THE Labour leadership is adopting a scorched-earth policy to social programmes and public spending, with no section of society safe from their cuts. The consequences will be very grave for some of the poorest in society, for society as a whole and for the Labour Party.

In the first year of a Labour government, we have had cuts to the winter fuel allowance, a refusal to budge on the two-child benefit cap, cuts to sickness and disability benefits, and a tightening of departmental spending overall, which means cuts for some and a squeeze for the NHS.

This list is growing longer all the time. The latest target is the provision of special educational needs (SEN) spending in our schools, which ministers claim is spiralling out of control. There is also the beginning of a concerted PR campaign to abolish the “triple-lock” on the state pension, even though the meagre amount provided is one of the lowest in western Europe and insufficient for a decent retirement.

The main exception to this all-round austerity drive is military spending, which is really spiralling out of control. In fact, the pace of spending cuts elsewhere is designed to fill the real hole in government finances caused by the commitment to raise military spending to 5 per cent of GDP, a promise given to placate Donald Trump by Keir Starmer at the Nato summit.

All of this is being backed up by a concerted campaign of propaganda. The BBC, other media and even official bodies such as the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) are all being deployed to promote the argument that existing levels of state spending and support in all areas of social and welfare policy are “unaffordable.”

So we are treated to the ridiculous spectacle of the media claiming that a failure to push through the full £5 billion in welfare cuts is causing a crisis, while a spendthrift approach to tens of billions on the military does not raise a murmur. The OBR even claimed the failure to push through all but £2 billion of the planned welfare cuts could be “destabilising to the economy.”

This is an outlandish claim from a public body when set alongside the minimum of £32bn annually added to the military budget. It can only bring the OBR into disrepute. That £32bn rises to an extra £65bn a year in the unlikely event that Starmer really meets the target of 5 per cent of GDP he promised Trump.

In either event, these are unfeasibly large sums in a period when austerity is already being imposed. Extremely harsh cuts are increasingly being announced in an effort to fund the war drive. The government is “making a tough choice” of warfare over welfare.

The latest attack on SEN provision is emblematic of the series of attacks on workers and the poor. By definition, SEN is needed by some of the most vulnerable in society. Yet the calls for “reform” are not to improve that service but to make cuts that will damage the most vulnerable, in some cases severely. It is a cost-cutting exercise divorced from morality.

The argument is made that costs are soaring out of control. This too has echoes in the NHS, the social care sector and right across the public sector provision of public services. A very large proportion of SEN provision is done by the private sector on behalf of local authorities. The proportion has grown over time. 

It is this growth and the profiteering of private firms which is driving the cost base of the public sector higher without any improvement in services. It is also frequently the same ministers who complain about spiralling costs who are happiest to outsource and privatise our services at significant additional cost and who are not shy at taking donations from private-sector providers.

Across the public sector, private-sector providers are enjoying a bonanza for shoddy services. Courts not functioning properly? Try getting Serco to deliver the prisoner to court at the appointed time. NHS waiting times rising? Try getting staff back from the booming healthcare private sector.

The chronic underfunding of welfare and public services has now become acute because of the war drive. In the eyes of government ministers, the funding for missiles must come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the most vulnerable in society.

There are clear signs that the government is preparing to widen the net even further, and public-sector pay could be next on the chopping block for cuts. The resident doctors’ strike ballot shows that there may well be resistance to these attempts.

There is also likely to be continued political resistance in parliament. Labour’s nosedive in the opinion polls, now down to the low twenties, has swathes of Labour MPs looking nervously at the nearest challenges in their seats. The possible loss of their seats tends to concentrate the minds of my parliamentary colleagues wonderfully.

These are very different in each constituency. On current polling, Labour MPs can lose seats to Reform, the Lib Dems, the Greens, Independents, the SNP and Plaid Cymru. On current polling, only a freakish set of circumstances would see a Labour seat lost to the Tories.

With that polling and with current policies, Labour is on course for its worst-ever showing in the modern era. Waiting, Micawber-like, for something to turn up is the Labour leadership’s sole, unrealistic strategy.

This means that, right across the Parliamentary Labour Party, MPs feel under pressure from all sorts of directions. For some, apeing Reform UK will be their instinct, even if we know that voters always prefer the genuine article rather than an imitation. For others, it will mean adopting a more leftist posture and opposing at least some cuts. Activists and campaigners will need to differentiate between them.

Yet the Labour leadership, despite a series of forced, partial U-turns, remains on the same disastrous course. After the drubbing at the May elections, Starmer told us he would go “further, faster” in the same direction. For once, he has been as good as his word, along with the bonanza for (mainly US) arms manufacturers. He is leading Labour to disaster.

He and his aides seem quite impervious to the damage he is doing to the most vulnerable, the wreckage he will leave the Labour Party, or the sinister threats from Labour’s successors. They seem too busy scorching the earth to notice the welfare state, the party and the country going up in flames.

Diane Abbott is MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. Follow her on X @HackneyAbbott.