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Reunited, Coco and Nish are finally back together in the studio to talk U turns, disability benefits, Brexit and… gimp masks? There’s a lot of politics to catch up on including some big shifts from the Labour government.

First on Gaza – Keir Starmer and David Lammy changed tack with fierce criticism of the Israeli government. But critics argue that without an actual arms embargo talking tough with Israel is inadequate. So is it all too little, too late?

And in another change of direction, the Prime Minister has been listening to voters and his own disgruntled MPs on benefits. He signalled a rethink on one of Labour’s most unpopular moves – cutting winter fuel payments for pensioners. But reforms of disability benefits are still on the cards so Nish heads to Westminster where disability activists gathered to lobby their MPs. With a major rebellion on the cards from Labour MPs, can Starmer be steered into a U-turn on this too?

Employment minister Alison McGovern explains how she’s going to get more young people into work and she has a message for Pod Save the UK’s disillusioned Labour voters.

And did you think Brexit bollocks was in the rearview mirror? Well sorry – this week the Brexit undead returned with nonsense we thought was safely consigned to the dustbin of history.

Guests:

Alison McGovern MP

Ellie Chowns MP

Nadia Whittome MP

Meg Thomas, Disability Rights Campaigner

Audio Credits:

Parliament TV

BBC

GB News

Useful Links: 

https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/mass-lobby-against-benefit-cuts-21st-may-be-there

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TRANSCRIPT

[AD]

Nish Kumar Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I’m Nish Kumar.

Coco Khan And I’m Coco Khan, we’re back in the studio and I’m seeing you Nish face to face for the first time in ages. I feel like a baby in a sensory play. I’m like I’m really enjoying it but I might start screaming.

Nish Kumar This is the first time we’ve been in a room since you became a mother.

Coco Khan I know! I feel changed. Are you feeling changed?

Nish Kumar I’m more scared of you than I was before, so maybe that’s something. Maybe that’s something. Maybe my genetic program to be scared of South Asian mothers has now kicked in and is now applying to you. Listen, it’s actually slightly a briefer time for us together than normal because we’re going to… Do some chat about the news things that are going on and then I’m getting out of the studio today. I’m going from here to Westminster to cover a mass lobby of disability activists from around the country.

Coco Khan Meanwhile, back in the studio, I’ll be speaking with the Employment Minister Alison McGovern about the government’s mission to get more young people into work.

Nish Kumar But we’ll also be talking about the government’s third trade deal in as many weeks. But before we do all of that…

CLIP End this blockade now and let the aid in. Regrettably, Madam Deputy Speaker, despite our efforts, this Israeli government’s egregious actions and rhetoric have continued. They are isolating Israel from its friends and partners around the world, undermining the interests of the Israeli people, and damaging the image of the state of Israel in the eyes of the world. Therefore today, I’m announcing that we have suspended negotiations with this Israeli government on a new trade, free trade agreement.

Coco Khan Foreign Secretary David Lammy there in a stark shift in diplomatic language toward Israel on Tuesday afternoon, 591 days after the war in Gaza began. The decision comes after the UK, France and Canada on Monday issued their strongest condemnation yet of Israel’s war in Gaza and repeated calls for a ceasefire.

Nish Kumar There has been mounting international anger over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza after Israel’s nearly total three-month blockade of food, medicine and other life-saving aid, whilst also announcing plans to take control of the besieged strip. Here’s UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher speaking to Radio 4 on Tuesday.

CLIP You know, let me describe what is on those trucks. This is baby food, baby nutrition. There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them. This is not food that Hamas are gonna steal. Now, we run the risk of looting. We run the risks of being hit as part of the Israeli military offensive. We run all sorts of risks trying to get that baby food through to those mothers who cannot feed their children right now because they’re malnourished.

Coco Khan Chilling and ghastly. Even the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that what Israel is doing now in Gaza is very close to a war crime during an interview with the BBC. So look, it’s good to see these long overdue diplomatic moves from the government. It’s just a shame that it took risking the lives of 14,000 babies to make our government act. But without backing by the US and without an actual arms embargo, talking tough with Israel is inadequate. Suspended Labour MP Zara Sultana put this to Lammy in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

CLIP Children are starving, families have been wiped out, hospitals destroyed. Yet the government in court claims that there is no evidence Israel targets civilians. The foreign secretary is personally responsible and refuses to ban all arms sales to this genocidal state. So like many across Britain, I have to ask the foreign secretary, how do you sleep at night?

CLIP Thank you. The Honorable Lady has raised figures that I don’t recognize. She’s raised once again the issue of arms sales to Israel. I banned arms sales that could be used in Gaza. I know that the Honourble Lady is keen on click bait, but I’m not going to be baiting from this dispatch box.

