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From: The Socialist issue 832, 5 November 2014: Cold, cruel cuts: Fight the Con-Dem attacks

Search site for keywords: Employment and Support Allowance - Cuts - Government - Disabled - Rich - ESA

Government hits sick and disabled

Cold, cruel cuts

Fight the Con-Dem attacks

Disabled people and their families protest in central London against government spending cuts, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Mary Jackson

The government onslaught of attacks on the sick, disabled and terminally ill looks set to increase rapidly. Leaked plans show that Tory Chancellor George Osborne wants to savagely cut Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). If implemented, some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people could see their weekly income slashed by £30 a week.

Despite the staggering human cost, Osborne's grand plan is to cut welfare spending by an extra £25 billion - while slashing corporation tax and the top rate of income tax.

The government is in crisis. Bailing out the banks and capitalist financial system has meant that it's borrowed more in four years than Labour did in 13 - giving £8 billion direct to the rich in tax cuts and the rest to its rich friends in payment to run (or in fact cut) public services. Not that Labour was any different in kicking the poor when last in office.

Osborne and his ilk lie about the 'soaring benefit bill' for ESA. In fact it's falling. They lie about thousands falsely claiming to be sick when in fact a quarter of a million sick and disabled people have overturned the decision that they are 'fit for work', and an estimated 60,000 have died within three months of the decision.

562,620 have been found 'fit' for the work programme (run by private companies, paid millions from our taxes) but only 5% have been 'supported' into sustained work.

Instead of accepting the work test is flawed Osborne has decided to cut ESA almost to the level of Jobseeker's Allowance.

Doctors, MPs, charities, PCS union members (who work at the Department for Work and Pensions) and disability groups all believe the test should be scrapped. But this government is on a mission to make the working class pay for the capitalist crisis and is hitting the most vulnerable as an easy, unorganised target.

This isn't a fight that benefit claimants can fight alone. It's a battle that must be fought alongside the organised working class. We need a 24-hour general strike as a starting point to end austerity, and to restore our decimated services. We need benefits to reflect the cost of living.

All this and more is possible. After all, we live in one of the richest countries in the world. Let's change it so that the majority benefit, not the few super-rich.

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Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.