The Scottish Socialist Party has challenged the Labour candidate for Rutherglen & Hamilton West to publicly disown his party leadership’s plans to retain the vicious Tory Child Benefits cap, which has directly driven 1.5 million children into poverty.
Introduced by Tory Westminster government in 2017, the two-child limit on families getting child benefits has affected over 80,000 children in Scotland this year and driven over 20,000 of them deeper into poverty.
Richie Venton, the SSP’s Campaign Manager in Rutherglen & Hamilton West, said:
“The UK Labour leader, known by increased numbers as Sir Kid Starver, has made the outrageous declaration that a Labour government will keep this obnoxious Tory policy, which not only curses young children with dire poverty in their formative years, but forces women who’ve been sexually assaulted to prove they were raped, to qualify for child benefit for a third child.
“In response, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has used a whole dictionary of weasel words to try and fool people into thinking he’s against Starmer’s continuation of Tory cruelty.
“Whilst criticising the benefits cap, Sarwar told reporters that scrapping the limit and the rape clause could ‘spook the markets’ in the same fashion Liz Truss’s mini-budget did. He trotted out the same lame excuse as Starmer, that a Labour government will inherit an economic mess and, in his words, ‘will not be able to do everything we want and must stay within our fiscal rules’.
“In plain words, both Sarwar and Starmer are telling local families that whilst one in three Glasgow kids are living in poverty, tough! Labour will do nothing to change that situation.
“Labour are the continuity Tories. Or to quote Sir Kid Starver’s exact words, ‘Labour are the new conservatives’.”
Bill Bonnar, the SSP’s candidate in the event of a by-election, said:
“In common with thousands of other local people, I want the Labour candidate to end his stony silence, come out into the open, and tell us whether he supports his party leadership’s plans to keep stealing food from the mouths of children because they happen to be the 3rd or 4th in their family.
“Is he prepared to publicly denounce Keir Starmer as a Tory in Labour clothing?
“Has he got the guts to condemn Anas Sarwar for saying that immediately scrapping a benefit cap which has cost Scottish families £341million in lost income since 2017 will ‘spook the markets’ – the bankers and speculators who rule and ruin our lives?
“And can he explain why anybody should vote Labour when every week they announce that nothing will change under a Labour government?
“The Scottish Socialist Party would not only immediately scrap this vicious policy, but also introduce a £15-an-hour guaranteed minimum wage for all; invest in free, quality childcare that would help parents go to work; and provide free school meals for all primary and secondary children, to help end the scourge of child poverty.”