Tory leadership contender Suella Braverman slammed for demonising the poor

Braverman of course completely overlooks the fact that 56% of people in poverty in the UK are in a working family and 7 in 10 children in child poverty are in a family where at least one parent works.

Braverman

Tory leadership hopeful Suella Braverman has been slammed for demonising the poor after claiming that there are too many people in the country who are on benefits, as she provided no evidence for her claims despite over a decade of brutal Tory cuts to the welfare system.

Speaking to ITV, Braverman said: “I think we need to look at some of our government budgets, I think we spend too much on welfare, there are too many people in this country who of working age, who are of good health, and who are choosing to rely on benefits”.

Her comments drew an immediate backlash, with Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation tweeting in reply: “Who are these too many people? Where are they? The case load challenges for the benefits system are on the disability side these days. Very few households without someone with a health condition are workless.”

Braverman of course completely overlooks the fact that 56% of people in poverty in the UK are in a working family and 7 in 10 children in child poverty are in a family where at least one parent works.

One social media user wrote in response to the clip: “I’ve always said that with things like Little Britain, Benefit Street, Jeremy Kyle the British working class has been demonised. This woman is a perfect example of it. I live in the alleged ‘affluent south’ and we have dual income families relying on food banks. She’s a disgrace.”

Labour MP Christian Wakeford tweeted: “Morning Suella, 1999 called and they want their scapegoat back.

“We can talk about work being the best route out of poverty but when the majority of people on benefits are *in work* I am afraid this is just a fallacy.”

A twitter user wrote: “This is proper retro stuff! Next she’ll be saying all the people on benefits have flatscreen TVs like there’s been any other kind of TV for 15+ years.”

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

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