Get your MP to act against cuts

I read the full article on Benefits and Work and its eye opening and shameful. However, I don't believe anyone, old or young, will get a pass when the new rules come into play. It always seems like its oh lets pit one group against another, young v old, mental health v physical health, in the end we all get harmed, we are already being harmed.

Please stand in solidarity against the proposed Disability Benefit Cuts

Sign these petitions and Share it widely. Back all these petitions calling out this injustice. Let’s send a powerful, united message: We will not be ignored.

Do not scrap the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) -Parliamentary Petition 

Halt Government Cuts to Disability and Low-Income Benefits -Change.Org

Halt Further Limitations on Disability Benefits by Labour -Change.Org

Halt the Proposed Benefit Cuts -Change.Org

STOP THE DWP’S WAR ON DISABLED PEOPLE -Change.Org 

in Solidarity ✊

Hi @noonebelieves - I've just seen your posts above & have added your links to the Green Paper thread. I took the liberty of adding this one too in case any members hadn't already seen it on that thread: https://sites.google.com/view/openletterdisabilitybenefits/home

Scope's forum certainly has gremlins in the works. I wonder if this link will help you to get back on the Green Paper thread, click on 'View Post' in the box below, then scroll down to the latest comment:

Hope you're keeping well 😊

There certainly are problems with Scope's platform @noonebelieves - but I wonder if you're facing the same issue as myself in posting (saving drafts & editing too). I've found after writing a post I've had to hit the 'post' button a few times, same with the 'save drafts' & 'edit' button, before it works; there's definitely a lag in getting things done!

I've found other problems which I won't go into, but it's all very frustrating.

I was going to say that notifications are still not working, but find they now are if I can actually see my profile to access them!

My son taught me years ago that there are always different ways to access things/find a work around. It may of course be different to me depending on how you access the forum (I use a desktop computer), but I wonder if you can access 'Recent Discussions:' https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussions then scroll down & see the 'Green Paper' thread? It's by using 'Recent Discussions' that I 'try' to see what's going on, & the Green Paper thread is currently the first thread you'd so encounter.

Another alternative is just to search in your browser for 'Scope charity,' where you should find a link below to 'Online community.' This 'should' take you to the 'Home' page from where you should be able to see discussions if you scroll down.

We're certainly all in this together. Scope as a charity matters to me enormously; it's the Scope online community team + our members that make this forum what it is, & you have made a very, continuing positive contribution!

I can confirm that yes you can simply copy and paste hashtags from X or Bluesky. I did this myself with campaign materials from Disability Rebellion for the May Day protest.

There was 12 of them and I copied and pasted a short message from me and the hashtags into each one. I hope that helps!! 😊

@Albus_Scope hi is there a follow on thread to the green paper thread that is now closed?

I see the Welsh Elunid Moran spoken out about benefit cuts in Wales. Could this be the start of many ministers doing the same?

This the is the group inside the Labour party who are behind the cuts:
https://www.labourtogether.uk/
https://www.labourtogether.uk/contact-us

DWP cuts are being driven by Starmer adviser Morgan McSweeney

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been at the centre of a storm in recent days; more so than usual. It’s over the Labour Party government’s plans to cut £6bn from chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits.

Aside from the fact that disabled people feel scared and betrayed, many non-disabled people are pointing out that this plan from Labour is something the Tories would have enacted. In fact, the Tories weren’t even planning on cutting as much as Labour now are.

However, a group of Labour MPs who have been openly supporting their party’s attempts to cull disabled people points to where this drive for further decimation of the welfare state is coming from. And it’s right at the top of Downing Street – namely, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and his Labour Together think tank; the same people who destroyed Jeremy Corbyn and pushed Starmer into power in the first place.

People have been widely sharing a letter from a new group of MPs in the Labour Party. It’s called ‘Get Britain Working’ and is headed up by David Pinto-Duschinsky. He also sits on parliament’s Work and Pensions Select Committee:

The letter, signed by 36 Labour MPs, is basically issuing a public statement of support for Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall’s plans to cut chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits. Pinto-Duschinsky even penned a column in City A.M. about the group. It was more-of-the-same nonsense: work is good for disabled people; we’ve got a worklessness crisis; people are left to rot on benefits, but the main problem is it’s costing us too much.

Now, you’d be forgiven for thinking that these 36 MPs just appeared out of thin air to create the Get Britain Working Group. Of course they didn’t.

Labour Together (again)

My colleague Hannah Sharland has done some extensive digging into these miscreants. And she found that almost every single one of them (29 in total) had either been funded by a) McSweeney’s Labour Together think tank directly (17) or b) by someone who had also donated to Labour Together (20), or both (8). You can browse her research here. Someone who funded six of these MPs was Trevor Chinn, one of the co-founders of Labour Together.

