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Frances Ryan, writing in The Guardian, has summed up a disturbing shift in Labour’s rhetoric:

“No.10 is starting its new narrative: ‘We can’t stop the two child limit ‘cos they made us U-turn on disability benefits.’”

Her point is simple, and it’s one Labour needs to hear loud and clear: poverty isn’t a zero-sum game.

The idea that helping disabled people somehow rules out helping children – or vice versa – is a deeply cynical political framing that has no basis in economic reality.

It’s a narrative designed to stoke division among the poorest in society while leaving the super-wealthy untouched.

A manufactured dilemma

The two-child limit – a cruel Conservative-era policy that punishes families for having more than two children – pushes roughly 100 children into poverty every day.

Labour previously opposed the cap, but now appears to be rowing back, citing affordability concerns (according to Dr Ryan) after pressure to reverse other unpopular welfare reforms, particularly regarding disability benefits.

This is a false dilemma.

There is no serious economic argument that says a wealthy G7 nation like the UK cannot afford to protect both disabled people and children from poverty.

What we’re witnessing is not financial necessity – it’s political cowardice, dressed up as tough fiscal discipline.

The money is there

The UK is an extraordinarily wealthy country.

But that wealth is hoarded at the top.

The richest one per cent hold more than 20 per cent of national wealth.

A small wealth tax, a fairer income tax system, reversing recent tax cuts, clamping down on tax avoidance – any of these measures would more than cover the cost of scrapping the two-child limit and strengthening support for disabled people.

In fact, organisations from the Institute for Fiscal Studies to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have consistently pointed out that eradicating the two-child limit would lift 250,000 children out of poverty almost overnight.

Experts have also offered numerous costed solutions.

Labour cannot claim ignorance.

This is a choice.

Divide and conquer: an old trick

Pitting disabled people against low-income families is a page straight out of the Conservative playbook.

The politics of scarcity – telling the public “we can’t help everyone” – is designed to lower expectations and break solidarity.

It’s a strategy that says, implicitly: if you’re struggling, blame your neighbour, not the system.

But the truth is, disabled people and families with children often overlap.

Nearly half of all children in poverty live in households where someone is disabled.

There is no clean divide between “child poverty” and “disability poverty” – they are mutually reinforcing.

Labour’s moral test

Labour has an opportunity – and a responsibility – to set a new direction.

The party once stood for solidarity and universal social justice.

Instead, we are now seeing a dangerous drift toward technocratic austerity, cloaked in the language of pragmatism.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have repeatedly said they want to make “tough choices.”

Tough for whom?

It’s always the vulnerable who are asked to tighten their belts, while billionaires and big corporations get sweetheart deals and tax loopholes.

Frances Ryan is right: this isn’t a contest between children and disabled people.

It’s a test of Labour’s values.

And the party is failing it.

There is another way

We should refuse to accept this artificial scarcity. The truth is simple:

• We can afford to scrap the two-child limit.

• We can afford to properly support disabled people.

• We can pay for it by taxing extreme wealth and cracking down on avoidance.

• We must stop pitting one vulnerable group against another.

Vox Political stands with Frances Ryan, and with the millions of people in this country who deserve more than false choices and calculated neglect.

It’s time Labour MPs remembered who they are supposed to be fighting for.

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