Lives Will Be RAVAGED By Labour’s Brutal DWP WCA ‘Reforms’!

Right, so as has been covered in recent days by all manner of media, both mainstream and independent alike, though very much taking different narratives on it, Starmer’s Labour are intent on keeping the same cuts to benefits, the same scale of cuts, to reduce the social security bill by some £3bn, little Miss Labour will be tougher on benefits than the Tories Rachel Reeves, still remembered for that phrase she utterly to horror and disgust all the way back in 2013 now, is now chancellor and is now intent on delivering that, because as she’s also said, though far more recently, she cannot see any justification in taxing the rich more. We all can as ordinary working class people of this country, but especially those of us who have lived under the vicious assault of 14 years of a Tory run Department for Work and Pensions.
Not only are Labour keeping the cuts though, but we now know of some of the planned changes towards assessment that are coming and for as much as news of £3bn in cuts to throw 450,000 people off the support they clearly need, otherwise they would not have been assessed as such for these needs, Labour’s answer under Sir Kid Starver and Rachel Thieves is to change the assessment criteria so more people regardless of need no longer qualify and what they’ve apparently drawn up is terrifying.
Right, so the Tory cuts to benefits, the hopes that getting the Tories out for a lot of disabled people, that they would treated with more compassion and treated like human beings have been dashed, but for people who have paid attention to what those in power have said previously on such matters, it doesn’t come as much surprise, though obviously being right isn’t a gloating matter it comes as cold comfort.
Rachel Reeves has always had it in for those on out of work benefits, swearing in 2013 that under Labour at that point, under the then leadership of Ed Miliband, Labour would be tougher on benefits than the Tories. Not tempered by any claims that those most in need would be protected, no real justification, this former banker and growth obsessed economic idiot just appears to have it in for people not of any economic value in her eyes, they aren’t working, they’re getting money for nothing, this is how it comes across and of course it is absolute nonsense.
Where people are out of work of course they should helped back into it, but not at the end of a whip, to punish them if they struggle with that.
For those with legitimate health concerns for which they have been assessed as needing additional support, such rhetoric is tantamount to assault. It is not their fault they have health issues, especially when so many in recent years have developed them as a result of Tory incompetence of the pandemic and indeed spent money like water on cronies, but now it is the ordinary working class people, many in work despite being disabled, never mind those out of work completely, who are faced with bearing the brunt of that, because we never got the Tories out really, we just changed their faces. The fact Reeves husband Nick Joicey for so many years worked at the DWP under the previous Tory administration I’m sure has no bearing on Reeves’ assault on those with additional needs either, the optics are scandalous.
It is on the disabled, the long term sick that I want to focus on here though and the news coming in about the disability assessment processes, notably the work capability assessment and this really does expose the abject idiocy of those running the country now to an offensively incompetent degree.
For as much as we’re hearing about 450,000 people needing to have their support removed to get the social security bill down by £3bn, it misses the fact that many disabled people do already work. The support they get enables them to be productive, economically active, taxpaying members of society, so stripping that support away, as is the intent, removes their ability to access their workplaces as a result, throws them on the bonfire, renders them unemployed and even more of a target for the Starmer and Reeves growth driven at whatever cost regime that will have put them there.
If Reeves opinion of what is economically positive wasn’t completely blinded by a belief that only in work can people be economically productive, it misses the point that the single biggest boost to the economy, is to put more money in the pockets of those who spend it, spending being the process of making money work, buying goods, helping businesses thrive, creating jobs, more tax revenue. It all begins with spending, and those on social security are not rich, are not coining it in, they spend they get on what they need and getting to and from where they need to go, be that to the shops or to appointments. The knock on effect of hitting them in their pockets reduces all of that and where the previous Tory administration had already come under fire from the likes of UN Special Rapporteurs and disability campaigners such as DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, for the damage to lives their policies had wrought, Labour is set on doing the same.
