LABOUR’S assault on disabled and long-term sick people is a declaration of war on human rights and humanity in Britain — one that is self-defeating and costs more than it saves before it even starts, and one that wilfully ignores the massive and cumulative impacts of the stresses caused by years of austerity, benefit sanctions, inequity and injustice on the physical and mental health of our nation.

Worse still, it has been known for years to be self-defeating and costly, yet Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall are not only continuing the Tories’ ideological war on those unable to work but escalating it, accompanied by rhetoric that risks a slide into fascist ideas of “useless eaters” — the proposition that those who cannot work are unworthy of life — by continually pushing the narrative that sickness and disability benefits are somehow “unsustainable,” that word so beloved of the Tories and all to whom “reform” means demanding more for less and delivering less for more.

And in practical terms, the DWP has said it plans to take up to £5,000 a year from people claiming long-term incapacity benefits by introducing conditionality to those benefits, effectively sanctioning them for not working or spending a full working week looking for work — alongside making it harder for people with mental health conditions to qualify for benefits. This change would hit the almost 1.2 million working-age people in Britain who are currently considered too disabled or ill to be required to look for work, as well as around another 4 million people who claim sickness-related benefits who could become regarded as not sufficiently active. Even before the announcement of the £5,000 cut, a DWP whistleblower said Labour’s plans would push almost half a million into poverty; what that figure will be now is terrifying to think about.