The title of this blog was borrowed from Prem Sikka, a Labour peer in the House of Lords who I've only just heard of, but merely scrolling through his Twitter feed (I will never ever learn to call it X) has proven to be an absolute pleasure. His accountancy background and strong socialist principles make him a fantastic voice from which to criticise capitalism, and I'm really looking forward to seeing more of what he has to say in the future.
Last week, seven Labour MPs voted in favour of an SNP amendment to the King's Speech, in order to scrap the two-child benefit cap which was imposed in 2017 by then Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond. The benefit cap means that families with more than two children cannot receive any benefits for the third child onwards apart from in very particular circumstances. This policy has seen a sharp increase in the number of children living in poverty - the official figures show a record 1.6 million children living in poverty in the UK today.
Proponents of this policy claim that it's an attempt to prevent people having more children than they can afford. This is driven by the cultural perception of working-class families in the late 2000s that they tend to have more children in order to get hand-outs from the state, which wasn't helped by the depiction of the character Vicky Pollard in the television sketch show Little Britain. So before I go into detail about the Labour Party's refusal to scrap this policy, I think I need to outline why it isn't a good policy in the first place:
- It doesn't work. Studies show that very few families have actually had fewer children as a result of this cap being in place.
- It punishes children for their parents' decisions. Condemning a child to grow up in poverty because of something they had no control over (and children very rarely have much control over their circumstances) is exceptionally cruel. If you think that's a fair way to treat children, then I don't know what to tell you.
- Financial security is fluid. Parents will be responsible for their children's wellbeing for around two decades. Two decades is a long time, and your circumstances can change a lot during that time. It's all very well to say 'don't have more children than you can afford', but you don't know what's going to happen in the future. There are lots of people who are able to afford the number of children they have at the time they have them, but fall on hard times after that.
- It's anti-feminist. The overwhelming majority of struggling parents, especially single parents, are women. Policies like this being in place widen the privilege divide between males and females in society, at precisely the time when we're talking about how much we want to break glass ceilings. Added to this is the fact that this really impinges on both abortion rights and the rights of rape survivors. Being pro-choice politically is not just about the right to abort an unwanted pregnancy. It's also about the right not to abort it - that's why it's called pro-choice rather than pro-abortion. If someone doesn't want to have an abortion, for any reason, they have a right not to be pressured into doing so, or to feel like they have to terminate a pregnancy because they don't have enough money when they'd otherwise want the baby. Children conceived from rape are one of the handful of exceptions to the child benefit cap, but that puts a degrading and humiliating burden on the mother to prove she's been raped. If someone falls pregnant as a result of rape, and then makes the decision that they wish to proceed with the pregnancy in spite of the trauma of how it happened, they should be supported in their decision emotionally and financially without having to prove or justify anything.
- Having children is a wonderful thing. I feel that this isn't quite recognised enough in this hyper-capitalist society that prioritises the cost of everything and the value of nothing, so I just wanted to reiterate. I've heard people say, 'Why should my taxes pay for someone else's children?' Well, because these children are a part of our society, and the happier and healthier they are the more likely they are to grow into heathy and happy adults who can give something back to the world. And as for their parents, I don't believe we're alive primarily to make money for the state that we'll never reap the benefits of. If someone's main purpose in life is as someone's parent, someone's sibling, someone's partner, someone's friend, I think that's a really beneficial decision for society. And sometimes when I've expressed that view I've had responses like, 'Well, if everyone did that no one would ever work.' Sure, but not everyone is doing that. Not everyone even wants children - I don't want children. I'd struggle to think of any lifestyle choice that would be beneficial if everyone decided to do it. If we all wanted to be doctors, there'd be no one left to sweep the streets. We all have different hopes and dreams, and if someone's hopes and dreams are to have kids and be a really amazing parent that is just as valuable as any other hope or dream.
