UK Uncut blog

Legal aid cuts threaten right to protest

2013-05-21T10:40:00+01:00

Guest blog from Plane Stupid

A major threat to political protests of all kinds is currently being consulted on by the government and hardly anyone knows anything about it.

Under new proposals to cut legal aid further, criminal legal aid will become pretty much non-existent. What the proposals mean is that criminal suspects will lose their rights to choose or dismiss a solicitor, and the number of accredited legal aid firms will drop from 1,600 to less than 400 – raising the inevitable outcome of hundreds of small high street firms being replaced by huge contractors like G4S and Eddie Stobart.

The government have labelled this process by the memorable name of 'competitive tendering'. In other words, privatisation by offering contracts to whoever can offer the cheapest rate, ie G4S and co. You would be better off representing yourself then being represented by G4S!

Nearly every lawyer in the country, except those working for companies such as G4S, have come out strongly against the proposals including The Law Society and The Criminal Bar Association. However, most people aren't taking any notice. The lawyers need supporting otherwise by the end of the year the make up and possibility for protests in this country will be seriously undermined.

Alfie Meadows, beaten up by the Police at a student protest would not have been acquitted without criminal legal aid. For Plane Stupid - many of us would probably be in jail by now without proper legal representation.

On Wednesday a demonstration will take place outside Parliament at Old Palace Yard from 10.30am. We urge you to go down there and make your voice heard.

To keep up to date with all the developments and resistance to the plans please visit: http://www.defendtherighttoprotest.org/

Guest blog: My Visit to Iain Duncan Smith's Country Mansion

2013-05-11T18:11:00+01:00

My Visit to Iain Duncan Smith's Country Mansion by Dom Aversano

On Saturday 13th April I joined UK Uncut and DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) in a visit to Iain Duncan Smith's country mansion.

I met a member of UK Uncut the morning of their planned action. "This is the target," he said passing me what he had just written "IDS Country Mansion". It was the destination that I had hoped for.

A few escalator and tube rides later I found myself on a train to Milton Keynes newly joined by DPAC.

I sat at a table opposite a blind man who was being interviewed by a video journalist. He complained about disabled people being referred to as vulnerable, arguing that since they were doing more than anyone else to fight the cuts, they were the strongest members of society. His words echoed through my mind for the rest of the day.

At Milton Keynes we waited for three taxis to take us the last part of the journey. Half of the group, who were previously unaware of the 'target', had it disclosed to them, which was then followed by a quick briefing on the planned action. Minutes later there was a gentle scolding, as more than one person had reflexively tweeted, risking the secrecy of the action.

The three taxis arrived.

On the journey I spoke to a woman who was having her benefits cut. She had been abused physically and sexually as a child; in her own words she had been "tortured". Now half way through a second degree, she described trying to make up for a lost youth, whilst struggling with regular hospitalisations, as previously repressed traumatic memories paralysed her mentally and physically. Despite the horror she had been through she was one of the most inspiring and uplifting people I have ever met.

We left the taxis and made our way to Iain Duncan Smith's residence. There was no sign that they knew we were coming since the gate to the driveway was open. Until then I was unaware that the plan involved entering private property; I spoke to the legal team about the implications, but their answers were difficult to unravel; it seemed like a legal blur.

Ordinarily this would be a step too far for me, but considering this was the house of the standard bearer for a movement currently driving people to suicide, stressing the sick to get sicker, and evicting poor people and the disabled from their homes, I thought it justified, but agreed to myself to go no further than the driveway following the footsteps of a normal visitor.

The long white gate was swiftly opened and we walked and wheeled up the gravel pathway. It appeared he was not home, but there was no real way to tell, since there were several acres and countless rooms to comfortably hide in. The entire grounds had an almost palatial feeling, perhaps amplified by being set in a picturesque slice of the countryside.

The two hours that followed involved putting up an eviction notice on the house, getting the message out into mainstream and non-mainstream media, and the usual speeches and rituals of a protest. We discussed the subtleties of welfare policy, the merits and downsides of the various petition websites, and the management and organisation of large scale actions.

