Red Wall MPs have pleaded with Andy Burnham to slash welfare spending or risk losing the next election to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
The Prime Minister has been warned by Labour MPs from the traditional northern heartlands he will face fury from their constituents if he refuses to lower welfare spending to appease people from “leafy Surrey suburbs”, The Telegraph reports.
In the aftermath of Chancellor John Healey’s Budget, Mr Burnham did not commit to cutting Britain’s ballooning benefits bill.
Instead, he said he wanted to help people rejoin the workforce rather than make “crude cuts” to their welfare.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister acknowledged the Budget did not make the sweeping changes he had initially hoped, lamenting the conflict in Iran for giving the Government less “room for manoeuvre” to enact radical change.
He argued slashing benefits at this time could plunge people into “absolute crisis”.
But now, several Red Wall MPs have urged Mr Burnham to slash benefits of risk their voters switching to Reform UK at the next election.
One senior MP told The Telegraph: “The anger is actually amongst poorer people on lower incomes. It’s a Red Wall seat situation rather than the leafy Surrey suburbs.
“People who are on relatively low incomes, who are struggling hard in the current circumstances, say: ‘I’ve worked hard all my life, I’ve never claimed a penny in benefits. They’re off down to the pub every night and they never go out to work’.”
Meanwhile, Labour MP for North Northumberland, David Smith, told the newspaper the ballooning benefits bill must start being deflated before the end of the current parliamentary term.
He said: “We should be as ambitious as we can in reconfiguring our social security system. We need a Beveridge report for the 21st century.”
The warnings to the Prime Minister come after Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast Britain’s benefits bill to hit £431.3billion by 2031/32 on Wednesday.
The figure, revealed alongside Mr Healey’s first Budget, will push the nation’s tax burden to a peacetime record.
More to follow…