Whitehall protesters

JEREMY Corbyn said he was “appalled” by Labour’s announcement that it will be slashing benefits for the poorest disabled people in our society.

Hundreds gathered outside Downing Street on Wednesday to protest against the government’s announcement to cut welfare benefits for the disabled.

An estimated 1.2 million people would lose their personal independence payment (PIP) among other controversial reforms in Rachel Reeves’s spring statement.

Mr Corbyn told the Extra’s political channel Peeps he did not see the cuts coming.

He said: “I never thought that I would hear a Labour chancellor, six months into office, announcing that we’re spending £13billion more on weapons and taking £5billion out of personal independence payments and reducing overseas aid to the lowest level in my lifetime. I am appalled.”

The former Labour Party leader and now independent MP for Islington North added: “It’s a mindset that a successful economy is one where you’ve got super-rich people that have been successful.

“If you look at the pattern of living standards, welfare payments and security in society, over the past 50 years, where there’s been a constant reduction in the tax costs for the richest, you’ve got more and more inequality and more and more poverty.

Jeremy Corbyn MP

“So if we’re serious about redressing the balance then you’ve got to start somewhere. I say start with a wealth tax.”

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “We inherited a fundamentally broken welfare system from the previous government. It does not work for the people it is supposed to support, businesses who need workers or taxpayers who foot the bill.

“This government will always protect the most severely disabled people to live with dignity.

“But we’re not prepared to stand back and do nothing while millions of people – especially young people – who have potential to work and live independent lives, instead, become trapped out of work and abandoned by the system. It would be morally bankrupt to let their life chances waste away.”