I shared time with some of the most informed and experienced veterans of direct action, people set on making tangible changes to society, and challenging the collective psychological framework through which we perceive the world. As I stood in the driveway of a seemingly vacant mansion, the bodies around me began to shiver in the cooling air and newly falling drizzle. There was a gentle breeze of hope. The atmosphere was positive, friendly, and constructive, the movement had a sense of confidence.

So what drove us to such action?

For me it would be cases like that of Stephen Hill who died from a heart attack 39 days after being declared 'fit for work' (for the second time, the first having being successfully appealed against) by Atos Healthcare. His son said "I've lost my best friend, (the) person I could talk to."

Or 29 year old Colin Traynor, who was told he was fit to work but appealed against the decision. He died from an epileptic attack. Five weeks later his family learned the appeal verdict had been successful. His father said: "I firmly believe - 100% believe - that the system this government introduced has killed my son".

It is currently impossible to know the precise number of people whose deaths may be linked to welfare policies of this government, since there has been no formal enquiry. So we must demand for an enquiry into the deaths related to welfare, asking that they be counted and investigated.

With a few noble backbenchers excluded, Labour has acted with consistent cowardice in the face these welfare assaults, as if they were challenging the Liberal Democrats to a contest in unprincipledness. In the currently hostile atmosphere, born of a calculated souring in the attitude to welfare recipients, few institutional allies can be found, either political or charity, which helps to explains the prolific emergence of direct action groups, and the large number of internet protesters and dissenters, both of whom have chosen to act outside of the traditional forms of representation.

There are, however, exceptions that should be celebrated:

The British Medical Association voted unanimously that Atos's Work Capability Assessment "... should end with immediate effect and be replaced with a rigorous and safe system that does not cause avoidable harm to some of the weakest and most vulnerable in society".

Amnesty International UK has also recently stepped in, treating the welfare cuts as a human rights abuse. At its AGM on 14 April a resolution was passed saying "This AGM calls for urgent action to halt the abrogation of the human rights of sick and disabled people by the ruling Coalition government and its associated corporate contractors". It described the cuts as "(a) regressive & lethal assault on our rights".

But while valued and respected as allies, they do not yet comprise a large enough coalition to halt the government's policies, and this is why direct action is playing such a powerful role, and why UK Uncut and DPAC decided to take the matter, quite literally, to the doorstep of power.

The day came to an end, the drizzle had turned to rain, and it was time to leave. The police had come shortly after we had arrived and a mutually agreed departure time had been set. Perhaps it is my imagination, but as the cuts have gone deeper, the police have seemed more sympathetic, after all, they are suffering too.

Once back at the Milton Keynes Station I ran down the stairs and hopped onto my train, and in doing so completed a series of seemingly simple actions that would be the envy of many of my companions that day. I reflected on the words of the man on the train that morning, he was right, the vulnerable were being the strongest, for without any pretence they had risen to defend the hard won rights that our ancestors gifted us.

Despite the physical and mental barriers that many had to go through, they were surmounted them with strength and grace, and were doing more to protect the comfortable than the comfortable were doing to protect them.

That day had created an unsettling juxtaposition: the most disenfranchised and honourable people in society, taking the fight to the airy and vacuous house of a pious plutocrat, who repeatedly, and incredibly, refuses to engage with the people his policies affect.

In the years since the banking crash there has been endless talk about our economic crisis. Growth in economics, as in nature, cannot be limitless if it is to be sustainable. Our current resources if carefully and generously carved up are, for now, plentiful enough to go around. However beneath the economic crisis lurks a larger one, less often articulated: a moral crisis.

While much broader than this current government, their particular response to the recent economic problems highlights this perfectly: at the slightest hint of lessening materiality, the rich man's hand grasps at the poor woman's purse.

The situation is desperate, but reversible. It requires the comfortable to join hands with those who are vulnerable, if for nothing else, since if they do not, they will be next.

Follow Dom Aversano on Twitter: www.twitter.com/domaversano

Dom started a now famous petition calling on Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53 a week which gathered almost 500,000 signatures

The Great Tax Robbery

2013-04-17T22:21:00+01:00

One Uncutter's review of the book The Great Tax Robbery by Private Eye journalist Richard Brooks.

