Diane Abbott: It’s time to stand up to May’s cruel and callous Tories

Recent weeks have exposed just how out of touch with reality this Tory government is.

When it came to the Windrush generation scandal, it took extensive media coverage, 140 MPs signing a letter to the Prime Minister and the threat of an urgent question in the House of Commons for the government to take any action at all. It took another week of pressure before Amber Rudd did the right thing and resigned.

Whilst the Tories remain committed to the ‘hostile environment’ policies that led to this crisis, Labour is clear that we will fight for the members of the Windrush generation and their families every step of the way. We will do whatever it takes for them and to support justice.

The Windrush scandal has been yet another example of May’s heartless policies that consistently leave our society worse off – but this isn’t the only area where the Tories are failing. Wherever we look the Tories are holding us back. Our NHS is in crisis, the housing crisis is deepening and we face more cuts to our policing and other essential community services, plus further squeezes on the budgets of local authorities. Over the last eight years, this Conservative government has cuts councils’ budgets in half, and one Conservative council has already gone bust.

When it comes to the public services covered in my brief as Shadow Home Secretary, under the Tories we have seen cuts that damage our safety and security. In terms of the fire and rescue service, while our firefighters do an amazing job, we have seen 10,000 jobs axed, record numbers of fire stations closed and cuts to equipment that have left people running the service on a shoestring. Government cuts are directly to blame for a rise in fire-related deaths in England last year, according to the Fire Brigades Union that represents firefighters.

When it comes to our police, more than 21,000 police officers have been axed and recorded crime is rising at the fastest rate in a decade.

The police service is now in severe crisis in terms of funding. Police Chiefs have warned that the funding offered by the Tories is simply not enough to meet the growing demands faced by the police. Yet the Tories continue to insist that police have the resources they need, and to falsely claim they have protected funding, proving just how out of touch they are.

Tory cuts are devastating our communities and leaving them exposed, but the Tories simply don’t want to accept that cuts do have consequences — not least for public safety. This is only going to get worse, with yet more ideologically-driven austerity from the Tories on the way, including to local authorities. On all these issues, including the national scandal that has been the treatment of the Windrush generation, May and the Tories point fingers everywhere but at themselves.

But there is an alternative, both locally and nationally. Labour councils across the country are doing things very differently right now.

The difference between Labour and Tory councils’ responses to the housing crisis is obvious for all to see. This deepening crisis under the Tories’ watch has left 120,000 children in temporary accommodation without a home to call their own. That’s up two-thirds since 2010. At the same time, homelessness has more than doubled and fewer people are able to afford to buy their own home.

Despite all the restrictions on them, and Tory cuts to their budgets, Labour councils are showing that a better way is possible. Labour councils have out-built Tory councils by an average of over 1,300 new homes each since 2010. In Conservative-led local authority areas, 2,464 new homes were started on average between 2010 and 2017, while Labour councils started building 3,791 homes on average – 54 per cent more their Conservative counterparts.

To give one specific example, Birmingham’s Labour council has set up Birmingham Municipal Housing Trust to build more council houses. They have built around 2,500 new homes in the last three years, more than 20 per cent of all new homes built in Birmingham since 2011.

As people go to the polls today, I am more determined than ever to see May’s cruel and callous Tories defeated — now is the time to stand up for those she and her party have let down so drastically.

Diane Abbott is shadow home secretary and MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

@HackneyAbbott