Lynda McEwan
It’s no surprise that Reform UK is taking a page from the Tory playbook by proposing cuts to the benefits bill, including PIP, the disability benefit, particularly when more than 170 former Conservative politicians have defected to the party.
Their proposals include cutting benefits for foreign nationals, introducing compulsory 20 hours a week unpaid workfare for the long-term unemployed, and overhauling sick pay by making employers responsible for the first two years of sickness absence.
Scrapping PIP and the health element of Universal Credit for working-age adults would put the incomes of millions of sick and disabled people at risk, with many facing the prospect of having their benefits removed or significantly reduced.
We have already seen the devastating consequences of attacks on the welfare system. The impact of austerity has been particularly severe for disabled people, with research linking cuts to worsening health, poverty and increased mortality.
Capitalism itself produces conditions that damage health. This is despite extraordinary advances in science and technology which, if organised around human need rather than private profit, could make our lives easier, reduce illness and provide a far higher standard of healthcare for everyone.
Attacking some of the most vulnerable people in society will not reverse this trend. Quite the opposite: forcing people further into poverty and insecurity will inevitably create more ill health, not less.
There is another fundamental contradiction at the heart of capitalism. The system cannot guarantee meaningful employment for everyone, yet those who cannot find work are routinely blamed and punished for their unemployment. Farage and his supporters want to force people into unpaid work, at precisely the time when wage growth is slowing and job vacancies have fallen to their lowest levels in 5 years.
So where exactly are these extra “jobs” supposed to come from?
No one should be forced to exchange their labour for free. If someone is working, they should receive a proper wage, at least £15 an hour, rather than being used as a source of cheap or unpaid labour.
The “benefit bill” is continually used by political parties, including Labour, as a justification for attacking working-class people. Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s treasury chief, has claimed that Britain faces a 1970s-style economic crisis unless the welfare system is reformed.
But for millions of ordinary people, the economic crisis has been going on for decades. Unaffordable energy bills, rent increases, food and everyday essentials all increasingly expensive, childcare costs through the roof, all while public services are slashed to the bone.
There is more than enough wealth in society to pay for the consequences of the capitalist system on workers’ bodies and mental health; it’s just in the wrong hands.
All the major corporations, including banks, energy companies and supermarkets, should be taken into public ownership under the control and management of the workers and the profits used to keep bills low.
Technology should be used to fund proper research and treatments into illness prevention, which would naturally reduce the benefit bill.
A socialist society would not simply seek to make people more dependent on the state. It would aim to create the social and economic conditions in which people have greater security, better health and more control over their lives.
But for those who cannot work, or cannot work enough to support themselves, decent benefits should be a right, not something people have to beg for.
