THE month of the general election hasn't even come to an end and already a rebellion is brewing on the benches of the Labour Party.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is coming under increasing pressure to perform a good U-turn for a change and drop the abhorrent two-child cap on benefits.
Starmer claims to be keen to address the issue of child poverty, which had grown into an epidemic under Tory rule, but he is strangely reluctant to adopt the single measure.
Anti-poverty and child welfare charities agree that abolishing the two-child cap on benefits would have a profound effect on reducing the number of children in the UK who live in poverty.
READ MORE: Keir Starmer says there is 'no silver bullet' to end child poverty
The cap, introduced under Theresa May in 2017, prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children.
New figures published by Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) found 1.6 million children are impacted by the Labour government's two-child benefit cap - with families losing up to £3455 a year per child.
The charity found 300,000 children would be lifted out of poverty, and a further 700,000 would be in less deep poverty, if the two-child cap was abolished.
In June, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) published its own analysis warning the two-child limit will affect 670,000 additional children by the end of this parliament unless it is scrapped.
Starmer (below) wrings his hands and tells us he is committed to reducing child poverty but claims that the country cannot afford the estimated £3.4 billion it would cost to abolish it.
However, the country can apparently afford to condemn hundreds of thousands of children to poverty with all the associated costs in poor educational, social, and health outcomes that poverty brings in its wake.
Faced with growing unrest on his back benches and even education minister Bridget Phillipson signalling that the government might abolish the cap, telling Sky News this morning that removing the cap was amongst the measures the government would look at as part of a review into child poverty, Starmer has softened his position.
READ MORE: Scottish Labour MPs under pressure to back scrapping of two-child cap
During a press conference at Farnborough international airshow this morning Starmer said: "What the education secretary said this morning, I agree with … We will make sure that the strategy covers all the bases to drive down child poverty. No child should grow up in poverty."
Starmer added: "I'm not surprised that there’s a real passion about this in the Labour party."
He insisted that there was “no silver bullet” and that child poverty was due to "a complicated set of factors" that required a broader strategy.
Starmer stopped a long way short of saying that he would "consider" abolishing the two-child cap on benefits, but hinting that he is open to the idea might help him get through a sticky patch with some of his more moral back benchers, but it is essentially meaningless.
This evening, I am going to consider how to spend the £114 million I hope to win on the Euromillions lottery this month. My vast wealth is entirely imaginary, and so are Starmer’s principles.
Telling us they will "consider" something is the formula adopted by politicians when a policy that they are opposed to is in the public spotlight and they don't want to appear unreasonable.
Then when the news agenda has moved on to something else and the immediate heat has gone out of the issue, they can let it be known that they considered the matter, but their original opinion has not changed, safe in the knowledge that few people are paying any attention.
The SNP has tabled an amendment to the King's Speech demanding the immediate abolition of the two-child cap, which is due to be voted upon tomorrow.
The amendment is backed by the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Green Party, SDLP, Alliance Party, and independent MPs, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (below).
The vote is the first real test of Labour's Scottish contingent.
Labour in Scotland likes to present itself as a distinct party with its own specifically Scottish policies even though it is legally and organisationally an integral part of the UK Labour Party.
Scottish branch manager Anas Sarwar has made a very big play of the opposition of "Scottish Labour" to the two-child cap on benefits and it is not unfair to say that Labour MPs in Scotland were elected with the expectation that they would vote to abolish the cap when presented with the opportunity to do so.
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That is after all what "Scottish Labour's" much vaunted opposition to the two-child cap must entail if it is to be anything more than a cynical and meaningless ploy to grab some votes at the expense of a party which really is opposed to the cap.
The vote gives Labour's Scottish MPs the chance to prove that they really do stand up for the expectations and interests of their Scottish constituencies and that they are not mere lobby fodder who will obediently do Starmer's bidding. We're looking at you here Michael Shanks (below).
(Image: BBC)
Eyes will also be on Labour's Scottish MPs to see if they still follow the tribalist “Bain Principle”, named after former Labour Glasgow MP Willie Bain, who said that Labour MPs would never support any SNP amendment, no matter what its topic or content. This is what passes for principle in the Labour Party in Scotland.
Even the Scottish Tories are rethinking their position on the two-child cap.
Tory MSP Russell Findlay, the party's justice spokesman at Holyrood said as he launched his bid to replace Douglas Ross that the cap should "probably" be scrapped, although he told the BBC the matter needs to be looked at in more detail.
That leaves the Labour Party being outflanked on the left by the Scottish Tories. Very few of us had that on our political bingo cards for 2024.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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