Star date: 21st July 2015

TWO SALFORD MPS VOTE AGAINST WELFARE BILL BUT KEELEY ABSTAINS

"We weren't sent to Parliament to abstain" Dianne Abbott

Barbara Keeley, MP for Worsley and Eccles South, and representing a third of Salford's residents, followed the Labour Party whip and abstained in the vote on the Tory Government's cruel Welfare Bill last night.

The other two Salford MPs, Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) and Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) voted against the Bill which slashes £12billion from welfare.

Full details here...

In a statement, Labour leadership contender, Jeremy Corbyn, made clear why Labour MPs should have voted against the Conservative Government's Welfare Bill last night, which slashes £12billion off benefit spending...

"We introduced tax credits to fill the gap between wages and the cost of living" he said "Osborne's proposals do nothing to close that gap, while taking away the vital lifeline that tax credits have provided. Disabled people were hardest hit by welfare cuts in the last Parliament. Reducing ESA rates to JSA levels will send more disabled people into poverty at a time when poverty in disabled households has hit record highs.

"Freezing working-age benefits for four years will mean more homelessness, more people using food banks, more child poverty and more misery" he added "This Bill is the unspeakable attacking the vulnerable. It is indefensible."

At first, Harriet Harman, Labour's interim leader, said the Party wouldn't be opposing the Welfare Bill at all. But after loads of `what is the point of Labour' social media posts, the whip was for Labour MPs to abstain.

48 MPs defied the Labour Party leadership and voted against the Bill, including Salford and Eccles MP, Rebecca Long Bailey, and Blackley and Broughton MP, Graham Stringer.

The other Salford MP, Barbara Keeley, representing Worsley and Eccles South - which covers Little Hulton, one of the poorest areas in the city – abstained in the vote, allowing the Welfare Bill to sail through by 308 votes in favour to 124 votes against. The Lib Dems, Greens and SNP voted against the Bill.

After the vote Dianne Abbott tweeted "Just voted against the Tory Welfare Bill. Sorry for colleagues who knew it was wrong but abstained. We weren't sent to Parliament to abstain..."

Abby Tomlinson, the teenage creator of 'Milifandom', added "Really worries me that MPs would compromise their principles just to toe party line. If they think the bill is morally wrong – oppose it."

And Harry Smith the 92 year old Labour Party member who spoke in support of the NHS at last year's Labour Conference, tweeted: "To abstain against austerity is to accept austerity...During days of Thatcher, Labour fought her tooth and nail and stood up for the vulnerable but today we washed our hands of them."