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Welfare Reform 2025

MadMilan2019

Dear folks, comrades and wonderful disabled people. I say wonderful, and marvelous quite deliberately, very mindfully, meditationally, to foster our collective self-esteem.

As I have said a few times in past posts, we disabled and distressed people, can all too easily internalise disabilism, and mentalism, the prejudices and bigotry of discriminations. We DONT need to do this and to keep campaigning - keep on campaigning - we need to at least loosen the grip of things like suicidal feelings, self-hatred, low self-esteem, apathy, anxiety and despair - which result from buying the oppressors cruelties. And lets be clear this Welfare Reform is CRUEL indeed.

We do NOT deserve it, we are human beings who need and deserve the disability benefits that the current system allows.

I have been absent, felt suicidal, refused to cop out, chose to take courage and be a fighter, a spiritual and political warrior for love. The love and compliments this online discussion forum has shown to me, and others is amazing solidarity, true compassion, oft unspoken, because we know what disabilism, and mentalism (the mental health stigma) does to us - if we let it.

I have been migrated to UC and like many of you undergoing it, I felt STRESSED, in rough waters, feared losing all my benefits.

I will lose 485 quid / 4 weeks ESA soon, and was told I would not lose my 100% CTB exemption on severe mental impairment grounds, as it not part of UC.

I would urge you all to seek valid benefit advice on what welfare benefits we will lose, perhaps, from SCOPE, and can they put updates on this online discussion forum please?

I'm sure I would not be the only one to be very grateful for such benefit updates.

I have done some Googling:

- [edited by moderator - clarification] The Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill will be voted upon on Tuesday 1st July, in Prliament. It is STILL extremely important to not give up, to never, ever give up. We need to do our best in the next 7 days, a week to keep writing to our MPs, Google ''findyourMP'' if you do not know who your MP, to ask them to vote against the Bill which is now gone past the green paper stage to the white paper stage. We need to keep emailing our MPs, because we are their employers, as Tony Benn would always sa6y. They would not have a job without us. They are 'our' political representatives, and civil servants. Let's get that straight, and not let any negative feelings of low self-esteem, self hatred, despair etc that spring from the class, race, sex, disablist, mentalist hiearchy that is so Brirtish to stop us contacting our MPs. We need to ask and get an appointment at our MPs local surgery.

We also need to keep writing to the TV, BBC News, ITN News, press radio , social media and keep sharing posts and news articles from allies. We need to keep going and NEVER GIVE UP. As Mandela said

''The impossible always seems impossible until it is done''

Indeed. What a man. What a human being: he is trying to inspire us, tell the truth nurture us into being spiritual and political warriors for love, equality, justice, the best in humans, the best in you, each and everyone of you, me, all good peoples to fight , fight and fight again oppression, not with hatred bitterness, but the best in humans, with rigorous love. We are the best, we can be champions. We can win. We may not win, or 'only' partially but if we do not try, then we are fools, both for ourselves, and others who needs compassion. We stand for equality, for socialism, maybe for liberalism, but whatever our differences we can be allied, and support each other.

I cant tell you how DEPRESSED I have felt, and will feel again, about these cruel proposed cuts. Yet here I am 'Mad' (true individual, rebel, ultra-socialist, eccentric, builder of my and others self compassion, comic so I'm told) fighting on. We have the means the press media at large, our MPs, and 54 of Labour MPs out of 150 will vote against the govt, the broadsheets say. We need to keep keeping on.

Unfortunately Mind Legal Unit say there are no legal options at present, and other pro bono charities say the same. I am still searching researching legal options because thrice in my 60 years, I even found legal cases where a solicitor had not found one, and won on behalf of benefit claimants.

So we need to rely on MPs even more, and also send them any articles, posts on social media we get published, any videos of TV appearances, and recordings of interviews on radio.

Its not easy.

No one said it ever be easy, but if we delay, feel sorry for ourselves, procrastinate, or otherwise cop out, we will lose.

It is not over until its over folks.

Please do not give up now.

''Neither success nor failure but the courage to continue, said Churchill.

'' Activism is the antidote to despair'' Joan Boaz.

''We may not be able to win everything, but we can win something'' who said this?

''Courage is the price life exacts for granting peace, the soul that knows it not knows no release.'' Emily Erhard.

All demons are diamonds, says Tantric Shamanistic Buddhism.