Back in late 2010, UK Uncut began with a discussion between friends in a pub. Someone had brought a copy of that week’s Private Eye. Buried in the back of the satirical magazine was a short article about a deal that HMRC had recently made with Vodafone, settling an ongoing tax dispute. Although the rest of the media had ignored the complex deal, Private Eye had realized the significance: at the same time as the government was announcing unprecedented cuts to public services, they were letting Vodafone off paying a £6bn tax bill. It was an article that got us angry, inspired the first UK Uncut action and sparked a movement that eventually pushed tax avoidance by rich corporations and individuals to the top of the political agenda.

That initial article was written by investigative journalist Richard Brooks, who this week published his first book The Great Tax Robbery, a scathing attack on this government’s collusion with high level tax avoidance by the super wealthy. Brooks is better placed than anyone to expose the dodgy dealings at the top of HMRC – because he used to work there. A former tax inspector, Brooks personally knew Dave Hartnett (architect of the cosy deals with big companies) and understands from first hand experience the often torturously complicated wheezes that the super wealthy come up with to hide their money.

Tax is complicated and most journalists are too lazy to crunch numbers. Richard Brooks is different: he’s painstakingly followed the money to discover the dodgy deals HMRC are cutting with big businesses. He’s also savvy enough not to be fooled by George Osborne’s recent rhetoric about clamping down on tax avoidance. He understands that it’s a sleight of hand – as Osborne pretends to be getting tough on the tax dodgers, he’s actually making it much easier for his friends in industry to stash their fortunes offshore.

The Great Tax Robbery is a must-read expose of the grubby underbelly of the UK tax avoidance industry. It’s a world in which corporate barristers advertise offshore scams, where corporate CEOs devise entire business plans around tax dodging, where high level collusion between government and tax dodgers results in ‘business-friendly’ laws that cost the country billions. It’s a complicated subject but, as you’d expect from a Private Eye journalist, Brooks is never dull to read. He writes with pace and conviction, a wry sense of humour and a sharp eye for the dark absurdity of the tax avoiders’ desperate tricks.

The book is also a trenchant defense of taxation as a tool for ensuring a just society. Brooks begins his book with a quotation from Oliver Wendall Homes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.” And Brooks is clear to outline just what a fantastic bargain this deal is: “For every pound I earn I will pay around 7 pence for immediate access to professional healthcare for my family, 5 pence for my children’s education, 2 pence for living in relative security and 11 pence for pensions and social security for my compatriots.” Brooks shows that tax represents a cheaper and more efficient way to provide basic services than any private system ever devised. “If it were a club,” he writes, “only a fool would not join.”

But the super wealthy are enjoying the benefits of the club without paying their membership fee. These spongers include not only rich individuals like Philip Green, Lord Rothermere (owner of the Daily Mail) and virtually every Premiership footballer, but also countless corporations that make money in our economy: Apple, Starbucks, Vodafone, Cadbury, Google, Boots, Nike, Barclays and too many others to name.

In an age of phone-hacking and tabloid celebrity obsession, Brooks' tireless work to expose some of the most scandalous corruption of our age is a beacon for what good investigative journalism can look like. It’s fair to say that without Brooks there would have been no UK Uncut and the secrets of the tax avoiders, and the government’s collusion with their mucky schemes, would have remained firmly in the shadows. The Great Tax Robbery is a call to arms for a tax system where we all pay our fair share: a reminder of what we’re fighting for, and who the enemy is.

UK Uncut stages bedroom tax protests at Lord Freud and Iain Duncan Smith’s million pound mansions

2013-04-13T13:15:00+01:00

UK Uncut stages bedroom tax protests at Lord Freud and Iain Duncan Smith’s million pound mansions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For more information and interviews, please call 0741 506 3231/ 0779 303 1984

Hundreds of people are protesting over the bedroom tax and benefits cap at Lord Freud’s £1.9million home and 20 disabled activists are staging a protest at Iain Duncan Smith’s country mansion in Buckinghamshire worth more than £2million.

The protest was called by UK Uncut, the anti-cuts direct action network, who promised that they would ‘bring resistance to the homes of high profile politicians pushing the cuts’. Lord Freud, the Tory peer and former investment banker, has spearheaded the bedroom tax, cuts to the Welfare State and the introduction of the Universal Credit. He also has an eight-bedroom mansion in Kent.

