WHY on earth did Labour abstain in the vote on the Welfare Bill this week?

The only logical conclusion people will reach is the party doesn’t feel strongly enough about the cuts to benefits to register its opposition.

Therefore people will assume that the party is sufficiently satisfied with the austerity agenda to allow its passage through the Commons.

To abstain on Tory welfare cuts is like turning a blind eye when a thug kicks a beggar.

The Labour position is more about politics than protecting those who will be affected by the Chancellor’s cuts and Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reform agenda.

It shows no understanding of the plight of people affected by benefit sanctions, and struggling to get by on a fraction of an MP’s earnings.

It is ignoring the cries of hungry children forced into poverty through no fault of their own or their parents.

The logic appears to be if people voted for the Tories then the country must want austerity and benefits cuts.

Therefore if Labour wants power then it has to win these people back and backing the austerity agenda is how to do it.

Three of the four UK Labour leadership contenders abstained in the vote, only Jeremy Corbyn voted against with 47 of his colleagues.

This approach is only concerned with how to win an election.

If Labour is to be more like the Tories in order to win an election then they offer no alternative to the public, no opposition and ultimately no hope.

The only difference is whose hands are on the axe.

That strategy has only the interest of the Labour Party at heart and securing victory is all that matters.

If fails to understand that winning an election is not like winning a football match.

Winning an election is only the beginning and then what you do with the power is what is important.

The more Labour chases Tory votes in ‘middle England’ the more it will lose votes in those parts of the country it could once call ‘heartlands’.

In May, in Scotland the voters sent a clear message it wanted opposition to austerity.

In England the voters backed the Tories to carry on with their assault on the poor.

Labour is being torn in two and if it seeks to follow the path of chasing votes by not opposing austerity at a UK level it is writing of the party north of the border.

Some may be comfortable with that sacrifice, but to do so is to abandon the party’s core principles, which it should be promoting and championing, winning people round by conviction and the force of the argument.

That’s what a political party needs from its leader.