Labour’s latest signal that it intends to impose sweeping cuts to welfare represents a stark betrayal of working-class interests and a capitulation to the logic of capital. Shabana Mahmood’s assertion that welfare spending is “unsustainable” and that there is a “moral case” for pushing people into work is nothing more than the ideological justification for an austerity programme that prioritises market discipline over human dignity. It lays bare the fundamental contradictions of Starmer’s Labour: a party that still brands itself as being for workers while carrying out the punitive economic policies of the dominant class.
The language of “sustainability” when discussing welfare spending is a red herring. What is truly unsustainable is an economic system that leaves millions in precarity while wealth accumulates at the top (through excessive profits and tax avoidance). The billions that will be slashed from the welfare budget are not an economic necessity but a political choice, a choice to make the working class bear the brunt of an economic crisis caused by the contradictions of capitalism itself. Mahmood’s rhetoric about the “moral case” for work follows a long tradition of using morality to justify economic coercion. In reality, what she is advocating is a disciplinary measure designed to force people into jobs that are often insecure, poorly paid, and dehumanising. This is not about economic empowerment, it is about maintaining a system in which the reserve army of labour remains at the mercy of capital.
The rise in welfare spending is not the product of laziness or a lack of ambition among the working class; it is the outcome of a system that produces unemployment and underemployment while systematically stripping away workers’ rights. The moral case that needs to be made is not for forcing people into exploitative work, but for the redistribution of wealth and the creation of a system that allows people to live with dignity, whether they are employed or not. The framing of welfare as a financial burden that must be reduced is eerily reminiscent of the austerity rhetoric wielded by Conservative governments over the past decade. We are now seeing Labour fully embrace the same logic that justified the gutting of public services, the explosion of food bank usage, and the deepening of inequality.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ insistence on rigid fiscal rules and balanced budgets mirrors the disastrous economic thinking of Osborne and Sunak, except now it comes wrapped in the language of Labourism. The refusal to challenge the stranglehold of capital on public finances means that cuts will always be made at the expense of the working class. The alternative—taxing wealth, redistributing resources, and expanding public ownership—is dismissed as “unrealistic,” while policies that punish the poorest are framed as economic common sense. At the same time as these welfare cuts are being proposed, the Labour government has no trouble finding additional funding to increase the percentage of GDP spent on defence. In an increasingly volatile global order, there is, of course, a need to address security concerns, but this selective prioritisation reveals the government’s true economic choices. If billions can be mobilised for military spending, it is a political decision not to allocate similar resources to protecting the most vulnerable in society. This is the same pattern we have seen time and again: the state is always willing to expand its budget when it comes to defence, policing, and maintaining order, but it suddenly becomes “fiscally responsible” when it comes to welfare, public housing, and social care. The contradiction is glaring. If Labour can find money to prepare for war, it can also find money to ensure people can afford to live. The fact that it chooses not to speaks volumes about its allegiance to capital over the working class.
If Labour truly believes in work, then it should be advocating for secure, well-paid, and unionised employment, not the forced economic conscription of the unemployed. If it believes in sustainability, then it should be targeting the hoarded wealth of the ultra-rich and the unproductive financial speculation that drives economic instability. Instead, it has chosen the easy path: punishing the poor, appeasing the markets, and reinforcing a system that thrives on the exploitation of labour. What is needed is not further welfare cuts but a fundamental transformation of the economy, one that prioritises public need over private profit. The working class does not need lectures on morality from politicians or their millionaire backers; it needs real economic power. Labour’s latest betrayal is a reminder that this power will not be handed down from above, it must be fought for and won through collective struggle.
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