Nish Kumar Now look, clickbait is a very odd choice of words from David Lammy there. The figures being quoted come from a story in the national newspaper in Scotland, but the source for those figures in the National story quoted by Zara Sultana are the government’s own figures. So I’m not sure why he’s being so dismissive given that all of the figures being quote, I’ve not been like dreamed up by Buzzfeed to drive engagement, they’ve been released. By the UK government, according to the investigative media organization Declassified UK, just hours after Lammy’s speech, the UK sent another spy plane over Gaza to collect intelligence for Israel. So we’re in this very dissonant place in terms of what our government is saying about Israel’s actions, but what it is doing in terms actually trying to apply the takes to Netanyahu’s behavior.

Coco Khan And I also couldn’t help but wonder if Lammy’s comments were referring to the fact that Zara Sultana, it has a big online following. This subject has to go beyond infighting and factions and grievances about each other. You’re an elected official, David Lammy. Yeah, it’s your job to take these questions. It’s beneath the party really.

Nish Kumar Several ministers around Benjamin Netanyahu have been very, very clear that they will accept nothing less than total Israeli control of the Gaza Strip. It’s a shame that it’s taken this long for the rhetoric to change. All we can hope now is that further death is prevented, but that’s going to take more than just a change in rhetoric and the cessation of conversations around trade. It’s going take actual hard diplomatic action. They’ve just given constant… Unwavering support to Benjamin Netanyahu. Keir Starmer said that Israel had the right to cut off food and water supplies to Gaza. The die was cast very, very early on on how the Labour government was going to handle this. I’m still of the opinion that if you can prevent further death, it’s not too little, too late. And there will be a time for recriminations, and those recrimination should happen, and there has to be accountability. But in short term the priority has got to be we have to stop more deaths in that region. We have to stop the deaths of more innocent people and more innocent children in Gaza. Listen, what the government in the UK really wants to be talking about this week, however, is the three trade deals that they’ve secured in as many weeks with India, the United States, and now with the European Union. Keir Starmer might have myriad domestic problems, rising inflation this week is another blow in the government’s growth agenda. But he’s undeniably chalking up wins on the world stage.

Coco Khan So this is a big deal. It covers everything from defense and security, fishing rights, tentative move towards a youth mobility scheme, skipping cues at passport control, cheaper cheese, which I think is very important to point out, important for me personally. Starmer claims it puts Britain back on the world stage and we can all finally move on from the B word. And all it took was seven years and a change of government.

Nish Kumar And these trade deals might also be why we’ve seen a cheery-looking Rachel Reeves. She’s finally got her hands on some long-awaited growth. So for the first three months of this year, the UK economy beat doom-mongering predictions and has grown by 0.7%, which I think we can all agree we are feeling on a day-to-day basis. I can see 0.70% of a spring in every one step when I walk the streets of London this week. It does make the UK the fastest-growing G7 economy for the moment.

Coco Khan But not everyone is as chuffed as the government about this latest trade deal with the EU. On one side, starmers being blasted by Euroskeptics, like Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Tory leader Kemi Badenok, they’re upset about Brexit being betrayed. Even former PM Boris Johnson waded in to voice his anger. So here he is speaking to GB News.

CLIP He’s turning this country once again into the orange-ball-chewing, leather-trust-gimp. If I have got the right word.

Coco Khan Again, too much of an insight into Boris Johnson’s life in that quote, didn’t enjoy the visual image.

Nish Kumar Just have a wank before you do the interview. Like, this is, like, Johnson is so horny. Just for the love of God, please, in order for you to carry out your basic responsibilities, take yourself off to a lavatory and masturbate and then do the interviews with a clear head and an empty ball bag. Because the guy is so congenitally horny that he can’t can’t even get through an interview without mentioning orange ball chewing gimps, please just masturbate before you go in front of the camera for the love of God. Because clearly that’s not something I should have to say for any other adult, but clearly Boris Johnson cannot handle it. It’s unbelievable. Don’t do an interview with severely blue balls. I don’t know what’s going on in his personal life, but he’s barely been able to get a sentence out without it being drenched in his own semen. Horrible.

Coco Khan Can I just say how sweet and innocent am I that when the producer sent the quote over and sort of the text, I genuinely at first thought he was talking in politics. I thought G-I-M-P, is that like a quanger? Orange ball? Is that about the Lib Dems? Leather truss? Is this truss doing something? It’s hard to be so innocent, isn’t it?

