Labour’s Betrayal of Your Children in Newcastle: What We Did at Chi Onwurah’s Office
A group of people gathered outside a red brick building for a protest organized by Food & Solidarity. In the foreground, two individuals hold up a bag of pastries with bold text reading 'No More Growing Up Poor!' The flyer includes a QR code and details about the protest. Behind them, volunteers stand behind a table handing out food, including boxes of Greggs pastries and fruit. Other participants are engaged in conversation or distributing leaflets. A banner with the word 'SOLIDARITY' is visible on the table, and a handmade sign on the fence reads 'ALWAYS MONEY FOR WAR NEVER MONEY FOR THE POOR.'
Last Saturday, we picketed Chi Onwurah’s office, making it clear that Labour’s continued commitment to cruel austerity policies will not go unchallenged. We set up a Food & Solidarity ballot box, handing out sweet pastries (Greggs) and fruit to people passing by, inviting them to vote on the policies they actually want to see. While Labour refuses to stand up for our communities, we created a space for people to have their say.
The day before and as part of the No More Growing Up Poor campaign, EPAC in Edinburgh shut down the office for the Secretary of State for Scotland.
"Why Is This Government Making It So Hard for Our Kids?"
That’s the question Chi Onwurah herself asked in 2023. But now, with a change in government on the horizon, there’s still no commitment from Labour to scrap the policies that are keeping children in poverty.
Ahead of Saturday’s action, Food & Solidarity sent a letter to Chi Onwurah demanding that she publicly support the immediate scrapping of the Benefit Caps and No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) by March 21st. These policies are direct drivers of child poverty, forcing families into deeper destitution. Labour has refused to commit to ending them, choosing instead to continue the same cruel austerity that has devastated working-class families for over a decade. When Chi Onwurah failed to respond to our deadline, we escalated.
Speech at the Action
I want to speak first about the people who aren’t here at this event today, people so scared by the recent announcements that they couldn’t leave the house. In addition to them, I want us to remember the people already lost to starvation and suicide due to despair because of Tory decisions that Labour will not change.
I don’t know WHY Chi Onwurah thinks the people of this city would EVER vote for her again when she’s not stood up for us against Keir Starmer. It seems like there’s nothing she won’t stand aside and let him to do us. Little mealy-mouthed objections mean nothing in the face of the all-out ASSAULT on the vulnerable across this country and in her constituency.
I wanted to believe in her, that she would do right by us. I’ve never had a representative who looked like me before moving into her constituency. It MEANT something to me to have that, but it means nothing if she can’t stand up to racist policies like No Recourse to Public Funds that traps the kids living in Elswick in an even higher rate of poverty than the white kids in the same part of the city.
All of this cruelty is a choice, we DEMAND Labour make different choices!
A quest to out-Tory the Tories is not what the people of this country and this city voted for. What stupidity!
Chi Onwurah, you better go tell your friends Liz Kendall and Rachel Reeves that they have miscalculated this whole situation. We are NOT going to stand for , and we’re not going to be fooled by minor climb downs they have planned in advance, we’re not stupid. We’ve not been broken by 14 years of Tory austerity, we’ve been tempered by it, we are battle-hardened. You will not get us to accept defeat by throwing new terrible things our way. We are too smart for that now!
The F&S Ballot Box: What Do the People of Newcastle Really Want?
We are pretty sure this all-out assault on the vulnerable is not what anyone voted for, so we wanted to ask the people of Newcastle what policies they would like to vote for. We made our own ballot box and ballots. Further, we put our three No More Growing Up Poor demands on it and left spaces for people’s own brilliant ideas to demand Chi Onwurah support. People passing by had a lot of wonderful suggestions we’d love to see Labour turn into reality, instead of the grim and hope-destroying continuing austerity they come up with new ways to implement each week.
After counting the 93 ballots and reading all 56 of the policy suggestions, we created a word cloud reflecting the policies people voted for. The largest words represent the most popular policies we demand Chi Onwurah publicly support. None of these are a mandate for continued austerity, all of them call on her to stand up for the vulnerable people of our city, particularly children.
Apart from our three demands, which the overwhelming majority of people supported, there were calls for free school meals for all children up to age 18, strong demands to tax the rich, a demand for free public transport, a demand that people should be able to buy themselves homes whilst working for minimum wage, a range of calls for a more generous, less punitive benefits system, including an end to the attacks on disability benefits which the government are currently proposing, and many, many more.
Chi, Will You Listen to Newcastle?
We provided sweet pastries and fruit because we believe in solidarity, not charity. But we shouldn’t have to do this. Food banks and community groups cannot replace the responsibility of an elected government to ensure people can live with dignity. Labour must listen to the people of Newcastle, not the rotten ideologues running this government who don’t care about our survival. We are not going anywhere.
Get Involved
Based elsewhere in the UK and want to do this to your local Labour politicians? Get in touch and set up a one-to-one to discuss how this can happen!
Labour’s shock doctrine won’t work on us! Abolish NRPF and benefit caps! Stop attacking vulnerable people in society and go after the rich instead!
We want to hear no more weeping and wailing from Rachel Reeves or any other MPs defending Labour’s cruel refusals to end austerity and stop kids growing up poor!
