I have never felt that voting was so important. For many people, the result of this election could, quite literally, be a matter of life and death.
I have never felt that voting was so important. For many people, the result of this election could, quite literally, be a matter of life and death.
Today (6 May 2015) the Daily Mirror published an article about the deceased victims of austerity and welfare reform, ‘people who desperately needed the support of the welfare state, but who were treated with brutality, incompetence or indifference’.
The article quotes extracts from a letter signed by one hundred disabled people. This is the letter in full;
‘We are 100 disabled people. We believe that if the Conservative Party was to form the next government, either our own lives or the lives of others in our community would be in profound danger. Dr Simon Duffy of the Centre for Welfare Reform calculated that disabled people have been hit by spending cuts nine times harder than the general population, and those needing social care have been hit nineteen times harder.
Now we read of £12 Billion more cuts, that astonishingly for a party contesting a General Election in a democracy, are being kept secret, although leaks confirm our worst fears that disabled people and carers will once again be the hardest hit. The Conservative Party has issued a constant stream of propaganda to imply we are fraudulent scroungers, which has triggered a rise in hate crimes against us. Repeatedly Ministers mislead the media, becoming so bad that 18 CEO’s of leading charities wrote to David Cameron and ask that he stopped repeating falsehoods. The government’s reaction was to pass legislation to muzzle charities.
Changes have occurred in quick succession, ruining stability and security for disabled people. The Work Capability Assessment is an abusive fake medical carried out not by our doctors who know us, but a private for profit corporation. Combined with the removal of legal aid to appeal wrong decisions, thousands have been left destitute and some are dead.
The closure of the Independent Living Fund leaves over nineteen thousand disabled people facing their essential support and care packages being removed, denying them work, study and family life. The change from Disability Living Allowance to Personal Independence Payment will leave 500,000 disabled people without support. There is a 12 months wait for applications to be processed, destroying people’s ability to stay housed and independent.
Aggressive sanctions and workfare regime have hit disabled people very hard, especially those with mental health impairments and learning disabilities, as has the Bedroom Tax, the cutting of Council Tax Benefit and Local Authority Care provision. The cutting of the Access To Elected Office and Access To Work schemes will lead to our further exclusion from politics and the workplace.
This attack on disabled people’s human rights has gone largely unreported, but is so bad the UK is now the first ever nation to be investigated by the United Nations. Amnesty International passed a motion against the “abrogation of the human rights of sick and disabled people”. The overall feeling of disabled people after five years of these dishonest and abusive polices, is fear and anxiety. It was no surprise to us when Chancellor George Osborne was booed at the Paralympic Games.
Anyone can become disabled at any time. If it were to happen to you, what kind of society would you want to live in?’
You can see the signatories to the letter here
In a televised debate on welfare yesterday, Iain Duncan Smith denied links between deaths, suicides and welfare reform, and denied the existence of a DWP investigation of such deaths. The fact is, in December 2014 a Freedom of Information request from the Disability News Service revealed, “60 peer reviews following the death of a customer” since February 2012. A peer review is triggered when suicide or alleged suicide is “associated with a DWP activity”, according to its internal guidance.
Mr Duncan Smith’s department has also been ordered by the Office of the Information Commissioner to disclose the number of Incapacity Benefit and ESA claimants who have died between November 2011 and May 2014. There are fears that the inhumanity of the system may be leading to the premature deaths of people who are already facing significant health problems.
But these tragic statistics, the figures for deaths, only represent the tip of a very large iceberg of misery and distress. Please read
this heartbreaking account of his partner’s suicide attempt, by Chris John Ball. Thankfully after being unconscious for a week, his partner’s life was saved, but she still lives in fear.
As Chris says, “One can never seem to draw breath before the next letter from the DWP arrives. Your heart stops in fear as you see it pushed through the letterbox. You hold your breath as you open it. What bad news will it bring? What fresh horror has Iain Duncan Smith seen fit to dump upon you today?”
This is why it is no exaggeration to say that the result of the General Election may be a matter of life and death for some. Many people simply cannot take any more.
When I vote tomorrow, I will be voting for Chris’s partner, and the many people like her living in fear and dread.
As the Bishop of Manchester David Walker tweeted yesterday, “OK, Here’s who I’m voting for: The poor The sick The homeless The migrant The foodbank user They really NEED my vote. And yours.”
* More on the issues in the 2015 General Election from Ekklesia: http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/generalelection2015
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© Bernadette Meaden has written about political, religious and social issues for some years, and is strongly influenced by Christian Socialism, liberation theology and the Catholic Worker movement. She is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor. You can follow her on Twitter: @BernaMeaden
Views expressed by individual contributors do not necessarily reflect an official Ekklesia view.