Nish Kumar Motherhood has really changed you. Look, on the other side of this conversation, Europhiles like Lib Dem leader Ed Davey are much more positive even if they think that the deal doesn’t go far enough. Davey said, I welcome the progress on these issues, even if it is only very limited progress on things like youth mobility, because we’ve all seen the terrible damage caused by the Conservatives’ Brexit deal. The Greens’ Ellie Chowns said, it’s not quite the step change that we need, but it is a step forward. What do you make of this cocoa?

Coco Khan I mean, it’s hard to be excited, isn’t it? As much as I am looking forward to the cheaper cheese, there’s a bit of sweetness to all of it. Yes, it is a step in the right direction, but again, it has all been trying to reverse the self-immolation of a horrible project that was

Nish Kumar The only thing I would say is, in terms of this Brexit deal and what it actually offers to the country, yes, it’s a downgrade from where we were pre-2016, but it is considerably better or it certainly looks considerably better for the economy than previous iterations of the deal we had with the European Union. The group of people I really want to address here are Brexiteers and particularly Conservative party Brexites. Please shut the fuck up. All of you shut the fuck up. I cannot hear from people like Boris Johnson this week about how this deal betrays Britain. You know why I can’t hear from them? Because they had the opportunity to negotiate a better deal. They were in charge of the country. Boris Johnson was elected with what they were consistently reminded was a unprecedented and historic majority in 2019. And yes, obviously he was busy in the first couple of years, mishandling a pandemic and behaving in a manner that suggested a kind of congenital negligence on his behalf. But after that, he then had another period of time to continue to renegotiate the deal. They had their chance. You blew it. You got what you wanted. The United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union and you couldn’t work out a deal because none of you had thought about what the terms of that deal involved, largely because during the campaign it was never clear what Brexit would actually look like. Someone like Daniel Henan, the former Conservative MP who was very, very critical this week of Keir Starmer’s deal, at one point during the Brexit campaign said no one was talking about leaving the single market. The terms of Brexit were never clearly defined from the beginning and then they were never defined by the people who wanted it most, as soon as it had been voted for. So now… You fucked everything up, left the scene of the crime, shut the fuck up. No one wants to hear from you. You had your opportunity. You were in government. You had a whopping majority. Johnson and Cummings purged the Conservative Party of conservative ministers that they felt weren’t loyal enough to the Brexit project. So you had absolutely no obstacles to negotiating a better deal. And you didn’t do it. Why? Because Boris Johnson was busy finishing his Shakespeare book and presumably trying to father a few more kids while instead of actually doing his fucking job. I don’t want to hear from you. No one cares. You had your chance. You fucked it. Nigel Farage. Do you know where Nigel Farage was this week? On holiday. Nigell Farage was on holiday. He wasn’t even present for the vote. Farage agitated for Brexit, fled the scene as soon as it happened, and now he is an MP. He could have spoken in Parliament this week about the deal. He is on holiday! All of you, shut the fuck up. This is the deal, this is what you get. You couldn’t find anything better yourself. Now Cut the fuck up.

Coco Khan I think there’s nothing left to say.

Nish Kumar [AD]

Coco Khan Now after the break, I speak to Employment Minister Alison McGovern about what the future of employment looks like for young people in the UK.

Nish Kumar And I… I’ve got to get out of here.

Coco Khan [AD]

Coco Khan Now, it’s a pretty rough ride being a youth in Britain today. And I say that sounding like the true geriatric millennial that I am. But the facts don’t lie. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, at the end of 2024, almost one million young people were classed as not an employment, education or training, often referred to with the abbreviation of NEET. That’s about 13 percent of all 16 to 25 year olds. Highest rate since 2020 and the number of young people in long-term unemployment is on the rise. Now back in November 2024, the government’s Get Britain Working white paper announced plans to deliver a new youth guarantee so every young person has access to education or training to help them find a job. It sounds exciting but what does it actually mean? To find out, we’re joined now by the employment minister Alison McGovern. Alison, welcome to Pod Save the UK.

Alison McGovern Hi Coco.

Coco Khan I have to mention there’s a red box in the background. Is it the?

Alison McGovern It is the red box. In fact, when you come in on your first day as a minister in the government department, they do actually give you a red box and I mean that is kind of an amazing moment. It sort of sits in my office because I find like an iPad a bit more practical to carry around with me. But hilariously, next to my red box are two pieces of Blackpool rock. And the reason for that is because Blackpool has the worst employment statistics. So every day in my office, my Blackpool rock sits next to my Minister for Employment red box, so that I can remember what it’s all about. They were given to me by some of our work coaches in Blackpool Job Center.