Of course, this is the same Labour Together that:

• Plotted to destroy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.
• Fomented the exaggerated antisemitism crisis.
• Went after grassroots Labour supporters and smeared them as antisemites.
• Created Stop Funding Fake News to try and destroy the Canary, SKWAWKBOX, and other independent media outlets.

Labour Together was the brainchild of McSweeney and Chinn – and the former is now Starmer’s chief of staff. However, the point with the fact it is Labour Together MPs openly supporting the DWP’s drive to cut disabled people’s benefits should not be a surprise either.

I have cerebral palsy and tourettes so struggling with my fingers to copy and paste on my phone. And I would love to help

From the Benefits and Work site

What you can still do to challenge the cuts

 Published: 17 June 2025

There are probably only two weeks to go until the first vote on Labour’s cuts takes place in the Commons.  Labour backbenchers suspected of planning to rebel will be bombarded with threats, bribes and misleading propaganda about the reform plans.

But there are still steps you can take to counter the pressure they are experiencing and also to encourage MPs of all parties to vote against the cuts.

Contact local councillors

This really is worth doing.  Cuts will have a very damaging effect on local authority budgets as care services, housing, health services, advice services and education will all be hit and everyone will be worse off as a result. So, it’s an issue councillors really should be raising with their MPs.

Tower Hamlets local authority has called on the government to reverse the cuts, which they estimate will cost them £8.5 million a year.

Two Labour councillors in Cheshire have resigned, in part over the cuts.  This is not earth shattering, but will be big news locally and will draw attention to Labour’s plans.

One reader who contacted 58 councillors has heard back from some who say they have contacted the local MP.  Our reader has also heard from the MP herself, who says she has been contacted by councillors, after residents raised the issue with them.

There’s more details and a sample email to send to councillors here.

Make your MP aware of these reports

There are an awful lot of facts and figures washing about at the moment.  But sometimes knowing who objects to a measure can be as important as why they object.  So, please make sure you local MP knows about these reports – you can copy and paste this information if you wish:

Citizens Advice (CA) literally works for the DWP, having had over £20 million from them to run the Help To Claim service. But it hasn’t stopped CA publishing Pathways To Poverty, a searing report on the cuts, which begins:  “By refusing to properly consult on its plan to cut billions from disability benefits, the government is choosing not to ask questions it doesn’t want the answers to. The cuts will have a devastating impact on disabled people (and their children), sending hundreds of thousands into poverty, and many more into deeper poverty.”

Money saving expert Martin Lewis is probably the most trusted figure in the UK when it comes to financial issues.  So, when his charity produces a report on the planned reforms headed “Lead shoes instead of a life ring”,  and says “We strongly urge the government to ditch these plans, which will cause misery and hardship for some of the most vulnerable people in society” you can be sure people will listen.

The Commons All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Poverty and Inequality is hugely dominated by Labour MPs.  Yet it has condemned the “sweeping cuts” in a report that argues that “These proposals won’t remove barriers to employment—they will add new ones by stripping people of the income they rely on to survive. “

The Commons work and pensions committee also has a Labour majority, yet their interim report asks for any changes to be delayed and warns that the proposals: “might not incentivise work, as the Government hopes, but rather push people deeper into poverty, worsen health, especially in more deprived areas, and move people further from the labour market, as evidence suggests has happened in the past with similar reforms.” 

And then there’s the DWP’s own opinion about its chances of moving disabled people into work. At 4pm on Friday 2 May 2025, on the eve of a bank holiday and on a day when the news was dominated by the results of the local elections, the DWP quietly buried two reports.

In “The Experience of Additional Work Coach Support” the DWP found that more time with a work coach improved mental well being for claimants with mental health issues, but had no effect where physical health conditions were concerned and that “Feeling meaningfully closer to work was an outcome for only a minority of those interviewed.”

 “Evaluation of the Employment and Health Discussion” found that employment and health discussions make claimant’s briefly feel more positive, but the solutions they produce don’t work and fail to address may of the barriers to work that disabled claimants actually face.  Yet the Green Paper argues that claimants will benefit from “a new support conversation” which will “enable people to get help early, providing access to more rapid and timely support.”

When so many respected organisations cast doubt on the Green Paper proposals, surely it’s time to pause the plans and carry out more research and consultation.

Don’t be fooled

Most importantly of all, don’t listen to Labour claims that the rebellion has collapsed, that’s just them trying to make their own backbenchers feel isolated and scared.  Instead, keep encouraging claimants to contact their MPs and also offer your own words of support to those MPs brave enough to openly declare they will not vote for Labour’s cuts.

https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/what-you-can-still-do-to-challenge-the-cuts