Ahead of the national
day of protest against welfare reforms this Saturday, we caught up with
Ellen Clifford – one of the organisers of the Benefit Justice Campaign. In this
first part of the interview, we talk about the Campaign, divisive tactics and
the need for unity.
Ellen Clifford –
Benefit Justice Campaign/DPAC
For those that don’t
know, could you tell us a bit more about the Benefit Justice Campaign, how it
came about and why now?
The Benefit Justice Campaign was
set up by three campaigns, DPAC – Disabled People Against Cuts, Defend Council Housing and the Right To Work
Campaign. We came together in January of this year because the people that
we represent were being hit on all sides by cut after cut after cut from this
government and we wanted to unite together to form a campaign. So rather than
disabled people campaigning on our own, we want to be with council house
tenants who were going to be hit by the bedroom tax, and with unemployed
workers, and we also wanted to unite with workers through the trade unions
because the government has been using a lot of divisive rhetoric about benefit
scroungers and the difference between strivers and skivers, and we wanted to
come together and overcome a lot of those myths, that a lot of people who are
being hit by the benefit cuts are actually in work. And what the government is
doing affects people in work and out of work – so to provide a combined
campaign to oppose it.
Why have the government
been pushing this striver vs. skiver debate?
Well it was very effective
and it has been very effective over the last couple of years. People have
actually thought we really need to reform the welfare state. A lot of people
talk about the need to stop all these people having a lifestyle on benefits. So
actually the government rhetoric has been really effective, and what they’ve
managed to do is they’ve managed to get away with causing misery and pushing
many, many thousands of disabled people – the poorest members of society, into
poverty. That’s what they’ve been effectively doing, but they’ve got away with
it and there hasn’t been an outcry because they’ve wrapped it up in all this
language of reform and saying that these people are taking all the taxpayers’
money, and trying to point the finger at people that don’t really exist. There
aren’t people choosing to live a lifestyle on benefits because it’s ‘such a
wonderful life’.
A lot of people would
say we’ve got this national debt, so there has to be cuts. ‘Everyone’s feeling
the pinch’, so what would you say to them?
Yeah, not everyone’s
feeling the pinch. There’s a certain section of society that really isn’t being
affected by it. Meanwhile, there are sections of society that are being hit
over and over again. So research that came out recently from the Campaign For a Fair Society, showed
that the poorest members of society are being hit harder than anyone else. But
they also showed that disabled people with the highest level of support needs,
people with complex and severe disabilities, are being hit 19 times harder than
the average person so there’s no way ‘we’re all in it together’. There are some
sections of society who are being deliberately targeted harder than anyone
else.
“Austerity is lining
the pockets of certain sections of society.”
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times Rich List in April showed
that the 1000 wealthiest UK
So why aren’t we
attacking rich people more?
I think some sections of
the population are, but we mainly do that through social media, through our own
blogs, or through the left wing media maybe. Certain elements of the right wing
media certainly have fallen in with the government and they will reproduce the
government statistics which are shown to be misrepresented most of the time.
A Previous Defend
Council Housing Protest in London
You already have a lot
of support for the campaign, but how do you get to the people who are a little
more shut off? There must be people who would maybe stand with you and support
you, but they aren’t aware of what is going on. How do you get to them, and how
do you get them to act?
And it’s the isolated
people who are more likely to be in trouble because they’ve got no support so
it’s about reaching those people. I think through social media DPAC has got
quite an online presence. We’re very involved in Facebook and Twitter and
social media, and people find us through that because people are looking
because they don’t know where else they can turn to. So that’s one way, but of
course people don’t all have access to social media and the internet, and what
we’re seeing increasing is local campaigns being set up and just going around,
like I was doing on Sunday, just knocking on doors in estates where people are
affected – so actually meeting people in person.
At the Benefit Justice
Summit a couple of weeks ago in Westminster, you had many organisations coming
together for different struggles – around 37 from around the country including
DPAC, Hands Off Our Homes, Manchester vs. Bedroom Tax and so on. There was a
lot of talk about unity, and coming together – why is that such a strong
message right now?
I think people are feeling
that because we’ve been attacked for the last couple of years and we haven’t
managed to change it yet. The government have done some small U-turns – for
example the bedroom tax exempting children with severe disabilities. But, we’ve
never got them reverse the direction of welfare reform so I think people want
to come together en masse to try and mobilise, to try and fight against the
bigger things that are happening – essentially to get the government out and
that’s only going to happen if everyone campaigns together.
Find out more about the Benefit
Justice Campaign here.
Join us for the second
part of the interview on Thursday.
With thanks to Real Fare
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