Coco Khan What a beautiful metaphor and such a sweet treat, is not what I was really expecting. So on this subject, we’ve heard the statistics from the ONS about the state of youth unemployment. The unions have also warned that young people’s futures are on the line amidst their struggles to find a job. It’s really bleak. What has happened? How has it all gone so wrong?

Alison McGovern It is bleak, and I feel actually quite angry on behalf of young people, because we’ve got nearly a million young people out of work, out of training, not doing anything. And we had another report published only this week showing how you are much more likely to be in that situation, out of a work, out of the training if you’re from a working class background. And also, you know, from particular ethnic backgrounds as well, you they’ve really kind of got underneath where some of the barriers and challenges are. And I think it added to that, that kind of structural issue that we’ve had for a long time, we then got COVID, you know the pandemic generation who gave up their social life and you know the chance to have that enjoyment that all of us remember so well when you’re 16, 17, 18, they gave that up and it had some real consequences for them in terms of. Their socializing and their social skills. And that is now showing itself in the Labour market where young people are finding it hard to get a job, to get that first job and to move on in life. So I think it is urgent, but I think everybody should actually be quite angry about what’s happened to the generation that’s coming.

Coco Khan No, absolutely. I mean, we interviewed Jacob Diggle from Youth UK. Do check out the episode if you’re interested. It was back in December. And he talked about the scarring effect of being unemployed in your youth. So, you know, if you are under 25 and neat, you’ll continue to see lower earnings, you have up to several decades. I think back to my own youth, my job at 17 in a shop, my Saturday job on my £30 education maintenance allowance I’m feeling all flush. I had no idea that actually that experience was setting me up for the rest of my life, learning how to operate in a workplace, learning hierarchies and authority and I don’t know, timekeeping which still eludes me.

Alison McGovern And like you, my first job was in the shoe department in Browns of Chester. And my first boss was incredibly important. You know, she told me all kinds of things that I still rely on today. I think I learned more about being a politician from working in a shoe shop than I did being in parliament. But a lot of young people have missed out on their first boss. So this is one of the problems that we are trying to solve. But we shouldn’t be nostalgic from the past because everything wasn’t so rosy. It’s just that there’s a lot of opportunities now that young people are not able to take up because we’ve got this need that we haven’t addressed. And that’s where our youth work coaches and job centers are working really hard to try to get young people that first boss. We’re really changing in DWP the way we work because we have underestimated this challenge and we are trying to focus more on what employers need so that we can see where young people fit in. And use some of our schemes and programs that we’ve got to help young people get a start and get that first boss.

Coco Khan So tell us about the Youth Guarantee, great name for a scheme, over the next two years there’s £45 million of funding allocated to eight English pilot regions. But what is the guarantee of the guarantee? What will it actually offer young people?

Alison McGovern So I’ve already talked about job centers where if young people are on Universal Credit, they can come in and meet one of our work coaches and get help that way. But the challenge that we’ve got is that that we also got young people who are not on Universal credit. They might not have had a good experience at school, might have not been working, they might be just at home and really kind of lost at the moment. So what we want to do is try out some new ways of. Engaging young people and offering them chances and opportunities. And a lot of research shows that young people’s chances and opportunities of a job or a career are quite tied to where they are in geographical terms. So what we’ve done is worked with our mayors and our combined authorities across the country to say, okay, could you try out some new ways of helping young people, because we know that. Voluntary and community organizations are very good at this, but they need the support to be able to offer drop-in services and other things to young people to help them. There’s also sports and arts organizations that are much better off than the government at helping young people. I love football and being from Merseyside. You would expect- Having a great time at the moment, I’m sure. I am a Red and we feel we’re very happy being the home of the champions at the minute, but actually. All of the football clubs in Merseyside do a great deal on employability. Actually, Liverpool, Everton and Traumea Rovers all have really good schemes to support young people and some ways that can be more successful than the government doing it. So that £45 million is there to allow our mayors to help trial new ways of reaching young people who’ve become a bit lost. And we’re going to do that for a year, get the evidence of what works, and we’re at the moment doing the work to find out, OK, how do we turn this into a real guarantee?

Coco Khan The very first question that came to my mind when I heard about this scheme was, well, how can you be sure that the jobs are good? How can you show that the job exists? Only 10% of young people believe they can access good quality work. And there’s a concern that you end up pushing working class kids into, let’s be honest, depressing jobs, warehouse jobs, where they’re exploited by exploitative bosses. How do you square that circle?

