Join the fight to stop budget cuts to the disabled #voiceoftheignored
Will you be part of positive action to protect disabled people from further government cuts?
A new petition has been launched to stop the government from cutting the budgets of people with disabilities – and a Facebook and Twitter ‘storm’ at 5pm today (Sunday) is intended to amplify the “voice of the ignored”.
On the petition site at Change.org, Labour councillor Joshua Brandwood, writing for the Online Militant Disabled Movement, explained: “We are about giving a voice to disabled people through the usage of social media.
“Central government have planned to localise the Independent Living Fund (ILF), which leaves many unsure and sceptical about how they are going to live independently.
“Mainstream media claim that this won’t impact ILF claimants. However, after consulting with many disabled individuals, it has definitely become apparent that the impact is very real and something needs to be done.
“This petition aims to stop further budgetary reductions to society’s most vulnerable. We should be focusing on looking after one another.”
He added that signatories’ political views are irrelevant: “We are uniting to fight for our human rights.”
The social media ‘storm’ will begin at 5pm today (Sunday) using the hashtag #voiceoftheignored.
The plight of the disabled and long-term sick has become a hot topic – initially because of This Blog’s Freedom of Information request, forcing the DWP to admit the number of Employment and Support Allowance claimants who have died since the assessment system was changed by Iain Duncan Smith, and more recently because disabled protesters tried to storm the House of Commons on Wednesday to protest against the closure of the Independent Living Fund (ILF) in England.
Campaigners fear that the ILF’s loss will result in severely disabled people becoming prisoners in their own homes, unable to live independently or contribute in their communities.
The attempt to break into Prime Minister’s Questions has been described by Disabled People Against Cuts as a bid to deliver a letter to the Speaker, John Bercow.
The letter points out that the ILF closure was decided by the Coalition government, without a democratic vote in Parliament – and means that, from Tuesday (June 30), the UK will be breaching its commitments to meet the basic human rights of disabled people – as proved by the closure of the fund to new applicants since December 2010, which has placed “intolerable strain on relationships and [denied] disabled people the chance to live an ordinary life.”
The letter continues: “Now, as Local Authorities start to reassess individual support packages and inform disabled people what support we will receive after 30th June 2015, we are fearing for our futures. Currently we pay taxes, we work, we study, we raise our families and make many valuable contributions to society in other ways. The cuts in support that are being handed out to individuals will leave us without dignity, sitting in our own faeces for hours at a time dependent on the kindness of friends, family, neighbours and even strangers just to eat, drink and move.
“We urge the honourable Speaker to ensure that it is our elected Parliament that has a say on whether disabled people in the UK have the right to independent living or whether in the sixth richest nation in the country we are denied the same opportunities to live and to contribute to society.”
This is the choice before the UK’s citizens – able-bodied and disabled – today: Do we sit back like cowards, say “It’s nothing to do with me,” and let others be persecuted until, as Pastor Martin Niemoller stated, they come for us and there’s nobody left to speak in our defence?
Or do we show that we do have a backbone and support the people who need help now – thereby ensuring that none of our supposed public servants ever thinks they can go after anybody else in the same way?
The choice is ours.
Once again: The petition may be found – and signed – here.
Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike
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Mike the reassessments for People’s direct payments and care packages has started our county – yours and mine. I am not optimistic.
I also worry , when under universal credit the govt abolishes the Severe disability Premium, how we are supposed to replace the £50 a week supposed to be for the costs of disability. Some of us are assessed for some of our care charges on this amount- where will it come from for LAs to help towards the cost of care once it disappears?
Well being that they use the Severe Disability Premium as income liable for your LA contribution, if we haven’t got it, then I presume our contributions will have to decrease by the same amount.
It’s not likely though. My contribution is less than the SDP, so the LAs won’t have that! Just like they broke the law when reassessing thousands of people in North Staffordshire by saying ‘we don’t fund that any more’ when those things were assessed needs, which meant they weren’t allowed to just cut them, knowing that as no social worker was assigned they wouldn’t know how to challenge that. Also how they changed the goal-posts when people asked for a financial reassessment after the care reassessment, once they had to start topping up their care with private care over and above their contribution (which the original assessors said that we could put those costs against our contribution but they lied), and the LA took NO account of the extra care or the bedroom tax (my contribution was just reduced by £17 per week, when just my bedroom tax was £25 per week, let alone the new private care), then the LAs will make absolutely sure that they still retain the same contribution from people by just ignoring the loss of SDP, and further changing elements of allowable care.
They know that really sick people won’t challenge it. When I highlighted what I went through on my blog I had offers of support from professionals from around the country, but I was just too ill to have to go through all of that. Apart from physical illness, I was suffering extreme anxiety and unable to go through even more stress. That’s what they bank on, that people won’t stand up for themselves.
I can’t stand another round of cuts though, so next time around I will be fighting.
The attempt to remove the Independent Living Fund from the weakest members of our society shows that David Cameron was a LIAR when he said:
“…Fairness means giving money to help the poorest in society. People who are sick, who are vulnerable, the elderly – I want you to know >>> we will always <<< look after you. That's the sign of a civilised society and it's what I believe…"
… David Cameron 6 Oct 2010
Now try to remove that from the search engines!
What more proof do people need that we no longer live in a "civilised society" under the (s)tory liars?
Namaste