Labour Must Oppose

John Prescott writes:

Labour lost the 2015 election way back in 2010. Why? Because during its leadership election, the party failed to defend its economic record.

During those five months, the Tories and Lib Dems established the myth that it was Brown and Blair that caused the economic recession, not the greed of bankers. 

I remember only Andy Burnham was prepared to defend Labour’s record. None of the other candidates did. Neither did Labour’s interim leader back then, Harriet Harman.

Five years on and Harriet is in danger of letting the Tories get away with it again.

Instead of waiting until Labour’s new leader is elected, she’s letting Cameron and Osborne establish another myth – that we spent too much on welfare.

She’s doing this by agreeing to support Tory plans to cap tax credits for working mums with more than two kids.

If Labour MPs follow that plan and abstain, we’ll yet again be allowing the Bullingdon bullies to set the narrative and make the poorest people in society foot the bill for the greed of bankers.

Harriet says she doesn’t want to provide a blanket opposition to Tory proposals.

But the last thing she should do is agree with plans that hit the poorest hardest while handing an inheritance tax cut to millionaires.

And if that happens, Labour can wave goodbye to any chance of winning back seats in Scotland and the North. 

Yet again Andy Burnham is standing up and showing true ­leadership by refusing to support these Tory plans. It would be madness for Harriet, as interim leader, to tie the hands of her elected ­successors.

What Cameron and Osborne are doing is the fundamental dismantling of the welfare state. After fixing the length of parliaments, they now have five years in office and a Commons majority to do it.

Harriet has done a number of good things as deputy leader. For example she strongly supported the Leveson Inquiry’s ­recommendations on press regulation.

Today she finds herself Labour’s interim leader again – all because Ed Miliband resigned far too quickly. But she can’t allow the Tories to box us into a position on welfare when the new leader isn’t elected.

We need a big debate about how we’re going to fund welfare but only 10 per cent of that budget goes on benefits. Half of our welfare bill goes on pensions.

It’s morally outrageous that the billion pounds saved from axing tax credits for working mums with three kids will subsidise abolishing ­inheritance tax for millionaires with million-pound homes.

What’s more, Cameron promised before the ­election he wouldn’t do it.

Labour needs to develop a fairer deal on welfare that makes work pay and provides a safety net for those who fall on hard times.

On Monday this Tory Welfare Bill will have its second reading in the House of Commons. Labour must oppose it with their amendment to defend tax credits for the poorest people.

Punishing struggling working mums and pushing children into poverty to make the rich richer must never be an answer.