Alison McGovern So I think some people do believe that in order to increase the employment rate, you somehow have to have bad quality work. I think people do you believe that that’s a trade-off. I don’t believe that because I think if you’re in work where you don’t feel valued, you’re not paid well, and it’s quite stressful, I think you’re more likely to lose that job and become unemployed. So the government has a bill that’s going through parliament at the moment to improve. People’s rights at work, to get rid of things like zero-hours contracts that are unwanted by people, to try to improve the quality of work. And I think those changes that we’re making go hand-in-hand with increasing the level of employment, particularly for young people. What we need more than anything else is to have a more productive workforce in the United Kingdom. We need people who are well-trained, who use their skills to the maximum. That’s the way that we are going to help businesses grow. And There’s a lot of employers out there who are up for this. Particularly in some of our growth areas. You know, if we’re gonna meet the net zero challenge, we need to increase the number of people we’ve got working in energy, for example. Those are good quality jobs. We just need to get a path for young people into them so that we can tackle that 10% statistic that you just talked about.

Coco Khan That’s all the great sounding carrot stuff, but what about the stick element? I mean, you know, young people’s benefits are being jeopardized if they don’t agree to participate in these schemes. I think there’s a moral question there about whether we jeopardize people’s ability to shelter, to eat, and also, you know, many governments have tried sanctions before. The evidence says it doesn’t work. It deepens poverty. Why is it going to work now?

Alison McGovern I think we should have simple rules in social security. I think, you know, if you are receiving social security, you have to keep in touch with the government and there will always be rules about the things that you have do to show that you are looking for work. That’s been true throughout the history of social security It should be a balance. There should be commitment on both sides because people turn up and make an effort. The government should offer them real help. And I don’t think that the Tories did that fulfill their side of the bargain. So we are determined to change that. And that’s why I think it will be successful. If you look at the New Deal programs of the last Labour government, they were successful precisely because they offered people a decent chance at work. And we want to learn from that experience.

Coco Khan Look, I’m going to be honest here. I think a lot of us on the whatever you want to describe us as the left, the progressive, the wokes, the cool dudes, whatever, we’re feeling a bit alienated from the Labour Party, you know, putting aside the conversation we’re having about young people and their benefits. You know, today there is a mass lobbying event at Westminster around disability benefits. And then you’ve got obviously the Island of Strangers line from Keir Starmer last week. I’m sure you’re getting MPs and the WhatsApp group being like, oh my God, this is not why I signed up for the Labour Party. What would you say to any podcast listeners who, many of us, vote Labour? Who are feeling that way and they don’t recognize the party anymore. What would you say to them?

Alison McGovern Well, can I just say specifically on disability benefits, given the recent history on this, I don’t blame anybody for being fearful of change. I think that’s a perfectly rational response. That doesn’t mean that we can shy away from change. I just know where people are coming from and I don’t blame anybody for being fearfull about that. It means we have to act with caution and to work with disabled people. I think… That’s been important to me in talking to my own constituents who received those social security benefits. On the purpose of the Labour Party, if I think about what we’re doing as a government, the thing that really, really matters to me is that we give people in this country a proper chance and a proper opportunity to do better in life. And I think all of the evidence that I’m looking at in employment shows that working class people have not had proper chances and opportunities in this country. And that has to change. So if there are progressives out there or people who feel they want to be a part of that good change to give people a proper opportunity in life, I would say to them, please work with us in the Labour Party and in the government to do it. And whether that is making sure people have got decent rights at work, making sure we overturn the assumption about certain sorts of people doing certain sorts of jobs, overturning the assumption that somehow we can’t increase. The disability employment rate. I think we can do these things and I would ask people to work with us. I want a country where people feel that their background does not determine their chances and opportunities. I’ve come from very ordinary family and I am determined that for other people from ordinary families, they will have every chance of success in life. And that is the purpose of this government. So I would just say to people, work with, make it happen.

Coco Khan Alison McGovern, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us on Pod Save the UK. Have so many more questions, but sadly, we’ll have to put a pin in it. Come back soon.

Alison McGovern Thank you. I will.

So straight after that interview, Alison McGovern headed off to Prime Minister’s Questions where Keir Starmer dropped something of a bombshell really about pensioners’ winter fuel allowance. He wants to make more people eligible for the payments. The cuts have been a huge issue on the doorstep, it’s been very politically damaging to Labour. They filled the headlines for many, many days, if not weeks. And now the PM says he’s going to look at making changes. So with perfect timing, after the break, Nish is heading to Westminster, where people from all over the country have come to demand their MPs vote against the proposed disability benefit cuts. If Starmer can have this change of heart over winter fuel payments, You have to ask, you have to hope, is there a chance of a U-turn on disability benefits?

