Wednesday 25 April 2018

Windrush Brits are far from the only people to have suffered callous Tory abuse


The treatment of Windrush Brits by this horror show of a Tory government is an absolute outrage, but it's vital to remember that this dreadful scandal is just one example amongst many in a pattern of callous Tory abuse against pretty much anyone who is not a member of the wealthy establishment class that the Tory party exists to serve.

Windrush Brits

The Windrush scandal has come about because Theresa May introduced some vile UKIP-pandering anti-immigrant legislation in 2014. Nobody in parliament could have been under the impression that this was anything but an extreme-right attack on British values given that May openly bragged that the legislation could be used to create a guilty until proven innocent "deport now and hear appeals later" environment.

Since 2014 the Tories have been using this legislation to dehumanise and discriminate against Windrush Brits without the paperwork to prove their nationality. 


This systematic Tory discrimination has resulted in people being denied employment, denied accommodation, denied social security, denied pensions, denied NHS treatment, denied their freedom in immigration detention centres, and denied the right to return to Britain.

Other commonwealth Brits

Windrush Brits are far from the only Commonwealth British citizens to have been dehumanised and discriminated against in Theresa May's vile UKIP-pandering legislation. People from all manner of Commonwealth countries who arrived in Britain before 1973 have been denied their citizen's rights under Theresa May and Amber Rudd's "Hostile Environment". Examples already include arrivals from Kenya, Uganda, Cyprus, New Zealand, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and Canada.


The EU 3 million

Theresa May has been absolutely insistent that the lives of the three million EU citizens living in the UK should be used as disposable bargaining chips in the Brexit negotiations

In the weeks after the Brexit vote David Cameron wanted to make a unilateral offer to secure these people's rights, but Theresa May vetoed it.

Labour, the Lib-Dems, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and the Green Party all agree that providing peace of mind to the EU 3 million should be an absolute priority, but Theresa May still insists on forcing them to live under the shadow of uncertainty, despite having had almost two years since the Brexit votes to give them a cast iron guarantee that they won't be deported or denied their rights. 


Sick and disabled people

One of the most shocking things about the Tories is their relentless systematic abuse of sick and disabled people.


One of the worst aspects of this systematic abuse are the dehumanising and discriminatory assessment regimes that are carried out by profiteering corporations like Atos, Capita and Maximus. Not only do these assessment procedures have spectacularly unreliable outcomes (almost three fifths of WCA cases that go to appeal are overturned), they also cost far more in corporate administration fees than they will ever save in reduced disability benefits payments.

The fact that the hated disability assessment regime costs far more to run than it will ever be able to save is conclusive proof that the Tories aren't even treating people maliciously for financial reasons, they're doing it because they enjoy it, and believe the taxpayer should subsidise their malicious treatment of some of the most vulnerable people in society.


The jobless

Another one of the malicious Tory policies that costs way more to administer than it will ever save in reduced benefits payments is their draconian sanctions regime against the unemployed.

Not only does the sanctions regime cost far more to run than it saves in reduced benefits payments, the evidence is absolutely clear that condemning people to absolute destitution (often for utterly trivial offences) actually reduces their ability to find work.


People with mental health problems

In 2014 the Court of Appeal ruled that the Tory Work Capacity Assessment regime is unlawful because of the way it discriminates against people with mental health conditions. The Tories just carried on regardless.

In 2017 the Tories were caught telling their army of corporate disability assessors to actively discriminate against people with mental health conditions.


And despite continually banging on about the importance of helping people with mental health conditions, the Tories are still ruthlessly cutting away at NHS mental health budgets.

Children

Over 400,000 more children are growing up in poverty than when the Tories came to power in 2010. The Tory government have also introduced the most extreme school spending cuts in decades.


Any country in which rates of child poverty are rising, and education budgets are being slashed is a country that has given up on its own future.

Workers

Despite all of their shtick about "making work pay" and "work is the best route out of poverty" the Tories have overseen the longest sustained collapse in workers' wages since records began, and they've also continually slashed in-work benefits for the working poor.

The Tories have also overseen an explosion in exploitative low-pay, low-security work like Zero Hours contracts and the fake self-employment gig economy.

Then there's the fact that in 2013 they introduced unlawful legislation to price low-income workers out of employment tribunals so that bad bosses could get away with treating their workers like dirt.


With an appalling track record like this anyone who works for a living and votes Tory is undeniably voting against their own economic best interests.

Brits with non-EU spouses

One of the most sickening things Theresa May did at the Home Office was to introduce a highly discriminatory arbitrary minimum income threshold for British citizens to bring non-EU spouses into the country.

These rules strongly discriminate against the low-paid, because women are far less likely to earn the arbitrary minimum income threshold than men, and people in poorer regions of the UK (north east, Northern Ireland, Cornwall) are much less likely to earn enough to meet the threshold than people in wealthy areas like London and the Home Counties.


At the exact same time as she was introducing these rules to split up relationships, or force British people to live in exile, she was also handing out British residency and British passports to super rich Russian oligarchs, corrupt Chinese officials, the families of African dictators, and Middle East oil barons who wanted to buy their way in.

Women


86% of the economic burden of toxic hard-right Tory austerity dogma has been loaded onto the shoulders of women.

That Theresa May persists with this brazenly sexist economic dogma is a clear demonstration that you don't have to be a man to be a misogynist.


The elderly

Given that the elderly are far more likely to vote Tory than working age people, you might have thought that they'd be somewhat protected from the worst Tory malice, but you'd be wrong.

The victims of the Tories' £4.6 billion cuts to the social care budget are predominantly elderly people. The victims of the Tory devastation of the NHS service are predominantly elderly people. And if that wasn't enough, in 2017 they decided to announce a policy of taxing people with dementia (and other serious debilitating diseases) so that they lose their houses, and lose their ability to leave even modest inheritances to their children and grandchildren.



Conclusion

It turns out that it's not just Windrush Brits who have suffered under this vile Tory government, it's almost all of us.

Pretty much the only people who are immune from this Tory malice is the mega-rich. Not only have they been spared the malicious treatment borne by the rest of us, they've also been showered in handouts, tax cuts, tax breaks, and quantitative easing cash to help them literally double their wealth since the global financial sector insolvency crisis hit in 2007-08!

If you're not one of the mega-rich elitists the Tory party exists to serve, yet you still vote for them, you're not just voting against the interests of the majority of British people, you're also voting against your own interests too (unless of course you imagine that you'll never be poor, never be sick or disabled, never be elderly, never have children, never be female, and never actually have to actually work for a living).


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