The disabled activists, from Disabled People Against the Cuts, have presented Iain Duncan Smith with an eviction notice at his five-bedroom, 16th century house which includes a swimming pool in Swanbourne. IDS has presided over the implementation of unprecedented cuts of the Welfare State which are hitting disabled people particularly hard. It’s recently emerged that 17,000 blind people will be hit by the bedroom tax. Houses are likely to have been specially adapted and blind people are particularly isolated if they are forced to move to new areas which they do not know how to get around.

At the London protest at Lord Freud’s house, an estimated 400 people attended the protest where children were read a Freudian bedtime story, a removal van unloaded sofas and an eviction notice was served. UK Uncut supporter Sarah Knight whose mother is losing money because of the Bedroom Tax said: “My mum has just found out that she will have to pay the bedroom tax. My family is terrified about what’s going to happen. People’s hearts are being broken as this government is turning Thatcher’s wildest dreams into a nightmarish reality. But this protest is not about Thatcher’s death, it’s about the ongoing assault on the welfare state.

“I am too young to remember Thatcher as a Prime Minister but people like me are having our childhoods and now adult lives decimated by this government that continues to punish poorer people to improve the lives of the rich – the bedroom tax is the latest example of this. And that’s why I’m here today – it’s made me really happy that we are resisting these devastating cuts, showing we will not stand for it.”

From outside Ian Duncan Smith’s country mansion Disabled People Against the Cuts activist Eric Robson said: “This month sees the latest round of government attacks on disabled people. Two out of three homes affected by the bedroom tax have disabled people living in them, the beginning of the end for DLA, council tax changes, no legal aid for benefit appeals and the ongoing discredited WCAs mean millions of disabled people will be poorer – and still have the same barriers to work and society. There is no strategy in place to address this except forced labour and sanctions. Yet hundreds of millions are handed to profiteers like Atos and Capita to make this happen.

“We are calling on this government to stop this war on benefit claimants, public services and low paid workers. We are calling on our communities, disabled and non-disabled people, workers and claimants, unemployed people, single mothers, pensioners, students and everyone who cares about social justice to oppose these cuts. We will not be written out of the story of our own lives.”

Isabel Young, who works with vulnerable women said in a speech to the crowd “A room for foster children or teenagers or a disabled partner might be spare for people who live in mansions but not for anyone else. People are being forced to pay £14 a week for having this room, again this may be spare cash in the pockets of millionaire politicians, but it is the difference between adequately feeding a family and staying warm, and for some it will mean choosing between a hostel or the streets.“

ENDS

'Who wants to evict a millionaire?' What you can expect on the day...

2013-04-11T21:07:00+01:00

View the London Facebook event or the guide on how to organise an action where you are

This Saturday UK Uncut will be bringing civil disobedience to the doorsteps of some of the reckless millionaires responsible for the unjust and unnecessary cuts devastating people’s lives across the country.

Here’s what you can expect from the day:

- In London hundreds of people will be gathering at the main concourse of King’s Cross station at 11.30am. They will be heading to the home of a mega-rich politician who is directly responsible for the bedroom tax for a day of resistance. Bring an oyster card zones 1 - 2, water and food to share, comfy shoes, flags, pillow cases, paints, balloons and banners!

- In Brixton, Chelmsford, Birmingham and Manchester, other groups will be taking to the streets to fight back. We also have a few surprises planned…

- We will use civil disobedience that is creative, determined and exciting. UK Uncut has transformed public and private spaces, including high street tax dodgers and banks, blocked roads and bridges and partied outside the deputy prime minister’s house to protest against austerity. Expect more of the same!

- We will be putting our bodies in the way of economic and social injustice. We will be resisting the cuts that are devastating ours and others lives, and bring that resistance to the homes of the politicians who are pushing these cuts.

- We will find ways to get to our target no matter what. It’s important that we look after each other and work together to reach our destination. Follow the pillow cases and UK Uncut on twitter and facebook to get to the target. We always aim to be creative, child friendly, caring of each other while we confront those in power. Please don’t bring loads of booze, we need to be on our toes and we can have a beer later.