Speaker 11 [AD]

Nish Kumar Hello, we’ve come down to Westminster. What you can hear in the background, if you’re listening to the podcast, is the sound of the rejoin the EU, I don’t know what you call it, stationery flotilla that has situated itself on a traffic island in Westminster. We are here today because hundreds of disability campaigners have descended on the Houses of Parliament to protest the upcoming cuts to disability benefits that the government is going to be voting on. In the summer. This is potentially a huge cut for people. I wish I was talking about something less serious with that music on the background, I’m going to be honest with you, but this is a potentially life-changing cut for a lot of disabled people in the UK. This is a huge and significant issue and I’m really excited that we’re going to be talking to some old friends of the show about what’s going on today.

Meg Thomas I’m Meg Thomas, I’m a community organizer with the Open People Against Cuts and a coordinator of a group called The Coalition Against Benefit Cuts.

Nish Kumar Meg, can you explain to us what distinguishes this? What’s a mass lobby event as opposed to a normal protest? What does this involve?

Meg Thomas So a master lobby essentially is where a group of people coordinate to meet with their MPs at the same time. Today we’ve had some people who have prearranged meetings to work for a set time, and some people who are here to do something called green card in. And green carding is essentially when you come into Westminster Hall, you have the right as someone’s constituent to request a meeting with your MP. And one of the reasons that we’re doing this is that one thing that we always hear is that, so. People need to hear from their constituents and understand what some of the problems with the post courts are and how it’s going to be impacting their constituents on the ground. And so we said, OK, we will bring the constituents to you.

Nish Kumar Please tell us your name and why you’ve come down to Westminster today.

Natasha Hurst I’m Natasha Hurst, I’m here from Cardiff. I’m a freelance fighter journalist and I receive PEP. I’ve been on employment support allowance in the past and I also receive access to work support. And I’m hear because the proposals are going to harm disabled people tremendously. You know, I’ll be one of those people affected. But so many more disabled people are going to be put into poverty, real hardship. It does absolutely nothing to address all of those systemic barriers that we face in our day-to-day lives.

Paul Jones So my name is Paul Jones and I come here today to represent a number of ME charities who are concerned about what the government is doing with the reforms and the revision of the social security policy in the UK.

How do these reforms specifically impact people with ME.

Paul Jones Well, ME is, for the majority, a varying and fluctuating condition. So 25% live with severe ME or very severe ME where they’re bedbound. But the remaining 75% are moderate to mild. So we believe that with the government’s change to PIP, including a disability threshold of the four points, that the majority of people living with ME will be affected.

Nish Kumar Ventured outside and immediately the heavens have opened. I’m here with Dermott. Dermott, tell us a little bit about why you decided to come down to Westminster today.

Dermott *Unrecognizable audio*

Nish Kumar So I’ve just been out in Westminster Hall. It’s a very excited mood out there. There’s loads of people that have shown up for this mass lobby, and there are lots of MPs who are coming down to meet with them. So there is real engagement between MPs and the people who are here for the mass lobby. It is inspiring. This is direct democratic action. This is bringing the voice of the constituencies to the Houses of Parliament. And this is kind of exactly the kind of event that we wanna cover on this show, because it. Shows you that there are people working hard to actually move the dial on some of these issues. I’m thrilled to be joined by Ellie Chowns from the Greens. Ellie, what are your constituents saying to you about the proposed disability reforms?

Ellie Chowns They’re incredibly worried. I mean, I’ve had shed loads of emails from constituents and such personal stories, people really kind of explaining in detail how the proposed changes are gonna affect their lives. And I’ve just been out there in Westminster Hall talking to so many people who, they’re just so articulate explaining what a problem it is, this squeeze on PIP, this change to disability benefits reform. Because of course, the whole point of PIP personal independence payment is about helping people. To be as independent as possible. I was just talking to a lady who was saying, look, this is absolutely madness. This benefit, it’s the thing that helps me to work. Without it, I’m going to be struggling even more and people like her, they’re still gonna need support, right? But the requirement to provide that is gonna fall on local authorities or whatever. And so what you’re seeing is a bunch of government reforms, proposals that are kind of, they’re being marketed under this label of we want to help people into work but actually, pee-pee’s a- An in-work benefit for many, many people, right? Already. And the changes to the benefits, the squeeze on the benefits is coming first and then there’s a bit of help promised, maybe with work-related support kind of later down the line, that’s completely the wrong way to do it. The fact is that if somebody’s got an impairment, if they’ve got a disability, it costs them extra to do the things that you and I might take for granted. We really do have a responsibility as a society, the community, to provide the support that people need to be able to have the same opportunities that you and I might have in terms of access to work opportunities or indeed social leisure opportunities, etc. And so I’m really, really frustrated by what the government is doing here. And the other thing about it is it’s just… So kind of wrong-headed really because the government’s kind of saying oh you know this public finance is terribly difficult we’ve kind of got to find money from somewhere we’ve got to make these difficult decisions and it’s like you know, this is a mad decision because of course there’s an easy decision that they could make right, they could tax extreme wealth and generate all of the money that is needed to support people with disabilities properly, to support public services properly and to actually even up the country. You know, into the bargain as well, so unbelievably frustrating.

