Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride has said foreign workers who unexpectedly lose their jobs may have to go back to their homelands as he announced sweeping welfare proposals
Foreign nationals who unexpectedly lose their jobs may have to go back to their homelands rather than having a safety net under draconian Tory plans.
Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride announced that most non-British citizens would not get be able to claim benefits if his party ever gets back into power. Speaking to a room full of empty seats at the Conservative Party Conference, Sir Mel aped Nigel Farage by saying a fairer system “means ensuring that only British citizens can access welfare because citizenship should mean something”.
The measure was part of a package of reforms aimed at slashing £23billion from the welfare bill. Asked what people – including those with indefinite leave to remain – should do, Sir Mel callously told the BBC: “Well, they’ve come from other parts of the world and they would have an option to return to those other parts of the world.”
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A spokesman for the Tory frontbencher was later asked if it was fair that if a company makes redundancies, only their British former employees would be entitled to benefits.
He responded: “I think it’s a fair approach. I don’t think it’s fair to British taxpayers to say we should support people with benefits. If you can’t afford to be in the UK without claiming lots of benefits thought for to be in the UK without claiming benefits from the UK taxpayer.
“Is that the kind of migration you want?” Asked whether the Tories would help pay air fares for those who could not afford to live in the UK, a Tory spokesman pointed out that the party’s Removals Force budget would be ramped up to £1.6billion.
Sir Mel said financial support for people will “less severe” mental health conditions. He told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “I can’t speak to everybody’s individual circumstances.
“There are some that it wouldn’t necessarily impact them, this change. There are some that it would impact them. It’s some that will be able to adjust their working arrangements, or perhaps work longer, or whatever it may be as a response to this.”
He claimed that despite the chaos unleashed by Liz Truss, his party is “the party of fiscal responsibility”. And he had a dig at Reform, telling delegates: “Reform’s manifesto promised tens of billions in unfunded commitments.
“They want to scrap the two-child benefit cap, spending billions more on welfare and they want you to pay for it. We say that if you want to fund a large family then that’s great but you should look to yourself to pay, not the state.
“And Reform want to get back to the days of nationalisation and state control. They are marching to the left.”
He continue: “Be in no doubt, they are the party of more spending and more debt. And when it comes to Reform be assured of this, that when the glitter, the shimmy of the sequined dress, the razzamatazz, the spinning plates, the fireworks have faded you will be left with emptiness. The dull bell alone. The hollowed out promises that never were.
“But Reform are being found out and it is this Conservative Party that is holding them to account.”
Mothin Ali, co-deputy leader of the Green Party, said: “The announcements from Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party so far show the Tories are looking to outflank Reform for divisiveness and hatred. But they also show a party quickening its pace towards oblivion.
“The package so far – turbo charged welfare cuts, draconian anti-migration measures, and axing life-saving foreign aid – would leave few but the wealthiest unscathed. These measures are a cruel attack on the sick and disabled, migrants and asylum seekers, and some of the poorest communities in the world.
“Nastiness is now at the very core of the Conservative Party.”
And a Labour spokesman said: “Mel Stride’s supposed-savings plan has already fallen apart hours after being announced. The Conservatives claimed they would state how they’d pay for their policies, yet made a multi-billion-pound pledge to abolish business rates without saying how they’d fund it.
“It’s the same old Tories, with the same old policies. They didn’t work then and you can’t trust them now.”
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