Exclusive by @ChaplainChloe Labour MPs warn Andy Burnham he’ll lose their support if he makes “punitive” welfare cuts. It’s the first warning to the new PM from the party’s left After Burnham’s comments about cutting the welfare bill on Monday, one MP says he has to be careful not to repeat Keir Starmer’s mistake of focusing on savings rather than fairness. Without proper engagement with MPs he risks having cuts blocked by the party, they say Another Labour MP, Kim Johnson, says she’s concerned the appointment of John Healey as chancellor “signals a return to a ‘warfare, not welfare’ approach” “If the new leadership believes it can revive the failed politics of welfare cuts instead of asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share, it will be repeating not only Keir Starmer’s mistakes but fourteen years of Tory austerity,” Johnson said. “If the first instinct of a new leadership is to target disabled people and low-income families rather than challenge the wealth and inequality at the top of society, then nothing has been learned” John McDonnell says welfare reform “must be based upon a strategy of providing positive support to people rather than punitive sanction” bloomberg.com/news/articles/…