The Fabian Society is putting on an event at the Labour Party annual conference in which an author of one of its recent reports advocating for an end to a key Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability benefit – Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) – will be a main speaker.
The event looks likely to be little more than another monumental whitewash – and it’s no surprise with backstabbing government stooge Stephen Timms on the panel as well.
Fabian Society: DWP welfare cuts propaganda at Labour Party conference
The Fabian Society has now publicised the speakers for its programme of fringe sessions at this year’s conference.
One of particular note is a session titled Social Insecurity: How to Restore Trust in the System.
The session synopsis reads:
Without strong public trust and support, we cannot have a strong social security system. This panel will explore how we can challenge stigma and harmful narratives around welfare to ensure the social security system that is there when we need it.
Of course, the title is laughable in itself. It comes after this Labour government presided over vicious cuts to Universal Credit, and attempted to make similarly devastating so-called ‘reforms’ to Personal Independence Payment (PIP), before disability rights campaigners shamed them into rowing back on the plans (for now at least).
In light of the government’s recent welfare cuts, and more plans afoot in an impending White Paper this autumn, disabled people might rightly wonder just what ‘restoring trust’ actually means in this context. It’s obviously more likely that for Timms, this is a reference to the supposed ‘soaring’ spend on disability benefits. Labour has made this a persistent pretext for its programme of its de facto brutal cuts.
To the contrary however, it’s actually the case that households under-claim benefits by billions of pounds a year. As the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey recently pointed out, the supposed £6.6bn in so-called benefit fraud pales next to the £24bn in unclaimed benefits. So ‘restoring trust’ ought to look a lot like making the labyrinthine and punitive benefit system more accessible for claimants. Yet, it’s unlikely that’ll be Timms’ take-away from the session.
Enter: Scottish Fabians director – Katherine Sangster
Charity Turn2Us is hosting the session. However, if an organisation still thinks after Labour passed its disgusting bill to cull disabled people, it can still influence policy from the inside, it’s naive at best. At worst, the party is only likely too happy to co-opt its presence at its conference to cry “co-production”, while listening to not a word the organisation has to say.
Organisations trying to engage with the government and shape its DWP welfare reforms should be wary. They should remember that there’s no guarantee it is consulting them in good faith. Given the events of the past year of the new Labour government, this should be perfectly, painfully evident.
But that’s not even the most significant problem here. Because, in actual fact, another speaker in the session is an even bigger red flag. For the Fabian Society, Labour Party MSP candidate for the 2026 Holyrood elections Katherine Sangster is on the event panel. She’s also the national director for the Scottish Fabians.
Most notably however, it was Sangster who wrote the organisation’s 2023 Scotland-focused report that the Canary recently revealed had called for an end to the new-style DWP Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Support Group.
At the heart of plans to scrap DWP ESA’s Support Group
As the Canary highlighted:
the DWP is planning to scrap the Support Group, that is, the contribution-based benefit for those who are too sick to work.
And, we revealed that the DWP plans appeared to derive from a 2023 Fabian Society report. Titled, In Time of Need: Building Employment Insurance For All, it introduced the concept of time-limited Unemployment Insurance and Sickness Insurance. Now, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) seems to have taken this up. It has plans to blend the two under an umbrella new benefit named ‘Employment Insurance’. In effect, it proposes to do-away with the new-style ESA Support Group.
What’s more, the Canary uncovered it was insurance and investment industry titan Aberdeen Group’s former philanthropic trust that had financed the report. We dug up a wealth of connections between the Fabian Society, Aberdeen Group, and the Labour Party. Given this, we noted that:
Aberdeen Group’s influence over the current welfare reforms vis-a-vis the Fabian Society is a microcosm of the broader corporate to think tank to Westminster pipeline.
And of course, insurance companies stand to gain from a more exclusionary, scaled-back welfare system. It would invariably coerce people into taking out Income Protection Insurance (IPI) and other insurance policies.
You can read more about the DWP’s plans, its links to the Fabian Society report, and these nebulous connections, here.
Fabian Society: another vehicle to entrench Labour’s corporate capitalist agenda
At the end of the day then, the Fabian event is just another way in which this neoliberal Labour can entrench its corporate capitalist agenda.
Needless to say, a Fabian who has called for ending a key DWP disability benefit should be nowhere near discussions on “restoring trust” in the welfare system. However, since when has something like that stopped this billionaire-beholden Labour government?
Featured image via the Canary
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