Why the eugenicist Tory two-child policy has to go

The Tory two-child policy is a morally unjustifiable abomination that needs to be scrapped.

The morally unjustifiable Tory two-child limit on social security was proposed by George Osborne in 2015, and implemented in 2017.

Since then it’s driven hundreds of thousands of families into poverty, purely because the Tories want to economically punish ordinary people for having larger than average families.

Meanwhile senior Tory figures like Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg have created significantly above average sized families of their own. Rees-Mogg has six children, and nobody besides the man himself know how many more kids Boris Johnson has besides the official tally of seven.

The idea that poor and ordinary people must be economically sanctioned for having more than two kids while the rich are free to have Victorian era numbers of kids of their own is eugenics.

As a result of the two-child policy almost 80% of families with more than three children are now living in poverty.

The percentage of children from large families growing up in poverty has never been higher since records began. Source George Eaton

We know that growing up in poverty is the strongest determinant of success in adult life. Of course it’s possible for people to escape poverty, but thanks to Tory eugenics, the more siblings a kid has today, the more likely they are to be growing up without the healthy and sufficient food, decent accommodation, Internet access, study materials, extra curricular activities … that they need to thrive.

It’s beyond absurd that a political party that often makes such a song and dance about “the nanny state” and “government interference in people’s lives” is intent on using eugenics to economically punish families that have “too many” children.

Either you believe that the state should provide social security to support families in raising their kids, or you don’t. Dictating the acceptable number of kids to have via withdrawal of social support is eugenics, plain and simple, and a brazen example of government interference in people’s lives.

Moral responsibility for this abomination lies with the Conservative party that implemented it, but Keir Starmer has stated that Labour would continue with it because he’s intent on smoking the same austerity crack pipe the Tories have been huffing for thirteen ruinous years.

This lamentable decision to stick with Tory eugenics contrasts sharply with Starmer’s stated position when he was running for the Labour leadership, when he insisted Labour must scrap it, while his deputy leader Angela Rayner described it as “obscene” and “inhumane”.

What was once “obscene” and “inhumane” is now Labour Party policy

Even if economic circumstances have changed so much that the Labour leadership considers it ‘unaffordable’ to minimise the number of children growing up in destitution, this U-turn once again exposes the party leadership as liars who will say one thing to get their hands on power, and then vow to do the polar opposite once they’ve tricked people into voting for them.

And if they’re willing to lie to the Labour Party membership about scrapping something as “obscene” and “inhumane” as Tory eugenics, who on earth would be gullible enough to believe any pledges they make to the public during a general election campaign?

Having watched the Labour Party rot away from the head down over the last three years, with virtually no fightback from the Labour-left, the so-called “soft left” the trade unions, or the party membership, it’s difficult to see how the Labour leadership can be pressurised into not continuing with an “obscene” and “inhumane” policy that they said needed to be scrapped.

Even elements of the Labour right must be quietly dismayed at Starmer’s endorsement of Tory eugenics, given their (correct) assertions that things like Child Tax Credits, Sure Start, and significant reductions in child poverty rates were amongst the biggest achievements of Tony Blair’s stint as Prime Minister.

Do Labour Party members honestly believe that vast numbers of kids must continue to be condemned to poverty because they were born into larger than average families, purely so the Labour Party can appeal to “fiscal conservatives” who haven’t had enough of austerity ruination yet?

I honestly don’t think so.

But will they have the guts and moral decency to stand up and demand better, knowing that they will face the wrath of Starmer’s disciplinary goons for daring to go “off message”?

Given the evidence of the last three years, I have my doubts.