Nish Kumar We’re recording this on the day that Kier Starmer at PMQ’s announced the start of the process of a U-turn on the winter fuel payments. I’m being very careful with how I use that language because it’s not a full U-Turn yet. He’s announced to the backseat that he’s possibly contemplating the U-Turn.

Ellie Chowns Yeah, he’s rolling the pitch, that’s it.

Nish Kumar Does that give you calls for optimism on something like this, that there’s a possibility that if we show and display enough public hostility towards something, we can get this later government to U-turn on it?

Ellie Chowns So, I mean, I welcome the fact that he’s inching towards making a U-turn on it, definitely. I wouldn’t say it makes me feel optimistic. It’s like if the government does a hundred things wrong and then on one of them they say, oh, sorry, maybe we went a little bit too far. Like, you got to welcome that, but actually there’s still 99 that are really, really problematic, right?

Nish Kumar On reforms to PIP, do you have a sense of how many, because the Greens are united on this.

Ellie Chowns Absolutely.

Nish Kumar Do you have a sense of how many Labour MPs you’ve managed to bring with you?

Ellie Chowns I mean, the Labour MPs are so many of them are really, really embarrassed by this. I mean actually it’s the same as kind of with Winterfield and several other things, you know, there’s there are so may Labour colleagues who are thinking, you know, they really recognize that it’s not what they got into politics for. I mean this takes us to the problem, one of the many problems with the way our politics works, right, which is the whipping system. Yes. So if you’re part of a big party, you’ve got a whip, literally. He was kind of rich. You know, shoving you down the yes lobby for it for a government policy. Yeah, I don’t think sometimes people

Nish Kumar Yeah, I don’t think sometimes people realize how literal you’re being when you describe that. There have been, especially in the last couple of years, specific examples of whips literally physically moving people.

Ellie Chowns Practically, yeah. I mean, mainly I think it’s done on kind of WhatsApp.

Nish Kumar Yeah, yeah

Ellie Chowns You know in face-to-face conversations and your life won’t be worth living if you don’t vote for this thing. But I very much hope that the combination of internal pressure within Labour from people who recognize this is completely the wrong direction, plus the external pressure from people like, who have been organized to be in Westminster and today with Disability Rights UK, it’s a huge lobby. People are so articulate about the damaging effect that this is going to have on their lives, plus, the opposition that people like myself were able to provide within the chamber kind of asking questions, putting government on the spot, really, really holding them to account, kind of embarrassing them there. All of those kind of, it’s a multi-fonged thing. And that is basically how political change happens.

Nish Kumar I’m here with Labour MP and friend of the show, I dare say, Nadia Whittome. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. This is exciting. I’ve never really been in this building before, and so I have no frame of reference. But it’s quite exciting to see all the activists actually here and MPs meeting with them. This is kind of… I don’t want to over-romanticize what’s going on here, but this is kind of our democracy sort of at its best, right? It’s constituents coming to parliament.

Nadia Whittome Yeah, exactly. It’s so important that we’ve got a huge mass lobby today in Parliament because it’s disabled people telling their MPs directly, this is how these benefit cuts are going to impact my life. These are real life consequences of your decisions. And that makes it impossible for us to ignore the consequences of the choices that the government is making. And let’s be clear, they are choices. These cuts are choices, and we could be making different choices. The Sunday Times Rich List came out earlier this week, and it showed that 50 of the UK’s richest families own more wealth than 50% of the population. Like if we’re gonna talk about trimming the fat, let’s start with them. Let’s introduce a wealth tax. It’s popular, it’s necessary, let’s get on and do it.

Nish Kumar And in terms of the disability cuts, I mean, I’ve spoken to a lot of people who are here to participate in the lobby and they’re really trying to get the message across. This is really going to adversely affect the day-to-day lives of hundreds of thousands of people in this country, right?

Nadia Whittome These are the biggest disability benefit cuts on record. We’re talking about taking money away from some of the poorest people in our society during a cost of living crisis. You can call that what you want, but in reality, this is austerity 2.9. So for people who are no longer eligible for PIP, they will lose an average of 4,500 pounds a year. That is going to increase suffering, increase poverty. It will cost people their lives. I’m not exaggerating when I say that, we know that because similar cuts have already cost people their lives.

