Today In Dublin Protesters Marched Against Cuts – Welfare Cuts Never Heal (Photo credit: infomatique)
The UK government’s austerity agenda has attracted a good deal of criticism, and large numbers of campaigns, local and national, have emerged to resist either specific cuts or the broad direction in which the Coalition is leading the question. In Westminster, the growing discord surrounding what are increasingly seen to be unfair “reforms” to public services has translated into levels of support for the Labour Party unseen since 1995, two years before Tony Blair led the party to a landslide election victory.
The hard-left, which is enjoying a quiet yet substantial growth in numbers, says that Labour’s position is unsatisfactory; pointing out that Labour has admitted that it would have to make some spending cuts even if they are elected in 2015. The party’s position is that it must be seen to be fiscally responsible, but it is committed to a fair distribution of the pain (with tax rises on the affluent used to reduce depth of spending cuts) and it recognises the value of Keynesian investment in the economy. Nevertheless, hardliners express a wish for a guarantee that Labour will not make any reductions in public spending at all, even if this means drastic tax rises or the running of a budget deficit in perpetuity. Though most would accept these as unrealistic, real questions are raised as to the difficult balance that the Opposition would have to achieve between its principles of defending the vulnerable in society and its need to have a credible spending policy.
Nowhere is this so keenly felt as with the provision of benefits to the disabled. The prolific WOW petition campaign is lobbying Parliament and all major political parties to support its call for a complete repeal of the Welfare Reform Act; an end to Work Capability Assessments (in which outsourcing firms such as A4E and Atos subject benefit claimants to often gruelling and humiliating assessments in which doctors are incentivised to classify claimants as “fit to work”); and an “an independent, committee-based Inquiry into Welfare Reform”. The inquiry would have a broad ranging remit to examine the impact of all cuts affecting the disabled and those close to them and whether disability services are available to a sufficient extent. Additionally, the petition calls for this inquiry to study strongly worded, but not untrue, allegations of “human rights abuses against disabled people, excess claimant deaths and the disregard of medical evidence in decision making by ATOS, the Department for Work & Pensions and the Tribunal Service [the ultimate appeals body for benefit claims disputes].”
The well-organised campaign as caused a stir in left-wing circles, even if it has to date attracted only 20,000 of the 100,000 signatures needed to secure a debate in Parliament. To a socialist, there is no denying that most of the points of the petition are badly needed by the disadvantaged. Stories of terminal cancer patients being told to find work, of depression sufferers being hounded by the likes of A4E after suicide attempts, and of wheelchair users being expected to find a job “stacking shelves at Tesco”, are not ones which a civilised society should be unmoved by. But if Labour were to promise to rebuild a secure safety net for the disabled, they would be subjected to accusations that they were making “unrealistic spending promises”.
Nevertheless, the divisive Conservative rhetoric about “scroungers” is starting to be rejected by the public, who are now seeing that the cuts are hurting those who already have real hardship in their lives, and not the supposed army of feckless, armchair-residing workshy who one would imagine all reside in palatial central London housing, if the tabloid stories were to be believed. Labour can get its message heard if it is forceful and insistent in making it. Let that message be one of supporting those who are down on their luck, and let us all be granted piece of mind and a clear conscience. After all, nobody else has both the will and the strength to stand up for them.
