KATE OSBORNE: We must resist the politics of hate

As with many areas, this Government has misled and attempted to gaslight the country – disregarding the reality that people are financially and emotionally desperate for this to be over – they have waited decades for justice and cannot afford to wait any longer.

On Monday I spoke in the Government’s urgent statement and pointed out that Postmasters have no trust or faith in the compensation processes being handled by the Post Office or Government.

There are still huge inequalities in the compensation schemes and the Post Office still have undue influence over the process.

What we need to see is full compensation, legislation to overturn the wrongful convictions before the next General Election and people held to account for this scandal.

In response to my question in the Chamber, in the Select Committee and just yesterday in response to an Urgent Question, Conservative Ministers and MPs seem more concerned with defending each other than delivering justice for the sub-postmasters.

The contempt with which the Tory MPs treat people is on display for all to see – they attempted to shout me down at PMQs, they jeered when Keir Starmer mentioned Jarrow constituent Chris Head and his long-standing fight for justice – and of course, it is not just in relation to sub-postmasters.

They have contempt for people – for ordinary working-class people – more than contempt, it’s hate and it’s increasingly visible.

From their attacks on workers to the way they talk about people who rely on local authority services, to the disdainful way they speak about people who are waiting on local authority housing lists or in temporary accommodation, to the vilification of refugees and their continued escalation of the war on woke with attacks on the LGBTQ community – their hatred is on display and they want us all to focus in on that – as long as we all fall for this divide and rule strategy they can get away with continuing to hand out contracts worth billions of pounds to their mates.

We have the highest tax burden since World War Two – people paying more tax than ever, more Council Tax, more on their energy bills, more on food costs – and where is the money going? All into the coffers of the Tory party and their cronies – the gap between the richest 1% and the rest of us is growing, more people are pushed into poverty every day and wages are still stagnating.

For workers, the Tories’ only rhetoric is attack, to threaten people with the sack if they try to take strike action to secure better pay and conditions.

Locally my office is contacted every day by people who cannot afford to pay their bills, who are about to lose their homes – people who thought of themselves as relatively well off – couples who both work and both earn more than the average wage who now cannot afford to pay the bills.

As one constituent who spoke to me said nowadays being well off in this country just means I’m lucky enough not to have to rely on foodbanks every week.

This is not right – in one of the richest countries in the world the majority of people are struggling, and our public services are on their knees.

We cannot cope with much more of this callous Government.

We must resist the politics of hate – everyone who speaks to my office is angry and desperate, angry at the lack of housing, angry at their kids having no safe spaces to play, angry that they can’t get a dentist appointment, angry at waiting months to see an NHS consultant – this Government want us to turn that anger against each other and fight for scraps.

Don’t let them – focus that anger on those responsible for the lack of housing, the destruction of public services and policing – this Government.

We will soon have a General Election and we can defeat this miserabilist Tory politics of divide and decline.

In that General Election, we can offer hope that we will rebuild our country, that we will put people over profit, that we will invest in public services, that we will invest in people.

A Labour government will build homes, will make work pay with a genuine living wage, will give workers more security, with an end to zero-hours contracts and fire and rehire, better sick pay, parental leave and day-one rights at work – our New Deal for promises all of this and of course as always it will be a Labour Government that saves our NHS.

The General Election cannot come soon enough – but until it does resist the Tory hate.