For The Many

So let's be clear on why we believe Jeremy deserves credit for forcing the government to U-turn.

No it wasn't because of IDS.

IDS resigned AFTER the PIP cuts were rowed back on. He did nothing to achieve it. Let's look at the chronology:

The PIP cuts were announced on Friday 11 March. George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith had agreed them. In his Budget statement (Wed 16 Mar), George Osborne re-announced them. Jeremy Corbyn then rose to respond. He made the PIP cuts front and centre of his attack, asking:

“This Budget has unfairness at its very core, paid for by those who can least afford it. The Chancellor could not have made his priorities clearer. While half a million people with disabilities are losing over £1 billion in personal independence payments, corporation tax is being cut and billions handed out in tax cuts to the very wealthy.”

Corbyn returned to this later in his speech:

“Last week we learned that 500,000 people will lose up to £150 per week due to cuts to personal independence payments. I simply ask the Chancellor: if he can finance his Budget giveaways to different sectors, why can he not fund the need for dignity for the disabled people of this country?”

The media immediately picked this up and ran with the sharp contrast of cuts to the disabled combined with largesse to the wealthiest. The pressure mounted, Tory ministers floundered when trying to defend their actions. By the next morning several backbench Tory MPs had started arguing against the cuts

Labour kept up the pressure, with repeated media apprearances by Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Seema Malhotra, Owen Smith and Debbie Abrahams about the unfairness of the Budget.

The next night (Thu 17 Mar) on Question Time, Nicky Morgan under intense pressure from the audience, stated that the PIP cuts were merely “a suggestion”.

The next morning Downing Street confirmed they were not set in stone, and the briefing began against Iain Duncan Smith.

On Friday (18 Mar), after the PIP cuts were relegated from policy to suggestion, Iain Duncan Smith resigned. His spectacular letter of resignation echoed much of what Corbyn had said in his Budget response:

Corbyn Budget response: “The continuation of austerity that he has confirmed today … is a political choice, not an economic necessity”

Duncan Smith resignation letter: “self-imposed restraints that I believe are more and more perceived as distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest”

Corbyn Budget response: “In 2010, he and the Prime Minister claimed, “We’re all in it together.” The Chancellor promised this House that the richest would “pay more than the poorest, not just in terms of cash but as a proportion of income as well.” [Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 179.]. So let me tell him how that has turned out. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent organisation, found that “the poorest have” suffered “the greatest proportionate losses.”

Duncan Smith resignation letter: “I hope as the government goes forward you can look again, however, at the balance of the cuts you have insisted upon and wonder if enough has been done to ensure "we are all in this together"”

Iain Duncan Smith has implemented benefit misery on the disabled, on the low paid and the unemployed for six years.

The idea that he suddenly felt a pang of conscience over this cut is fanciful. He quit because he was hung out to dry by a government floundering in response to a relentless onslaught on their unfair Budget. That onslaught was instigated and perpetuated by Jeremy Corbyn.

The credit for the reversal of PIP cuts clearly goes to Jeremy Corbyn.