Nish Kumar Keir Starmer has suggested that there’s going to be a U-turn happening on the winter fuel payments for pensioners. Does that give you cause for optimism that actually if we show the kind of will of the constituents and the electorate that you can actually get some movement out of the Labour Party on this specific issue as well?

Nadia Whittome I think it shows that public pressure is finally working. Change doesn’t come from MPs asking nicely for it. It comes from people coming together, building a mass movement that puts so much pressure on the government and on political parties and people in power that they can’t ignore them. And that’s what people are doing today in this mass lobby of parliament against the proposed disability benefit cuts.

Nish Kumar And do you have a sense amongst your colleagues in the Labour Party of what the size of a possible rebellion on this issue could be?

Nadia Whittome Think the rebellion will be huge and it will come from all parts of the party. Over 40 of us signed a public letter to the prime minister, I was one of those, but then a further about 100 MPs signed a separate private letter and there wasn’t much crossover between the signatories.

Nish Kumar Right, okay.

Nadia Whittome So we’re talking like certainly triple digits, and I hope that it doesn’t get to the point where we need a rebellion. I hope the government just drops these plans as the kind of inhumane and economically unnecessary measures that they are. And I say economically unnecessary because they won’t raise much money, they will cause immeasurable harm, and we could just make different choices.

Nish Kumar And your different choices, you’re talking about things like wealth taxes, reforming the capital gains tax system. There are leaders that the government can pull here, right?

Nadia Whittome Exactly, and these are really moderate wealth taxes. I mean, I’d like us to go much further, but I think we should all be able to agree on some of the most moderate wealth taxes like equalizing capital gains and income tax. Why should you have to pay more tax on the money that you earn by working than on assets?

Nish Kumar Unfathomable to me, like unfathomeable.

Nadia Whittome That’s ridiculous.

Nish Kumar Even Nigel Lawson was in favor of, and it seems to be two things that I’m in agreement with Nigel Lawson on, his daughter and equalizing capital gains tax with income. It’s really important to state that there are alternatives available to Keir Starmer and the government on this issue, right?

Nadia Whittome Exactly. And we can’t go to people and say, okay, you’re losing an average of four and a half thousand pounds a year because you’ve been deemed no longer eligible to claim PIP. But at least the government was able to meet its fiscal rules. Doesn’t that make you feel better?

Nish Kumar This is not very Labour, is it? Like, I’m doing my best to not get you in trouble here, and that’s always what I’m

CLIP I don’t wanna do that.

Nish Kumar This is not what I would call a core Labour value, from my understanding of what the Labour Party is and should be, right?

Nadia Whittome I’m not going to spin it. Obviously, it’s not a very Labour thing to do. Was it Ed Balls who said that it wasn’t, that these disability cuts weren’t a very Labour thing do? Well, he’s from a different tendency in the Labour party to me. I agree with him.

Nish Kumar Now do it then. Thank you so much.

Nadia Whittome No, I thought you were closer, and then I realized how short my arm was.

Nish Kumar Yeah, for people listening, Nadia tapped me like you would tap a child that had done a good job on their end of term spelling test. It was really like you were like, well done on doing, you know what, well-done on doing a basically competent interview.

Nadia Whittome That’s not what I meant.

Nish Kumar I loved it, I absolutely loved it. We’re on our way out of parliament now. The consultation is still going on, there’s still MPs out there, they’re still talking to the campaigners from the various charities and pressure groups. The really important thing to stress is that there is time for MPs to change their livelihoods. There is time to government to move away from these poems to the welfare system. We spoke to so many people who are living with disabilities that not a single one of them had a good thing to say about these reforms. And I think there is a real lack of clarity specifically for people with ME about what these reforms actually involve. I will say that the positive uptake of this is it’s really inspiring to see that there is a lever that you can pull within our odd arcane democratic system that forces MPs to come into contact with their constituents in the House of the Parliament. It’s very much a case of sort of bringing democracy to government and I found that genuinely really inspiring.

Coco Khan And that’s it! Thanks for listening to Pod Save the UK. Don’t forget to follow at Pod Save the UK on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter, and on Bluesky at podsavetheuk.crooked.com. And if you want more of us, or should I say me, I’m doing the credits solo this week, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media. Thanks to senior producer James Tindale and producer May Robson. Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos. The executive producers are Anishka Sharma, Katie Long, Louise Cotton. And there’s additional support from Ari Schwartz. And remember to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays on Amazon, Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.