stood on the steps of Downing Street last July, his words dripping with promises of change, millions of disabled and chronically ill people permitted themselves a dangerous luxury: hope. After enduring fourteen years of Tory brutality—a regime that transformed the welfare system into a mechanised instrument of suffering and death—one that left nearly 90 people dying each month after being declared “fit for work”—surely Labour would bring compassion back to government? 

That fragile hope now lies shattered. Labour’s plans to slash £6 billion from disability benefits have exposed the brutal truth: this isn’t just a continuation of Tory policy—it’s an acceleration. 

The figures speak volumes about the deliberate targeting of society’s most vulnerable. The Resolution Foundation warns that cutting Personal Independence Payment by £5 billion will strip approximately 620,000 people of £675 monthly support—a catastrophic loss that will disproportionately devastate those already struggling. Seventy percent of these cuts will hammer families in the lowest income brackets, revealing the class warfare underpinning this policy.

While disability rights campaigners sound alarms and even Labour MPs frantically lobby Number 10 to reverse course, the machine grinds forward. The government’s cynical decision to avoid a parliamentary vote on freezing PIP increases demonstrates their awareness of the policy’s moral bankruptcy—and their determination to implement it anyway.

This assault comes as the Resolution Foundation confirms what many already suspected: the jobs market has entered “recession territory,” making the government’s rhetoric about “getting disabled people into work” not merely callous but demonstrably impossible. Chancellor Rachel Reeves, facing a budget deficit of £4.4 billion due to anemic growth and falling tax revenues, has chosen to balance the books on the backs of those least able to bear the weight.

Liz Kendall’s promised mitigations—a “right to try” guarantee allowing benefit recipients to attempt work without permanently losing support—rings hollow against the devastating scale of these cuts. The retention of £1 billion for back-to-work schemes is a pittance, a transparent attempt to disguise ideological cruelty as compassionate reform.

The Mask Slips

The most alarming aspect isn’t just the scale of these cuts—exceeding even what the Tories had planned—but the calculated targeting of society’s most vulnerable. By freezing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and tightening eligibility criteria, Labour will strip support from approximately four million chronically ill and disabled people. This comes alongside reductions to Universal Credit for those medically unfit to work.

These aren’t policies born of necessity but of ideology. An ideology that views human worth through the narrow lens of economic productivity, that sees disability as an inconvenient budget line to be trimmed.

The Architects of Cruelty

This assault on the vulnerable isn’t a spontaneous development. It flows directly from Labour Together, the influential think tank founded by Morgan McSweeney—now Starmer’s chief of staff—and wealthy donor Trevor Chinn. The same organisation that methodically destroyed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership is now directing its energies toward dismantling the welfare state.

A newly formed group of 36 Labour MPs calling themselves “Get Britain Working” has emerged as the vanguard of this attack. Led by David Pinto-Duschinsky, who conveniently sits on parliament’s Work and Pensions Select Committee, these MPs have issued their full-throated support for benefit cuts. Investigation reveals that 29 of these 36 MPs received funding either directly from Labour Together or from donors associated with it.

The message is clear: the Starmer project was never about saving Labour, but about capturing it for a specific ideological purpose.

History’s Dark Echo

Remember in 2020 when Debbie Abrahams spent almost three minutes reading out more than 20 names of those affected, and referred to how some died after ‘taking (his/her) own life after being found fit for work’ or through illness after losing their benefits. At one stage, colleagues intervened to give Ms Abrahams time to compose herself and finish the list. Sadly, we are doomed to repeat the travesty…

Her list also included Jimmy Ballentine, a former coal miner with mental illness who took his own life after a DWP fraud investigation. His family said he accidentally overclaimed a small amount and was “hounded” before his death.

She mentioned Mark Scholfield, who endured an eight-week delay for his Universal Credit payment before dying, aged just 62, after losing a battle with mouth cancer. The DWP apologised and said while he was receiving UC, his ESA payment should have been fast-tracked.

She raised the case of Stephen Smith, who was deemed fit for work before photos emerged of him weighing just six stone. He later died. A review found the DWP followed policy.

This was a comes after the National Audit Office revealed the Tory government has probed 69 benefit claimants’ suicides since 2014 – and there are almost certainly more it has never looked into.

Ms Abrahams accused the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of failing to have the right systems in place to learn from deaths linked to benefit issues, asking: ‘Do you not feel ashamed?’

