British Prime Minister Theresa May's Tory government 'enjoys' making Britons poorer: Labour Member of Parliament

British Prime Minister Theresa May (Photo by AFP)

The government of UK Prime Minister Theresa May “enjoys making people poorer,” a Labour Member of Parliament says, accusing the ruling Tories of undertaking “cold-hearted” policies that serve their own political interests rather than the public.

Laura Pidcock, who made her way into the House of Commons in the June 8 snap general election, wrote in an article that her first day in the parliament was enough for her to realize how detached the Conservatives were from ordinary people.

The MP particularly slammed the pro-government lawmakers for their refusal to lift the pay freeze “on poorly paid and undervalued public sector workers,” a controversial Labour amendment to the Tory agenda that was voted down 323-309 last week.

“In their glory, the Conservatives cheered. They laughed, they smiled, and gestured to us like kids in a playground,” she said of Tory lawmakers after the vote, describing their reactions as “blood-curdling.” 

“To laugh at freezing a person’s wages is grotesque, and proof that they are completely disconnected from the people they have the privilege to represent,” she wrote in an article published by The Guardian on Wednesday.

Labour MP Laura Pidcock

The Conservatives took pride in their vote, with pro-government media touting it as a “humiliating” defeat for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The vote stirred public backlash. Some of the lawmakers admitted that although they supported a pay raise for the public sector they did not want to vote for a Labour bill to authorize it.

Pidcock said in her article that the British people were “sadly still governed by a party that is comfortable with poverty, and happy to leave people destitute through its sanctions regime.”

Under Corbyn’s leadership, Labour has long been pushing for a pay raise in the public sector, a plan that goes against May’s austerity measures and is largely viewed by members of her party as a “political game.”

“The Tories are ruthless protectors of their power, and they have shown they will stop at nothing to cling on to it,” Pidcock said.

The North West Durham MP argued that there was still hope since the outcome of the recent general election showed that a “powerful mass movement” was getting stronger in changing the status quo and “I don’t think it will be long until their energies are rewarded.”