Add your own quotes, as you did before folks, I really appreciate your actions, lobbying campaigning, disabled peoples comradeship and humanity. Solidarity and love, and I CANT tell you how much, in fact tears right now, I am deeply touched by all your mutual support for me and each other, and shall NEVER forget the wisdom and compassion of disabled people.

We are not pieces of **** although, I and others have felt like it, and felt like dying, please remember that is the old demon of internalised disabilism, this baggage is not ours, give it back to the oppressor, and connect with allies, find joy, acceptance, and love.

I have won an award for outstanding achievement in community work, in the voluntary sector in Leeds.

I'm bowled over. I asked Sharon Burke, a fellow survivor of complex trauma, comrade and true friend, and also physically disabled person, why she nominated me? She said

''Milan, you really care for people are deeply wise, and compassionate, inspiring, a people person, a true socialist, communitarian, environmentalist, a great listener, motivational speaker, and builder of peoples self-esteem, a great trustee, have enormous courage, manifest the very best in humans, inspire it in others, do not argue, harmonise who want to argue, turn demons to diamonds, never give up, persuade, through poetry, or not, are genuine....,''

Great but I will beware of pride and big headedness. The only thing that matters to me is compassion for all n a fairer society, and happiness and peace for all, worldwide.

''The struggle is my life. And I am prepared to die for a democratic, equal South Africa.''

Nelson Mandela.

Fortituide in times of sever hardship is a magnificent human wholesome quality we can all cultivate this very second. Right NOW.

I too can say the struggle is my life, and I have not hatred for enemies, and am not demanding on friends.

The whole point is compassion, for all, socialism, and for disabled people, all the marginalised and oppressed, in a rainbow coalition to defeat this CRUEL Bill. We deserve much berter from this so-called Labour govt, and we DESERVE IT. It is not our fault, but we must deal with it right NOW, Hesitate and you, we might fail. Fight on and go to it.

11.1 million pensioners votes reversed the winter fuel payment cuts, we 16 million disabled people, and both groups are increasing in society with a rapidly ageing UK population, so TELL your MP you will not vote Labour again if these cuts go through, as they are VICIOUS.

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Comments

M_1967

I couldn’t agree with you more. I have just looked at my bank account and found that my PIP has not been paid since 3 April. I have not had a letter, email or phone call informing me of any changes. Is this legal? Can they do this? What shall I do now? Thanks. I’m at a loss and don’t know what to do.

Rosie_Scope

Hi @MadMilan2019. It's so true that everyone needs to keep the pressure on and email their MPs.

Just so you know, I've edited your post slightly as it referred to the reforms as the Welfare Reform Act 2025. This is something slightly different, the Welfare Reform Act was in 2012. I've just popped in the name of the bill instead, I hope that's alright with you!

Scope's latest campaign is to ask your MP to say no to the cuts:

Tell your MP to vote against benefit cuts | Disability charity Scope UK

MadMilan2019

Harold Wilson in the 1970s said so well:

''A week is a long time in politics.''

Indeed.

We only have a week!

The Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill will be voted upon on Tuesday 1st July, in Parliament. It is STILL extremely important to not give up, to never, ever give up. We need to do our best in the next 7 days, a week to keep writing to our MPs, Google ''FindyourMP'' if you do not know who your MP is.

From a Buddhist, mindful perspective, there is only the moment to live in, to be here , now and to even joy it.

- write to your MPs

- ask to meet them at their local surgery, but if you cannot send them an email; sign any template letters from SCOPE, - please provide on SCPE in response to this

write to the press radio, TV social media, share posts campaigning against these cruel disability benefit reforms.

Do not take no for an answer but try not to get irritated or angry or bitter.

For if you do, anger means you cannot think straight, cogitate well and make a calm, persuasive, factual and poetic phrased case to retain disability benefits.

That is it for now.

I will be posting every day until 1st July.

Please add your own thoughts, reflections, recommendations strategies; share your story.

Be the Best.

But not macho, proud, self righteous where this phrase is borrowed from - the British Army advert.

Be the best in you, clear thinking, forgiving but not excusing oppression, be not hateful be loving. Make a case, we can do it. You CAN do it.

YES WE CAN.

MadMilan2019

I felt SO LOW today. We all have our demons, ouyr crosses to bear, thus to find friends and heal and forgive ourselves, and purify ourselves of the 28 dark passions/ attachments is imperative.

It all about developing more compassion for ourselves and others, not 1 or the other.

What was I so depressed about?

Like many I have made mistakes in love, and lost my true love years ago, but cannot get over here, Imani.