- We know for sure what will happen if we don’t act and stay at home: Cameron, Osborne and co will carry on ripping the heart out of the welfare state.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!

If you’re coming along on Saturday, as with any protest and act of civil disobedience, it’s important to know your legal rights.

At the London action on Saturday there will be legal observers from GBC who are there to monitor police behaviour – it’s important that you report anything to them that you witness.

GBC's legal support number is: 07946 541511

The Activists’ Legal Project have a model ‘bust card’ – providing simple info about what to do if you do get arrested- these will be given out on the day.

Arrests at UK Uncut actions are rare, but the police response is unpredictable and heightened security concerns from the police because of Thatcher’s death make it more uncertain. It’s important that we are looking out for each other and for the people who come to our actions.

We will have fun, we will make our resistance known and we will look out for each other’s safety.

For more information you can directly contact one of the specialist groups set up to help protesters deal with the police and the legal system.

The Activists’ Legal Project and the Green & Black Cross (GBC) offer legal briefings and resources.

See you on the streets!

Guest blog: Fight the bedroom tax with anger and action

2013-04-09T19:14:00+01:00

Fight the bedroom tax with anger and action
Guest blog by Frances Ryan

One person can look at something and see it entirely differently than another. Apparently, the ‘bedroom tax’ is one of those.

We all know what it is by now and we all know who it will affect. The majority are disabled. Most are struggling to pay the bills. Some are victims of domestic violence or are parents of abused kids. They’re the people who can least afford a penalty for having an ‘extra’ room in their home and, as an added hit, are the ones most likely to need one.

I’d be interested in the person who can look at that and think it is anything other than wrong.

Some manage to look at the penalty and see it as a way of making things fairer, citing large families currently on the housing waiting list and private tenants who pay higher bills. Because it is the definition of fairness to make the most vulnerable take the brunt of the cuts and the way to make things better for the poor is to set them against the poor.

Some claim Discretionary Housing Payments – subjective, tiny, and without the right to appeal – mean there’s a safety net. The same people listen gladly to David Cameron making grossly misleading statements in Parliament about many having nothing to worry about, when they do, and they are fully aware of that.

Some say it’s not a tax, it’s a cut. Some can hear a human being’s fears of homelessness, choosing between food and heating, and losing access to their children – and claim semantics is what we should be angry about.

I’d suggest being angry about something else.

The parents with the adult disabled child, who are barely getting by. They need the box room to store oxygen cylinders, adult sized nappies, and specialist equipment but the Government says it is spare.

The single person with severe anxiety who has lived on their street for almost thirty years. There’s no one bedroom flat within ten miles of her home and she doesn’t know how she’s going to cope.

The husband who sleeps in a different bedroom to his wife because her disability mean she needs a specialist bed. She has bed sores and he’s afraid what will happen if they’re charged for needing the only room the bed fits in. Other benefit cuts are coming this month and they have no luxuries left to lose.

The disabled almost-pensioner who has been assessed by the Government as being physically unable to work, but has been told by the same department that he’ll now have to find some way to make up the short fall in his housing benefit. The council paid for many adaptations to his house and if he has to move out, they’ll have to do it again somewhere else.

The woman who was beaten by her partner and will be penalised for living in the house she was given as a place to be safe. And her six year old son who’s recovering from abuse and can’t cope with having his little sister share his space. He cut her hair off once and his mum faces making her two children share or not being able to pay the bills.

The people I mention are real people, a few who I’ve spoken to over the past couple of months. They’re a small section of the number who have written to me and other journalists, hoping, I imagine, that someone will listen. They’re a handful of the hundreds of thousands in our society who will be made poorer this month as millionaires enjoy a tax cut.

It’s time to be angry about that. It’s time to take action. A day of it in fact, on April 13th.

Find out how you can get involved in UK Uncut's protest against the bedroom tax 'Who wants to evict a millionaire?' on Saturday 13th April here.