She also said: ‘It’s a scandal. These are British citizens who are dying as a result of policies implemented by this Government. Everybody should be taking note.’

Ms Abrahams said she has asked for a full independent inquiry and wants a response by the end of the week, noting: ‘This is too serious to be ignored.’ I wonder what Ms Abrahams thinks today as her own government carries out the same policies deemed so inhuman.

The former shadow work and pensions secretary said: ‘Over three-quarters of claimants who appeal their assessment decision telling them that they are fit for work have the decision overturned. And that’s because these are poorly people.’

She went on: ‘Peer-reviewed research published by the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health estimated that between 2010 and 2013 work capability assessment was independently associated with an additional 590 suicides, 280,000 cases of self-reported mental health problems and 725,000 additional anti-depressant scripts.

What numbers will we see under Labour?

Guns Over Butter: The Perpetual War Machine

And yet the grotesque irony cannot be ignored: While Starmer’s government claims it must strip support from the most vulnerable in society, it simultaneously pours billions into Ukraine’s war effort—continuing Biden’s abandoned proxy war even as America under Trump pivots toward peace. Starmer’s self-styled “coalition of the willing” beats the drums of war and pumps public money into arms manufacturers’ coffers, choosing a Keynesian war economy over investing in its own citizens’ wellbeing. This government speaks of fiscal responsibility while funneling resources into a conflict that edges us closer to nuclear confrontation. The choice is clear: bombs over bread, missiles over medicine, military contractors over the chronically ill. They find endless resources for destruction abroad while pleading poverty when asked to support life at home.

A Warning

Behind closed doors, the dread is palpable. “Absolute horror” is how one Labour MP described their approach to the coming days, expecting “the worst week of the parliament.” Another speaks of constituents calling in despair, their futures hanging in the balance. Even those who accept the theoretical case for reform can see the naked truth: these cuts aren’t targeting areas that need reform—they’re targeting the vulnerable.

The rebellion brewing within Labour’s ranks is no small matter. With some constituencies counting one in five residents as PIP recipients, numerous MPs have made it clear to Downing Street they cannot—under any circumstances—support these changes in a parliamentary vote. Their political survival, like the literal survival of their constituents, hangs in the balance.

The blame game has already begun. Senior Labour figures point accusatory fingers at Chancellor Rachel Reeves, claiming her self-imposed fiscal straitjacket prevents tax increases that could address the deteriorating economic climate. Treasury sources frantically deny this characterization, insisting the framework for these changes was sketched out long ago—even before Labour took power, a telling admission about the continuity between Conservative and Labour welfare policy.

While Liz Kendall prepares to outline these devastating changes, it will be Reeves who delivers the hammer blow in the spring statement on March 26th. Meanwhile, Health Secretary Wes Streeting offers platitudes about the welfare state being “a springboard back to work,” ignoring the cruel reality that many cannot work regardless of how high that springboard is set. His advice to those terrified about their futures? “Wait for the plans.” Cold comfort for those who know exactly what such plans have meant in the recent past.

What we’re witnessing now is only the beginning. The cuts to PIP and Universal Credit represent the first wave of an ideological project that views welfare not as social protection but as an unnecessary expense.

Labour Together’s influence extends beyond disability benefits. Their worldview—that work defines human worth, that economic productivity trumps human dignity—will inevitably infect every aspect of social policy. From healthcare to education, from housing to child support, no area will remain untouched by this cold, market-driven logic.

The machinery that once drove disabled people to despair under Conservative rule hasn’t been dismantled—it’s been inherited, polished, and accelerated.

The Siren Call

This is a warning to all who thought change had come: prepare for worse. The forces that shaped fourteen years of Tory cruelty have not been defeated—they’ve merely changed their colors.

For disabled communities, the message is stark: organize, resist, and build solidarity networks. The state that was meant to protect you is now being weaponized against you with even greater efficiency.

For those who voted Labour believing they represented compassion and change: your voice is needed now more than ever. Hold this government accountable, demand they honor not just their promises but the basic human dignity that should underpin any civilised society.

For all of us: remember that what is happening to disabled people today will happen to other vulnerable groups tomorrow. This is not an isolated policy decision but the unveiling of an entire governing philosophy.

The storm clouds that gathered under Tory rule haven’t dispersed with a change of government. They’ve darkened, and the deluge has only just begun.

Paul Knaggs