Like the words of the B Manilow song Mandy, : the REMORSE, the AGONY

#''Oh Mandy you came … but I turned you away.''#

Indeed.

I will not be the first or the last soul to make a mistake out of Fear, anger, or both.

I did a course on cutivating compassion, . I t gave many methods of developing self-compassion; here are 2:

- imagine thre is a true friend talking you throuigh your pain, What would they say to you that was kind and nurturing and would ease your pain, your guilt, your anxiety?

Develop a more compassionate narrative/ story for yourself, instead of pointlessly beating yourself.

Both these helped greatly, but also

I heard Starmer is getting a run for his corrupt money. gifts, whilst trying to cut our essential disability benefits.

Its the boomerang effect of Karmer for Starmer?!

And I have NO shadenfreuder or sadistic glee in reporting this - see below -

Do you get it anger solves nowt. Bitterness is bonkers. If justice arrives through cause and effect/ karma, there is no need for ill-will and ill will or hatred is never, ever justified for a truly practicing Buddhist.

As I said we need to do things equally to sustain a succesful campaign or disabled people and allies:

-firstly, we need to process our distresses, including internalised stigma/ oppresions of disability. They are not the real liberated us, they are baggage and it is not our fault we suffer so much because of hatred and stigma of disabilism. We are not bad, inadequate, 'nuts' or evil. We have a right to exist, and human rights to our current benefits.

secondly we need to keep keeping on emailing and writing to our MPs, of whichever party, saying many 1000s have suicided with disability benefit reforms in the past, or made clinically depressed anxious, or other psychiatric diagnoses.

We need to tell our MPs the truth, the brutal, harsh truth, that this is NOT a game, it is our precious lives, and health that is at stake . And I have told my MP to raise at PMQs in the Comons face to face with Starmer, the fact that 2 of my best friends severely disabled, chronically, multiple diagnosed with life-threatening diagnoses killed themselves at the horrible prospect of UC Migration. I also attempted suicide and will not again. It was the harassment of gang neighbours too, and a rise in midsummer madness, the great sorrow of loneliness, the PAINS of 8 MSK conditions, insomnia, and other factors. We disabled people are stronger than we know, even in our vulnerability, or 'weakness''; it is a paradox (all demons are diamonds).

Its not over until its over,

email , write to your MPs - please Google ''findyourMP'' if you do not know who your MP is.

Its not guaranteed we disabled people will wibn, with our allies, but it is loking much more likely the parliamentary voting arithmetic.

And even if we lose, with 11.1 million pensioners, many have disabilities, and 16 million disabled people, plus allies, in the future we CAN reverse these cruel unjust uncompassionate reforms. BUT is is better to win this time. Go to it, marshall your resources: desperation, inspiration, self compassion, other compassion for friends and allies.

And keep Googling local newspapers, TV, radio, and writing to them to make a clear, sweet reason, rhetorical case for our humanity, our human spirit, our needs and cause. COMPASSION RULES OK.

A Google from Milan Ghosh:

News Labour MPs have launched a significant rebellion against the Government’s Green Paper disability benefit cuts with an amendment

that could kill its welfare bill,

spearheaded by senior select committee chairs.

The amendment – which has been signed by 108 MPs – declines to pass the Government’s welfare changes and calls for a pause, including for further consultation and for support to be in place before any further cuts are made.

The Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill is due to have its Second Reading in the Commons on 1 July.

The amendment has been sponsored by:

Treasury Committee chair Dame Meg Hillier;
Work and Pensions Committee Chair Debbie Abrahams;
Education Committee chair Helen Hayes;
Women and Equalities Committee chair Sarah Owen; and
Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee chair Florence Eshalomi.

It has also been signed by former cabinet minister Louise Haigh and Vicky Foxcroft, who quit as a Labour whip due to Bill’s disability benefit cuts package

The amendment motion reads:

“That this House, whilst noting the need for the reform of the social security system, and agreeing with the Government’s principles for providing support to people into work and protecting people who cannot work, declines to give a Second Reading to the Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill because its provisions -

have not been subject to a formal consultation with Disabled people, or co-produced with them, or their carers;
because the Office for Budget Responsibility is not due to publish its analysis of the employment impact of these reforms until the autumn of 2025;
because the majority of the additional employment support funding will not be in place until the end of the decade;
because the Government’s own impact assessment estimates that 250,000 people will be pushed into poverty as a result of these provisions, including 50,000 children;
because the Government has not published an assessment of the impact of these reforms on health or care needs;
because the Government is still awaiting the findings of the Minister for Social Security and Disability’s review into the assessment for Personal Independence Payment and Sir Charlie Mayfield’s independent review into the role of employers and Government in boosting the employment of disabled people and people with long-term health conditions.”

