Back in April, I sent an open letter to the Prime Minister, Chancellor, and Work and Pensions Secretary, warning that Labour’s planned changes to disability benefits — including the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) — would lead to poverty, despair, and death.

At the time, it felt like shouting into the wind.

But now, that warning has been confirmed — in unflinching terms — by one of the UK’s leading authorities on benefit reform.

Mo Stewart, a long-time critic of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and an independent researcher into the harms caused by “welfare reforms,” has sent a briefing note to Labour MPs opposing the planned legislation.

It’s a devastating indictment of what’s coming — and it matches point-for-point much of what I wrote weeks ago.

“Preventable harm” – a government choice

Mo, who is a friend and occasional contributor to This Site, begins her briefing with a stark statement: “For those in greatest need we are living in very dark times in the UK.”

She’s referring to the Pathways to Work Green Paper, the vehicle for Labour’s new assault on PIP, which is currently out for consultation but is widely expected to lead to primary legislation restricting access to support for sick and disabled people.

And like my open letter, her briefing dismantles the government’s justification.

Ministers claim that 2.8 million people are “out of work and classed as long-term sick” — as though this is excessive.

But Mo reminds us that in 2005, the figure was 2.7 million.

With an ageing population, a pandemic backlog, and a national health crisis, an increase of just 100,000 over 20 years is hardly a scandal — unless your goal is to demonise claimants.

No impact assessment. No moral compass.

Mo doesn’t hold back: she states clearly that these changes are being pushed for fiscal reasons only — a grab for £5 billion in cuts — with no impact assessment and no regard for the human cost.

“Once again DWP Ministers’ claims have failed to include any impact assessment prior to these suggested policy changes,” she writes.

And the expected consequences? A spike in poverty, a deterioration in mental health, and a rise in suicides.

Does that seem familiar?

In my open letter, I warned that benefit reform from 2010 to 2019 led to more than 100,000 deaths, increased mental illness, and caused thousands of cases of suicidal ideation. Mo confirms this history — and warns that we are about to repeat it.

Not an outlier — a pattern

She is especially scathing about the ideology behind the reforms.

She names it plainly: neoliberalism – a politics of “power, profit and greed”, in which benefit claimants are treated as a burden — not as people in need of support.

The system, she writes, has “no moral compass.”

Again, this aligns precisely with what I’ve documented over years of reporting: from McVey’s cruelty to DWP data suppression, from the Bedroom Tax to Universal Credit chaos.

The only surprise is that it’s now being pushed by a Labour government, not a Tory one.

A public health crisis — and nobody held to account

Perhaps the most damning line in Stewart’s briefing is this:

“More chronically ill and disabled people are destined to suffer if the planned changes to access to the PIP benefit are adopted, with no-one held to account when many of those in greatest need are, covertly, killed by the State.”

That isn’t hyperbole.

It’s an informed judgement — backed by years of research, parliamentary inquiries, UN reports, and coroners’ warnings.

And it confirms what I said directly to Keir Starmer and Liz Kendall: you cannot say you did not know.

What you can do

If you are a Labour MP reading this – after reading Mo’s briefing note, quite possibly – the evidence is clear.

You cannot defend these policies.

You cannot vote for them in good conscience.

You must stand against them.

If you’re a reader, a campaigner, or someone affected by these plans: share this article, tell others about Mo Stewart’s briefing, and make sure your MP hears your voice.

The time for polite silence is over.

The facts are known.

The warnings have been issued.

Let nobody say we did not speak up.