LABOUR conference defied Sir Keir Starmer today and voted to reject the callous cut to pensioners’ winter fuel allowance.
Delegates backed a motion from Unite the union demanding that the government “reverse the introduction of means-testing for the winter fuel allowance.”
It also urged Labour to scrap the “fiscal rules which prevent borrowing to invest” and introduce a wealth tax on the top 1 per cent and an excess profits tax.
In a barn-storming speech, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham recalled how the 1945 Labour government had rebuilt the country despite debt ratios three times the level of today.
She said: “People simply do not understand, I do not understand, how our new Labour government can cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and leave the super-rich untouched.
“This is not what people voted for. It is the wrong decision and needs to be reversed.
“We are the sixth-richest economy in the world. We have the money. Britain needs investment, not austerity mark two. We won’t get any gold badge for shaving peanuts off our debt.
“These fiscal rules are self-imposed and the decision to keep them is like hanging a noose around our necks.
“Our public services and British industry need investment now. It’s no good having sympathy for workers at Grangemouth losing their jobs. They don’t need pity.
“They need Labour to step up to the plate and not allow a billionaire, who buys a football club as a hobby, to throw these workers on the scrap heap.
“We cannot leave Britain at the whim of footloose corporations. Hoping for them to invest is a prayer not a plan.
“Yes, Britain is broken. Yes, the Tories have left a mess and, yes, they are to blame.
“But Labour is now in government, and we can’t keep making everyday people pay. I keep hearing, ‘a wealth tax is too difficult, would take too long.’
“I say absolute rubbish. We seem to be able to get workers paying their taxes in a matter of weeks. The system is rigged and the country knows it.”
She was backed by Alan Tate, from the Communication Workers Union, who told conference his union had been “inundated with emails and calls from our retired members worried about choosing between heating and eating.
“Experts are warning that this could increase the risk of illness or even death for vulnerable people this winter.
“Now we’ve heard from both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor describing this cut as a tough choice.
“The tough choice is not about switching off pensioners’ heating this winter.
“The real choice is about picking up the phone for the tech giants like Amazon and the ultra wealthy and making them pay their share, their fair share of tax.”
Two constituency delegates were sent up to back the Starmer-Reeves line.
Pensioner Maggie Cosin from Dover and Deal, better known as a former party functionary as the right’s “witchfinder-general,” said she did not need the allowance and gave it to her local foodbank instead each year, which begged several questions.
She tried to channel Nye Bevan by accusing critical delegates of having an “emotional spasm.”
Ellie Emberson from Reading West, a Unite member seemingly deployed against her own union, said: “Unless we stabilise the economy we cannot invest in the public services we love.”
Alas, the record must show that a large majority of constituency delegates gave very warm support to these two speeches, which constituted the totality of the debate allowed on the issue.
A show of hands in the hall indicated a very tight vote, but the chair correctly declared the motion carried as it was clearly backed by nearly all affiliated unions, which a card vote would have revealed.
The vote is not binding and is unlikely that the government will change policy as a result, but the political embarrassment of being reproved by its own party not three months into office is considerable.
