Vote Labour: freeze your granny to help the rich

It’s only been nine weeks but we already have resounding answer to the question of how much influence Labour’s Scottish branch office has over policy making in Keir Starmer’s government. The answer to that question is none at all. Prior to July’s Westminster general election Anas Sarwar loudly proclaimed that he and his Tory-lite party were not standing to be in opposition – one of the digs he sneeringly made at John Swinney during a Scottish leaders debate – he was standing to be in government. Labour’s Scottish MPs, we were told, would be central to the decision making process in Starmer’s government.

But what has been delivered is unrecognisable from what was promised. The Labour party in Scotland are the cheap Chinese knock-off online market of politics. They promised they’d give Scotland a prime seat in government policy, they delivered a cheap plastic chair with wonky legs printed with the letters GUVAMINT POLASY which collapsed the second anyone tried to sit on it.

Even the pro-Labour Daily Record has taken to warning Sarwar that his unconvincing attempt to blame the Scottish Government for the cut to the winter fuel allowance for pensioners isn’t going to cut it. Sarwar has refused to utter a single word of criticism about the Labour government’s decision to remove entitlement to the winter fuel allowance from all but those pensioners in receipt of means tested benefits, and has refused to say whether he attempted to intervene with the Chancellor to urge her to expand eligibility. He has also uttered not a peep about the decision of the Treasury to announce this cut without making any attempt to consult with the Scottish Government about it, despite the fact that it has had a devastating impact upon a devolved responsibility. Neither was there any impact assessment on the effects of suddenly pulling the plug on millions of pensioners on a low income who will lose out as a result of this change. Unless Sarwar speaks out, he will own every cut and unpopular decision Starmer makes until the Holyrood election, and it looks as though there are going to be a lot of them.

On Wednesday the change to the winter fuel allowance came up for a vote in Westminster. Only one single Labour MP voted against it, Ian Murray, Michael Shanks, Douglas Alexander, and 32 other Labour MPs representing Scottish constituencies voted to end the universal Winter Fuel Allowance. They voted to leave Scottish pensioners freezing in the cold and dark of a Scottish winter even as Scotland’s huge wealth in renewable energy is exported south in a repeat of the 1980s and 1990s theft of Scotland’s oil and gas.

Scotland’s 37 Labour MPs were elected on a promise of no austerity under Labour. They could have voted to protect the some of the most vulnerable Scots, stopping the winter fuel payment cut in its tracks. Instead, they voted to toe the party line and impose the cut. Party before country, Labour never changes.

Despite what Starmer and Reeves tell us, they absolutely could have avoided this cut, just as they could have afforded to abolish the abhorrent and cruel two child cap on benefits. The fact they did neither is a political choice. A vote for Labour turned out to be a 22-44% rise in water bills in England and Wales, a 10% rise in energy bills, the retention of the two child cap on benefits, 10 million pensioners seeing their winter fuel allowance axed, £3bn of NHS contracts offered to private sector, and £5.5bn austerity for public services. All this after just nine weeks and we are warned of worse to come when Reeves unveils her first budget in October. Labour could introduce a wealth tax, taxing the unearned income of the wealthy minority who have done very well out of a decade and a half of Tory rule.

We are constantly told: “There is no money.” But there is more than enough money. The wealth of billionaires in the UK has risen by 1,000% since 1990. The richest 1% possess more wealth than the poorest 70%. The reason that they have so much is because successive governments, both Labour and Tory, have failed to tax them sufficiently. As George Monbiot pointed out, taxing the rich does not just serve to generate government revenue that can then be invested in public services and infrastructure, it also puts a brake on the accumulation of the political power and influence of the super rich.

But Labour under Starmer chooses not to do any of this, as Monbiot points out – “By seeking to raise revenue through economic growth rather than redistribution, Labour avoids the necessary confrontation with economic power.” The real economic power of the super rich. Starmer’s “tough choices” entail punishing the poor for the greed of the rich.

Administering the winter fuel allowance in Scotland is a responsibility of the Scottish Government. Yet in order to pay for it the Scottish Government is dependent on a fiscal transfer from Westminster which is calculated according to the amount that the Westminster government spends on the equivalent benefit in England and Wales. The responsibility is devolved to Scotland, but not the means to pay for it. So when, as has just happened, the British Government slashes the amount it is spending on the benefit in England and Wales, the funding received by the Scottish Government is wheeched away without warning or compensation. In this instance the Scottish Government lost £160m at a stroke. And then Anas Sarwar blames the Scottish Government when it is forced to copy Westminster and restrict eligibility for the winter fuel allowance to pensioners in receipt of means tested benefits.

Meanwhile the response of a deeply sun tanned Blair McDougall is to urge pensioners to apply for means tested benefits. Judging from his sun tan the new Labour MP for East Renfrewshire clearly has no trouble at all keeping warm. Don’t expect BBC Scotland to doorstep McDougall on his holidays in warmer climes, and don’t expect to see BBC Scotland take Anas read my lips no austerity under Labour Sarwar for the austerity that we are experiencing under Labour because the snivelling cowards of the Labour party are too afraid to challenge Starmer’s refusal to make the real tough choice of forcing the rich to pay their fair share.

But of course BBC Scotland continues to protect Labour, there appears to have been no mention on Good Morning Scotland of how Scottish Labour MPs voted in the winter fuel payment vote. The Scottish aspect of the biggest story in the UK is simply not being covered by BBC Scotland. That’s propaganda, Douglas Fraser.

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