“Both he (Iain Duncan Smith) and I believe sanctions are vital to give back-to-work programmes their bite”
~ Liam Byrne, Labour Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions, House of Commons, 11 March 2013.
Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab):
“May I start by thanking the Secretary of State for briefing me and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on his plans for urgent legislation, about which his Department has commented in The Daily Telegraph this morning?
“Both he and I believe that sanctions are vital to give back-to-work programmes their bite. However, when he signed off the 2011 regulations that created sanctions for the Work programme, why did he not check that they were legally bullet proof?”
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We, the undersigned, refuse to support and will actively oppose the Labour Party anti-bedroom tax campaign unless and until any reference to compulsory work is removed from all campaign documents.
NO FORCED LABOUR UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES AND NO SANCTIONS FOR ANY REASON.
PLEASE ADD YOU NAME HERE
(THIS IS AN OPEN DOCUMENT BACKED-UP EVERY TEN SECONDS)
No Labour Party for Workfare:
https://docs.google.com/
By Sunny Hundal 1:43 pm – March 18th 2013
If Phil Woolas was Labour’s unprincipled hard-man on immigration, Liam Byrne is their equivalent on welfare.
According to the Guardian, the shadow welfare secretary is planning to tacitly support Iain Duncan Smith on his workfare reforms this Tuesday.
It’s worth emphasising why this is such a ludicrous proposition. The DWP plans to rush through a change the law so it doesn’t have to accept culpability for the way it treated job-seekers (i.e. like shit).
The DWP deliberately didn’t make the rules for these job-seekers clear, so many of them ended up working for free and not knowing their rights. The DWP thought they would get away with it, but now they have been caught – Iain Duncan Smith is trying to cover his arse.
This is a programme that does not work, and is less successful than if these job-seekers were not asked to do anything at all.
This is a programme whose sole purpose is to massage down unemployment figures; simply to subsidises private companies with free labour who would otherwise have to pay those people a full time wage.
We are living in a state where the government thinks these youths are so worthless that it will happily defy the judiciary to retroactively change the law.
The judiciary is meant to be a check on state power and to enforce the rule of law, and anyone who gives even a shred for the rule of law or constitutional matters should worry about IDS’ willingness to treat it as irrelevant. He is nothing less than a megalomaniac.
It is more galling that Liam Byrne is endorsing this (by either voting for it, or abstaining – it’s not clear) At least Labour’s Future Jobs Fund was more targeted, much more successful in placing people in paying jobs, and did not subsidise the private sector.
Byrne is endorsing a travesty of a programme that goes against everything the Labour party stands for. He is endorsing IDS’s “strivers vs scroungers” rhetoric.
Furthermore, there is a good chance that this act of retroactively changing the law could also be challenged and struck down in court.
It basically says our youth aren’t even worth protecting from abuse when a Conservative govenment breaks the law to exploit them. How can this possibly fit in with Ed Miliband’s ‘One Nation’ agenda?
Why legitimise a programme that does not work and only exists for exploitation?
A few weeks ago Labour youth groups said they would not support or canvas for Labour MPs who did not support same sex marriage.
I would hope, for the future of our youth, they could consider doing the same with Liam Byrne.
DWP seeks law change on Tuesday to avoid benefit repayments after Poundland ruling ~ TAKE ACTION NOW! Posted on March 17, 2013
Can I just drill this into your sculls “New Labour are NOT the Labour party !!!
New Labour are a completely different political party from the Labour party
if you want to vote Labour at the next election then the RESPECT party is the one
to vote for as they are TRUE Labour
Get your facts right please. Respect is neither New Labour, old Labour, or any other kind of Labour Party.
According to Wikipedia – Respect was set up in January 2004, as a left-wing alternative to the three established parties – Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.[10] The party was opposed to the War in Iraq and is opposed to the War in Afghanistan (2001-present). It seeks to “provide a broad-based and inclusive alternative to the parties of privatisation, war, and occupation”[11] and has a broad socialist agenda.
George Galloway was Respect’s first member of parliament but hasn’t proved to be the valuable asset that he was originally thought to be.
Respect’s greatest problem is that they are largely confined to the London boroughs where they have had some limited success. They have not been able to capture the left wing vote in England to date, falling well behind the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party.
It’s now time for the left in England and the rest of the UK to sort out their differences and give the people a viable socialist alternative to the capitalist mainstream parties.
Hope you agree.
If Liam Byrne endorses this arrangement, then i can emphatically announce the Labour Party is doomed………
new tory little labour they still going on about bringing blair back but why haven’t they got rid of all blairites bcause most are rich who wormed their way into labour but now ruled by a little tory party within it ,if this lot gets back in then we doomed if labour gets back in the we doomed jeff3
What i worry about is the statements on the news at present……
Politicians are stating that money in British banks is safe, whatever is happening in Cyprus could never happen here. Each account is covered up to £85,000………..
Usually when they reassure us, the opposite happens!
Just like Syria……..
The propaganda machine is in full swing, will it be Iran or Syria?.
Weapons of mass destruction are this vile government, the puppets of the financial institutions that shaft all of us on a daily basis…….
Well folks, I have been trying since 1981 to tell people where were heading, very few would listen, even these people in the link below didn’t listen, they now know, better late then never I suppose. You all think that it couldn’t get any worse ?, you have seen nothing yet…
“The preparations for a police dictatorship in the United States are well advanced and include the drawing up of lists of citizens and residents to be detained, or worse.”
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/03/19/surv-m19.html
The UK/EU is going the same way, it was planned out to be this way long before 1979. I don’t think we have very long to find out…God help us all.
It’s about time somebody should take hold of liam byrne and nail him to a wall, that is after breaking his legs and dipping him into a vat of boiling oil
That would be too quick, I would put him and his older brother IDS stacking shelves in Poundland until retirement age. While also wearing a staff uniform emblazoned with Work Makes You Free!
Thank heaven that I have the option of SNP and the possibility of Scottish independence. I do feel sorry for my English buddies who only have the Cameron tory party and the Milliband lesser tory party to choose from. Th e lib dems are just a petty inconvenience who will prostitute themselves to anyone for a piece of limelight.
One has to feel really sorry for the likes of Mr Meacher and a handful of the real, die hard socialists. They exhibit real, old fashioned labour values which seek to protect the most vulnerable in our society.
Contrary to this, we see the merchant banker, out of touch policies that are exhibited by certain factions of the party.
Sadly this faction is erasing the original values of the party. In effect they mirror the aspirations of the other side.
Considering the vote taken to deny £130 million to the poorest, whilst giving a trillion to bail out the bankers, my faith has faded into obscurity……….
Mr Meacher must be in a lonely position where he is really trying to retain labour values whilst being knifed in the back from his colleagues.
The vote in question, laid down a precedent, whereas any court action brought by the people will now, almost certainly, be overturned at a whim!
Suffice to say, the vote almost certainly cemented opinions of labour voters, in that we have been pissed upon from a great height from the very people that purport to air our views……….
Shame on you……..