Posting on Bluesky, Debbie Abrahams MP said:

“I've signed this as I believe there are alternative ways we can achieve the Government’s goals of increasing employment while reducing sickness and disability cases, therefore reducing overall disability benefits spending.

This can be achieved through improvements in the Labour market, alongside increases in NHS and employment support. Not by impoverishing Disabled people and their families further from next April by cutting their benefits before all these measures are in place.”

The amendment would need to be selected by the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, be voted on.

The rebellion by so many Labour MPs, the Prime Minister’s largest yet, would be enough to defeat the Government’s plans if opposition MPs joined the Labour rebels.

Mikey Erhardt DR UK Policy Officer said: “Despite promising a consultative process, the Government is trying to force through a vote on proposals it won’t even share detailed information about. With so many clear unknowns, we don’t think any MP could vote for these cuts with a clear conscience.  

Rather than delivering change, this government is attempting to implement cuts that are even more severe than those of the austerity years. Yet again, Disabled and working-class people who need support are being told you are the problem, you don’t deserve support.”

DR UK's Statement on Government's Proposed Benefits Cuts

Disability Rights UK is shocked and appalled at the Government’s intended cuts to the benefits that Disabled people rely upon. Narrowing eligibility for Personal Independence Payment and reducing the health component of Universal Credit, will drive millions of Disabled people into even deeper poverty.

The Government is demonising and punishing Disabled people for the economic failures of successive governments. Why isn’t it looking to the rich, to plug its funding gap?

This is a very distressing time for Disabled people who could be impacted by the proposed changes. We will do everything we can to fight them and as part of the Disabled people’s movement, will make our voices heard.

DR UK urges Disabled people to Take Action To Oppose The Disability Benefits Cuts! - Sign The Petition, Write To Your MP

See our related news stories:

The Universal Credit and PIP Bill: Our Concerns
APPG Findings: Benefit Cuts Will Worsen Disability Poverty
Half a Million in Disabled Households Forced into Severe Hardship by Green Paper Cuts
Work and Pensions Committee Calls For Delay To PIP and UC Green Paper Reforms
 DR UK launches t

idk

My MP already put out a statement today, proudly saying that she was one of the rebel MPs who has signed the ammendment.

MadMilan2019

There are 150 MPs of Labour rebelling against Sarmers UC and Welfare Bill.

We have 4 days left to Tuesday 1st July 2025

to:

Write email your MPs. If you do not know who your MP is please Google

''FindyourMP''

If you think its over its is NOT. Do not count your chickens until they are hatched.

It looks like we have won, BUT until we have it is still worth writing to your MP/ him or her.

And Googling your local TV Radio newspapers and writing to them.

Never give up, keep going,

''Be the change you want in the world'' said Gandhi.

Al my love for disabled people - although on line we are connected for compassion to campaign to keep the befits we deserve and have a right to. You are friends, and cmrades.

MadMilan2019

your browser.

Hi Milan,

This morning, the Government announced some changes to their plans to cut benefits. These changes are called concessions.

Existing PIP claimants will be exempt from changes to the PIP eligibility criteria, but new claimants will not
Existing recipients of the health element of Universal Credit (UC LCWRA), and new applicants meeting the new ‘severe conditions’ criteria, will not have their rates frozen. But new claimants will still have their payments halved and frozen

It's encouraging that the Government is starting to listen to campaigners like you who’ve been relentlessly fighting against benefit cuts for months.

But these proposed concessions will create a two-tier benefits system. And do not go far enough. This is not fair. The Government must scrap their plans to cut benefits.

Your MP, Richard Burgon, recently said they would not support the Government’s benefits bill. But they may now be at risk of supporting it, because of the concessions.

Milan, this is urgent. MPs are set to vote on benefit cuts on 1 July. Tell your MP they must continue to act against benefit cuts in Parliament, and vote against the Bill. We’ve pre-written the email for you, you just need to add your views and send it 👇

Tell your MP to vote against cuts

Thank you,

Scope's campaigns team

Albus_Alumni

We understand you must all have a lot of questions regarding the potential changes to the green paper and we want everyone to be able to have their say. But to make things easier on us all, we're closing down individual discussions and asking you all to join in with the official announced thread. We hope you understand.