Will Labour’s benefits stance test party discipline to the (two-child) limit?

Good morning. It’s the last week before parliament’s summer recess, but very few eyes are on Westminster as a trio of by-elections looms later this week. As we stare down the final stretch, Labour seems increasingly confident of victory in Selby, but less so in Uxbridge, where the Conservative majority is slimmer but unhappiness on the doorstep over Sadiq Khan’s ultra low emissions zone policy is causing jitters. The Liberal Democrat Sarah Dyke is the bookies’ favourite in Somerton and Frome. There’s a helpful guide to how you can campaign in person or on the phone this week here.

The big Labour news of the weekend was Keir Starmer’s announcement on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC programme yesterday that the party would not reverse the government’s two-child limit on benefits. This has attracted criticism from across the party, with even more moderate figures voicing concern (the general secretary of the Fabian Society Andrew Harrop termed the limit a“vicious policy that seeds child deprivation”). A three-year research project published today also makes inconvenient reading for Labour, with experts claiming it provides an “unassailable case” for scrapping the two-child limit and separate benefit cap.

Starmer is in conversation with Tony Blair himself tomorrow at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s conference. One assumes the former Prime Minister will give Starmer a firm talking-to about failing to honour the legacy of New Labour’s war on child poverty by not making it a bigger priority in contemporary politics.

The weekend also saw some selections. In Gillingham and Rainham, Naushabah Khan (who wrote for LabourList about Labour’s successful campaign to flip Medway council in May) will fight the seat. There’s a large Conservative majority, but Labour held its predecessor seat from 1997 to 2010, and the general feeling is that it might not be as safe for the Tories as the numbers might suggest. In Shrewsbury and Atcham, Shropshire council’s Labour group leader Julia Buckley was picked to represent the party and will look to overturn a Conservative majority of 11,217.

Later today, Yvette Cooper will address the RUSI think tank to announce Labour plans to crack down on the use of AI to radicalise people online, establishing clear criminal liability when a person is radicalised by an AI.This policy announcement follows the case of Jaswant Singh Chail, who attempted to carry out a terror attack at Windsor Castle having allegedly been encouraged by his “AI girlfriend”. This is part of a wider push to incorporate AI into Labour policymaking (more controversially including harnessing it for use in benefits processing, something which has had disastrous results elsewhere). For myself, I would like to see Labour go further and promise that as Prime Minister Keir Starmer will come round your house and personally delete any and all AI girlfriends you might have, while frowning. Their dial-up-tone death screams will fill the streets and herald a new era of social democratic Ludditism.

In other national security news, workers represented by the GMB trade union are on strike today at a Ministry of Defence missile depot in Beith, Scotland in a dispute over pay and an alleged “two-tiered” workplace. It’s the first ever such strike at a defence equipment and support site. A GMB spokesperson said: “These workers are utterly vital to the UK armed forces – they deserve to be recognised as such.”

And, finally, Bridget Phillipson has responded to government proposals to limit the number of students on university courses which are not seen as having “good outcomes” by the Office for Students. The Shadow Education Secretary condemned the move as a “fresh barrier to opportunity”, continuing: “This is simply an attack on the aspirations of young people and their families by a government that wants to reinforce the class ceiling, not smash it.”

To end on a lighter note: thank you to LabourList reader Bill in Lancashire, who has sent us a campaign song for Mid Bedfordshire (to the tune of Dolly Parton’s Jolene, sending up former I’m A Celebrity participant… Nadine). We’re always very happy to hear from our readers so if you have any comments (or, indeed, Labour themed re-workings of country classics- is the two-child limit announcement making it difficult to “Stand by your man“, perhaps?), please do send them our way at [email protected].