Chris Baugh condemns Universal Credit social catastrophe

On Thursday 24th January, a public meeting by Stop & Scrap Universal Credit Haringey (SSUCH) was attended by about 100 people.

One of the platform speakers was Chris Baugh, assistant general secretary of the civil service trade union PCS, and a Socialist Party member.

Chris called for the social catastrophe of Universal Credit to be scrapped. He also likened it to “a car crash in slow motion”.

As well as criticising Tory cuts to welfare over the decades, he pointed out that the New Labour governments did this too. This fact was echoed by other platform speakers and from audience contributions.

Chris made the case for trade unions to work with community activists to provide benefit advice and support for claimants and fight for an alternative social security system as called for in a recently published PCS pamphlet.

John Dolan, North London Socialist Party