The Labour administration whipped its MPs not to vote for this amendment, and the seven who did so were suspended from the party and will serve as independent MPs for the next six months. I was particularly disappointed that my local MP Catherine Fookes voted against the amendment. She has made much of the fact that she was formerly the chief executive of Women's Equality Network Wales and considers herself a staunch feminist, so it's quite surprising to learn that she obeyed the Prime Minister Keir Starmer (a man) and the Chief Whip Alan Campbell (also a man) in voting to continue with a policy that really disproportionately harms women.
One Labour MP that has faced a significant amount of attention for her decision to abstain is Kim Johnson. Johnson has been very vocally critical of the child benefit cap and had tabled her own amendment to the King's Speech also calling for the child benefit cap to be scrapped, but Speaker Lindsay Hoyle chose the SNP one instead. The fact that Johnson abstained on an SNP motion calling for the same outcome as a motion she'd tabled herself has led to very significant criticism. So why did she do it? The answer is politics. In the UK, the party system is very confrontational, and much of the time decisions are made based on who has suggested something rather than on what the suggestion is. It would be seen to be embarrassing to the governing Labour Party to agree to a motion proposed by the SNP, even if many of their own MPs have suggested exactly the same thing. There is no morality or principle behind these decisions, purely one's own personal interests. (There is actually a conspiracy theory floating around that Lindsay Hoyle may have chosen the SNP amendment rather than the Labour one deliberately, to give Labour an excuse not to vote for it. I wouldn't like to speculate on this, as I don't know and I don't see how this can be proven. But whether he did or whether he didn't, it still comes down to the fact that the MPs we elected on the platform of 'Change' are more interested in playing stupid games with each other than in actually tangibly changing anything.)
The Labour Party's financial policies are completely nonsensical. The reason I give this blog the title about the bank collapse is that of course they would find the money if a bank collapsed. They always do find the money for projects that they personally endorse. There are no myths about magic money trees or about the Tories having left a bigger hole in our finances than they thought when it comes to providing money to support people in Ukraine. Not that I think there shouldn't be money given to support people in Ukraine, but the fact remains that that money will not go back into our economy. Nor will giving money to the rich, who are more likely to squander it in off-shore tax havens. But giving money to poor people will put the money back into our economy, because the poor people will spend it more quickly. You don't need to be an economic expert to understand that this is the basics of how it works - the more money people have, the more money will be spent and the more quickly it circulates. More to the point, leaving people living in destitute poverty is profoundly unethical. The money exists, and we have a responsibility to provide for those who need providing for.
The Labour MPs who lost the whip were, in alphabetical order, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Imran Hussain, Rebecca Long-Bailey, John McDonnell and Zarah Sultana. To be clear, I'm not especially angry that they lost the whip because I actually want more independent socialist MPs. As anyone who follows my work regularly will know, my partner stood as an independent socialist in Monmouthshire; during that campaign we were in touch with various other socialists who were standing as independents around the country, many of whom I really hope to see in Westminster in the future. Seven new independents is a cause for celebration, and I hope they decline to return to Labour if and when they're offered to. However, I do think it was a major embarrassment for the Labour Party to take this action. Prior to their suspension, the Government had a majority of 411; there was no way they were going to lose this vote, and everyone knew it. The rebellion was therefore just a statement of principle, without any possibility of actually defeating the Government. There was no need for the Government to react at all. To react so harshly to a rebellion that it was never going to lose to firstly looked weak, secondly gave the matter far more media attention than they ideally wanted and thirdly led to seven more independent socialists who couldn't be controlled in any way. I think this matter was not really thought through, and now the Government just has to double down and pretend that it was.
As indignant as I am on behalf of all the people who will suffer as a result of the child benefit cap, I do think that this situation has highlighted social injustice more than we could ever have hoped for, and I really hope that this will mean the cap will be scrapped sooner than it otherwise would have been. Labour is, quite rightly, held to account more by the public than the Tories are. We must not let this matter drop.
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