01-07-2025
Tonight's vote proves Labour no longer knows who it exists to defend
By the end, there was nothing left of the Bill. What on earth was the point of this charade? Well we did learn something important about the Labour Party. No, not just that it was a shambles with an obtuse leadership, but that there is a profound disagreement about its political mission and its moral identity.
Leading the backbench rebellion was Rachael Maskell who delivered a passionate, evangelical statement designed not only to undermine the reforms that the Bill was designed to deliver, but to pronounce on the ultimate purpose of her party.
The changes to benefits that were being proposed were, she said, 'Dickensian cuts from another era'. How much Dickens has she read, one wonders. Does she really believe that these alterations to a comprehensive (and hugely expensive) benefit system were tantamount to resurrecting the poor house? More significantly, she went on to say that these measures were nothing less than a betrayal of what 'this Labour Party is for'. Its sacred purpose, she explained, was to 'protect the poor'.
Well, at least historically, that is not true. The Labour Party was born to fight for the interests of workers. It grew directly out of the trade union movement. 'Protecting the poor' is the proper business of all conscientious social actors.
There have always been serious arguments about what constitutes the 'deserving poor' as opposed to those who are not making an attempt to provide for themselves through work. There is nothing new about that debate. The new thing is Labour's confusion about what – and who – it exists to defend.
