Jeffs posts
This group is established to galvanise opposition to the current vicious attack on the fundamental human rights of disabled people by the Government of the United Kingdom utilising “Work Capability Assessments” (as administered by ‘AtoS Healthcare Ltd’ on behalf of the Department of Work and Pensions ‘DWP’) to re-classify sick and disabled individuals as “fit for work” – in flagrant violation of all accepted medical, and human, ethical standards.
This crime against sick and/or disabled people is being carried out at the behest of heartless, amoral, opportunistic British political élites, from all sides of the political spectrum, whom obscenely arrogate to themselves the titles of being “just” and “civilised” members of the human race. They merit only the contempt, oppobrium and disgust of all decent, caring people everywhere for their shameful conduct in betraying many of the most vulnerable people in our society in order to make ‘political capital’ – also known as ‘scapegoating’.
Sick and/or disabled people are not ‘Vulnerable’ of themselves – we have been rendered so by the disgraceful, despicable treatment meted out by the hands of these political élites who have abdicated their civic duties and responsibilities to disabled people, and by so doing have abandoned many of us to a life of ever-increasing hardship, penury and neglect. How can we not all but feel ashamed to be British while this scandal continues unabated?
Will YOU permit this to continue?
Each one of us has their duty to do whatever we can to oppose and bring an immediate end to this barbarism. Whether you study the facts herein and disseminate them in order to counter government-sponsored myths about disabled people and social security, or you choose to become more actively involved in our disability rights activist community
Posted by jeffrey davies] on 22 July 2017
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jeffs posts
The government is pressing ahead with the roll-out of its Universal Credit (UC) replacement to the benefits system in spite of huge delays and problems – and continuing problems so ingrained that foodbank use has increased sharply in every area where is has been implemented.
UC contains a draconian set of provisions, including a ‘Claimant Commitment’ (CC) – a set of imposed requirements to which the claimant has no right of appeal whatever. As the government’s guidance on CCs states:
There is no right of appeal if a claimant refuses to accept their Claimant Commitment and the requirements that have been set out in it.
A JCP adviser – who might be incompetent, inexperienced, bitter, have a personality clash with the claimant or just simply be having a bad day – is the final arbiter of whether a CC is reasonable and achievable, and even a patently bad decision cannot be appealed for a higher opinion.
And if a claimant refuses to sign?
If the claimant still refuses to accept their Claimant Commitment then he or she will no longer be entitled to claim Universal Credit.
All this is bad enough – inhumane enough. But there is worse. An activist contacted the SKWAWKBOX to highlight an even more sinister aspect to UC and the CC:
Nobody is mentioning the JSA equivalent time out clause, 24 months to find a job or you are sanctioned for one year.
That is 100% across the board sanctioning. Basically, 24 months to find a job or you are on the streets with zero support.
UC calls this conditionality, a claimant under full conditionality has a set time to find work if they are unsuccessful then they are sanctioned for 1 year. It’s one of the most dangerous aspects of UC, that has been pretty much swept under the carpet.
A fixed time to find a job – or a one-year sanction? A sanction is the immediate and complete removal of support. Anyone who has seen Ken Loach’s superb I, Daniel Blake knows how devastating this is and what the consequences can be.
And the most hideous aspect of this hideous system is that it applies to disabled people. Two years to find work or you’re cut off from support.
It’s hard to imagine that this could be true, that anyone could be so lacking in humanity as to devise such a system, let alone enforce it. But it is true. A DWP insider told the SKWAWKBOX:
Posted by jeffrey davies on 18 July 2017
