Earlier this month, Ms Caitlin Reilly, an unemployed graduate forced to work in Poundland for free, won her legal challenge against the so-called “workfare” scheme under which jobseekers are required to work unpaid or risk having social security benefits deducted, resulting in very considerable personal hardship or destitution. The result of that legal victory was that the Government would be required to repay unemployment benefits to thousands of jobseekers who had been unlawfully deprived of them.
Instead of repaying the benefits which had been wrongfully deducted, the Con-Dem government decided to make emergency legislation (the Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill 2013) which would retroactively deny the claimants of their benefits.
Shockingly, Ed Miliband and the Labour front bench, including Emily Thornberry, shadow Attorney General and MP for Islington South, decided to support the Government by abstaining from the Bill – a Bill which had been described by a House of Lords Select Committee as constitutionally inappropriate. The Bill may also breach the European Convention on Human Rights.
When challenged on why she gave her support to the Bill, Ms Thornberry acknowledged that the Bill was arguably unconstitutional, adding that the Labour party had taken ‘extensive and very high quality’ legal advice on the question of human rights violations. She was not, however, prepared to publish that legal advice, nor to say what conclusion it had reached.
Emma Dixon of Islington Green Party said: “Sadly, the days when the Labour Party could be relied upon to stand up for the working classes are long gone. Today they are a middle-class party desperately seeking the votes of a small number of swing voters, and totally out of touch with the real issues facing the unemployed and those whose jobs, pay and benefits are under threat from the coalition government.
“Ms Thornberry has, to date, failed to explain why the Labour party decided to support an arguably unconstitutional bill denying social security benefits to the poorest in our society. We call upon her to do so as a matter of urgency.”
Get involved! To find out more about Boycott Workfare, the UK-wide grassroots campaign to end forced unpaid work for people receiving welfare benefits, click here. To get involved with Islington Green Party in fighting workfare and other injustices affecting the poorest people in society, click here.