Frances Ryan is a freelance writer, predominantly for The Guardian and New Statesman. You can follow her on Twitter: @frances__ryan

Guest blog: We can live without billionaires but not without bedrooms

2013-03-29T08:48:00+00:00

We can live without billionaires but not without bedrooms
Guest blog by Ellie Mae O'Hagan

What do we learn from the top ten names on the Sunday Times Rich List 2012? We learn that the richest people living in the UK are all men. We learn that their wealth is increasing. We learn that the vast majority of them made their money by selling us the basics we need to survive like property or energy, or simply the hazy process of moving money around – ‘investment’ as they call it.

We learn that not one of them, despite the billions of pounds they have between them and their opulent multiple homes, will be taxed for having too much. None of them will be told by the government ‘I’m sorry, but this country is in recession, and we need your money to help us get out of it.’ That conversation will be reserved for single mothers and people with disabilities.

The situation is now worse than the government freezing benefits, though that’s bad enough. Now they’re going after people’s homes. Make no mistake about it: the upcoming cap on housing benefit coupled with the bedroom tax will make people in this country, the fifth most prosperous in the world and residence of all those billionaires, homeless.

What does one say about a government that enables this? Is it uncivilised? Is it incompetent? Is it cruel? Maybe some people reading this will think that it is none of those things. After all, they will think, we can’t take money from those billionaires to prevent the poor from having to leave their homes. If we do that, the billionaires will punish us by taking what little they give us away. Well, if that’s true, what does that say about the rich? It makes them sound like sociopaths. Are these billionaires, some of whom delight in calling themselves philanthropists, happy that the government depicts them in such a way?

When the government of a wealthy country is enacting policies that make people homeless, we can’t stand by and let them. We need to take action – a day of action, if you like. We need to bring these cuts home to the people making them. So let’s do that on April 13th. Let’s pay this wealthy government a visit. See you on the streets.

UPDATED CALL OUT! Who wants to evict a millionaire? Saturday 13th April

2013-03-24T22:19:00+00:00

View the London Facebook event or the guide on how to organise an action where you are

On 1st April, the government plans to introduce the bedroom tax, making 670,000 people worse off for the crime of having a spare room, even if it’s for a disabled partner or child, or foster children to sleep in. If that wasn’t bad enough, the cabinet of millionaire men will then add insult to injury by imposing a devastatingly low housing benefit cap, which will leave people unable to live in their homes and will lead to thousands of evictions.

Westminster Council expects to evict 5,000 families – and evictions are happening almost everywhere.

It’s time to ramp up the resistance to this brutal agenda. So on Saturday, 13th April, UK Uncut will be bringing the cuts home to millionaire misery-makers.

We will take the power of our creative civil disobedience straight to the people who are directly pushing and benefiting from these cuts.

We know that spending cuts are going to devastate people’s lives up and down the country. We know they are being pushed by politicians and powerful private interests who are hell-bent on making the poorest pay for a crisis caused by the banks. We know that people on benefits are not to blame, but they’re being targeted to distract people from the greed of banks and rich tax avoiders who are again being let off the hook.

People are beyond angry – they are outraged. We have already seen lots of protests around the country opposing these horrific cuts. But this government is pushing ahead with what it does best – punishing the poorest people while making the rich richer. We won’t stand for it – it’s time for civil disobedience around the country.

In London we will target a politician who has been a key architect of austerity – in the knowledge that his many spare bedrooms will be safe. In Sheffield a group is already thinking up plans to target one of the key players from big business who will benefit hugely from austerity.

So who is your local millionaire misery maker? Which architects of austerity are living in your neighbourhood? Who is pushing and benefitting from the cuts? It’s time to get planning your target and your action for Saturday 13th April. Across the country people will be taking our protests home to those responsible for the cuts. We’re thinking bed (blocks), bed time stories for the kids, pillows, removal vans, to make the creative direct action that we know works.

Now’s the time to get talking to your mates, pick your target, list an action on our website and, if you need any help, check out our actions page or drop us an email- ukuncut@gmail.com.

See you on the streets!

Who wants to evict a millionaire? Saturday 13th April

2013-03-20T16:14:00+00:00

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CALL OUT! Save the date – Saturday 13th April- Who wants to evict a millionaire?

2013-03-16T11:03:00+00:00

This callout has moved- click here to read it!