Momentum Launches Campaign to Get Labour MPs to Vote Down Government Welfare Cuts

LEFT-WING campaign group Momentum has begun lobbying Labour MPs to block cuts to welfare spending.

A Commons vote is expected after the government’s proposals to reduce spending on benefits sparked an angry backlash among Labour’s grassroots.

Sir Keir Starmer, who has described the benefits system as the “worst of all worlds,” was jeered at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions as he insisted that Labour had a duty to reduce social security costs.

Labour MPs urged him to “provide compassion” to those who cannot work, stressing that disabled people have become “frightened” after hearing their party use the “language of tough choices.”

Ministers have already pledged to cut £3 billion from the welfare budget over three years and next week are expected to announce in a green paper that billions more will be axed from the main disability benefit, the personal independence payment (PIP) and funding to help those with long-term illness to return to work.

Cutting PIP could push 700,000 disabled people into poverty, disability charities have warned.

Momentum co-chairwoman Sasha das Gupta said: “The Labour leadership reportedly planning to slash funding for the most vulnerable in society is inhumane.

“This is just another form of austerity, plain and simple.

“We urge Labour MPs to vote against any cuts to welfare if brought to a parliamentary vote and to oppose them using the tools at their disposal.”

Launching its campaign today, Momentum highlighted figures showing more than three -quarters of people who rely on universal credit or disability benefits went without basic essentials at some point over the last six months.

The group aims to mobilise thousands of its supporters to write to their MP opposing any welfare cuts.

Momentum has launched an online lobbying tool to lobby your MP to oppose welfare cuts.