https://anotherangryvoice.substack.com/p/another-depraved-starmer-loyalty-test
Labour's case for confiscating the Winter Fuel Allowance from pensioners is based on a pack of economic lies, and Starmer's conducting yet another depraved loyalty test of Labour MPs over it.
Another Angry Voice
Sep 10, 2024

Keir Starmer’s argument for confiscating the Winter Fuel Allowance from millions of pensioners is based on a pack of outrageous economic lies.

Labour didn’t magically discover a £22 billion "black hole" in the budget after the election, they knew about the diabolical state of the public finances before the election and were even accused by the Institute of Fiscal Studies of engaging in a "conspiracy of silence" over their real plans for the economy.

Labour could easily raise funds in various other ways, by taxing corporations and the ultra-rich, or by cutting off tens of billions per year worth of handouts to the private banks via Bank of England interest payments on deposits they were literally given to stave off the banking crisis.

Labour could also raise money from the profiteering energy companies, who are making the cost of the Winter Fuel Allowance payments every single week in profits.

Labour are not making "tough decisions" by going after pensioners, they’re actually picking on easy targets who don’t have the influence and propaganda empires of the billionaires who can easily afford to pay more in tax, or receive less in handouts.

Labour pretended to be on the side of pensioners and energy consumers with their repeated promises to freeze energy bills. Instead they’re allowing energy companies to hike their charges again, whilst ripping hundreds of pounds out of the pockets of pensioners living on as little as £11,000 a year.

The move is profoundly unpopular, not just with pensioners and the British public, but with Labour MPs who have been inundated with complaints over this depraved policy that wasn’t even mentioned in the Labour manifesto.

Any Labour MP with a grain of sense should be concerned the Starmer is making the party deeply unpopular by cruelly attacking pensioners, purely because he refuses to go after profiteering corporations, energy companies, private banks, or the mega-rich.

The parliamentary vote is going to be illustrative of how many decent people there are in the Labour ranks.

Any Labour MP who votes against it knows that they’re under threat of losing the Labour whip, especially after Starmer’s absurd comments that the punishment of rebel Labour MPs is down to the chief whip, when the entire function of the whips office is to enforce the will of the party leadership.

If anyone gets purged over this vote, it’s entirely down to Starmer’s authoritarian leadership, and his pathetic attempt to preemptively blame the chief whip is pure buck-passing cowardice.

Starmer has carried out numerous similar loyalty tests in the past, by making Labour politicians support or abstain on absolutely depraved stuff that anyone with a conscience would object to, like the Tory legislation designed to give spy cops legal impunity for crimes like rape, theft, entrapment, and murder and the deranged Overseas Operations Bill to give legal impunity to British military personnel who commit war crimes.

By forcing Labour MPs and unelected Labour lords to support or abstain on Tory depravity or resign from cabinet positions, Starmer created a cult of obedience, and filled his shadow cabinet with the kind of immoral nodding dogs who put personal advancement above principle.

One of his first acts as Prime Minister was to purge seven Labour MPs for daring to vote to scrap the diabolical poverty-spreading Tory two-child social security cap.

The parliamentary vote on Starmer’s attack on pensioners is going to be another such loyalty test, with severe repercussions for Labour MPs who reject the leadership’s cruelty and economic lies to vote with their conscience.

We’ll soon find out how many Labour MPs are principled people who are prepared to stand up in the face of Starmer’s depravity and tyrannical tendencies, and how many are pathetic nodding dogs who are prepared to sacrifice pensioners on Starmer’s say so.