TUSC protesters against Labstainer Jim Fitzpatrick, MP for Poplar & Limehouse, photo by Paula Mitchell

TUSC protesters against Labstainer Jim Fitzpatrick, MP for Poplar & Limehouse, photo by Paula Mitchell   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Anger at the “Labstainers” – Labour’s lack of opposition to attack on welfare

The Tories launched another vile attack on working class people with the Welfare Reform and Work Bill and disgracefully only 48 Labour MPs voted against it.

A storm of anger in households and workplaces was reflected in social media, coining the tag #Labstain:

  • Apparently a ‘hard-left extremist’ in the UK is someone who doesn’t think children should go hungry to pay for millionaire bankers!
  • Again feel let down by a party that portrays itself to represent me. Most Labour MPs represent their career. That is the problem.
  • “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”. #Labstain #WelfareBill
  • #Labour watching the poor being beaten and just turning away. #Labstain
  • Tonight Labour have sentenced 100000s of the country’s most vulnerable children to to even more misery, pain and destitution #Labstain

As Socialist Party member and Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate Nancy Taaffe tweeted: “The reason 5 million working class people #abstained from voting #Labour is precisely because they abstain from opposing #Tories”.

A lot of people are asking what this vote means for Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership bid. The surge in support for Corbyn demonstrates the huge desire among working class people for a clear anti-austerity stand. But the fact that only 48 Labour MPs voted against the bill is an indication of the opposition Jeremy would face from the pro-capitalist machine if he wins and the civil war that will erupt in the party [See: Support for Corbyn’s anti-austerity message rattles Labour machine].

Many Socialist Party members and Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition supporters will be organising protests at their local “Labstainers” – this is why hundreds of trade unionists, socialists and community campaigners stood as TUSC no-cuts candidates in the council and general elections in May.

230 Labour councillors have signed up to support Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign. We will also be asking to meet with them to say: if you back Jeremy’s call for councillors to come together to resist the cuts, will you make a stand now and refuse to pass on the Tories’ cuts?

Paula Mitchell