It makes no economic sense to attack these people, especially those on social security, on disability benefits because their health issues have fulfilled the requirements of the long time biggest stick used against them, the eternally feared Work Capability Assessment. For as much as that assessment has been used against ordinary working class people with additional needs, who have been judged to not be able to work as a result of that, so it has been that the blasted thing gets what politicians pathetically call reformed into something that means more people can have that essential support removed. When we keep voting Tory, be it blue Tories or the current crop of red Tories, that ideology, that determination to remove support and make this a more shallow, mean, unsupportive country just continues. It won’t stop it will just keep getting worse and so it appears to be the case with the alleged assessment changes that are apparently now coming in what is I think the most hardline attempt to force the long term sick, chronically ill and disabled into work we have ever seen.
All of it comes down to changes that are coming to the work capability assessment, which itself implies the bulk of people Labour look set to throw off their benefits, are those who require the most support.
We now know what some of the proposed changes to the work capability assessment are and they are horrifying.
The plans as laid out to reform the Work Capability Assessment include the removal or alteration of certain descriptors, descriptors in the assessment for those who don’t know are awarded a certain number of points and you have a successful claim when you pass a threshold of points by the end, both in terms of work capability and mobility.
Labour’s reforms as I said at the start are basically a continuation of Tory plans, that came out of a consultation they held last Autumn and what got pointed out them as what they considered reasonable measures, reasonable cuts to make, are now being rolled out by Labour. Starmer’s Labour who of course went into the General Election swearing they were binning this off, but for whom a mythical £22bn financial black hole which they won’t explain, just keep repeating is there, blocking freedom of information requests requesting a breakdown of this gap in the nations finances despite that though. With Starmer’s relationship with the truth, of course people are going to doubt their claim here, but it is the justification for the cuts they are bringing in, determined to cut our way to growth, despite the Tories failing for years trying to do the same thing.
So what are the changes to the Work Capability Assessment then?
Well the Tories identified five areas of it for reform and these were factoring in people’s mobility, bladder and bowel incontinence, the inability to cope on social situations, people’s ability to leave their homes and work being treated as a risk to claimants.
In essence, the Tories consultation result was an outcome of the pandemic in a sense. Where people had to work from home, it was previously believed people wouldn’t do so successfully with too many distractions. Now we know different, people worked perfectly well from home in isolation during that time and so now politicians know it works. Where there was a big stick to get people back to the workplace though, landlords losing rent when their buildings weren’t being used after all, those who can’t go to work are now viewed as being able to work from home.
Now this may well suit some people in this situation perfectly well. There may be work from home to take that is suitable for them, but the DWP should be supporting people in doing that, not forcing them into it when it could in fact make their health significantly worse.
You take out mobility as a descriptor with regards to work, any disabled people already going to work, may lose their financial means to get to work. Where the work capability assessment doesn’t apply to the main disability benefit Personal Independence Payment, if you can remove mobility as a descriptor from one assessment, how much of a leap is it to do the same there going forwards? Given these measures in my mind are doomed to failure, because they will make people’s health worse, is it really such a leap of the imagination for Reeves and DWP boss Liz Kendall to rethink where else to make cuts, because they are incapable of seeing anything else as a viable solution to a lack of economic growth?
Working from home appears to be the answer for Labour, it ticks the boxes for the people they view as numbers and not as having individual issues that need support to be addressed. Physical health issues are completely mitigated if you work from home they think. Fear of going to work for those with mental issues associated with that are solved too, but it’s a one size fits all attitude and this fundamentally has always been the problem with the work capability assessment, because it never is one size fits all. The jobs may not be there, they may not pay enough, those with health issues need more time off to meet appointments and some days will just be beyond their ability depending on what they suffer from. They will be treated as second class employees if they gain employment, but equally with the additional needs even working from home they will have, they are less employable still. Their health needs will increase, their health worsen as a direct result of again being targeted by cruel and ignorant policy by people who only view them in terms of their economic worth and not as living and breathing people with worth all of their own, that a civilised society would support and not punish. Yet this is where we are. Starmer’s Labour. Nothing has changed.
In fact Starmer’s Labour are so awful and so dire that despite appearing be a blatant human rights violation, plans are still afoot to send benefits assessors after those with mental health issues even further, because it seems there is no such thing as having mental health problems too severe for them to come after you. Benefit assessors visiting patients on mental health wards. It’s a plan in progress, get all the details of it in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.