DPAC Court Vigil, a Poet Arrested, Musical Poor Doors & More: Wednesday 22nd October 2014, ten years ago today was a busy day for me. You can read my full accounts of the various events I photographed on the links to My London Diary, along with many more pictures, but here I’ve only space for a short outline. Below is my day more or less in order.
DPAC High Court Vigil for ILF – Royal Courts of Justice,
When disabled people won a court case over withdrawal of the Independent Living Fund the government simply put back the closure of the fund. Today’s protest by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) supported a second case against the closure. Speakers at the vigil included three MPs, John McDonnell, Andy Slaughter and Jeremy Corbyn, as well as many from various disability groups.
At the end of the protest, DPAC carried out their usual direct action, blocking Strand outside the court with their wheelchairs.
End UK shame over Shaker Aamer – Parliament Square, London
Protesters were continuing their regular vigils opposite Parliament for Shaker Aamer, imprisoned and tortured for over 12 years and cleared for release in 2007. They believe he was still being held because his testimony would embarrass MI6 as well as the US.
I took the tube from Westminster to Canary Wharf to visit the Bridges exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, later returning to Westminster. I paused in Westminster Station to take some panoramic images of the interior, designed as Piranesian, though sometimes I get more of the feeling of Escher as you seem to walk endlessly up escalators and around the interior.
I found the show a little disappointing, but took advantage of my visit there to take a few more panoramic images.
I made a couple of visits to the Democracy Camp in Parliament Square both before and after going to Canary Wharf. Although the camp had been ejected from the main grass area workshops and rallies were still taking place throughout the day, and Danny, the ‘Plinth Guy‘ was still up there with Churchill since the previous day – and there were cheers when he completed 24 hours.
Earlier someone had been arrested for throwing him a bottle of water, and when performance poet and activist Martin Powell arrived with a plastic tub of food he was warned he would be arrested if he tried to give it to Danny.
He replied it could not possibly be a crime to feed a hungry person and threw it extremely accurately over police heads and into Danny’s waiting hands. Arrested and marched away he loudly recited his poem ‘The Missing Peace’.
Danny was still in place when I returned at 5pm but the police had called in their climbing team. I listened while its leader talked with him, and Danny told him he would not resist arrest if they came to take him down peacefully. But I had to leave before they started to do so.
This was Class War’s 14th weekly protest at the ‘rich door’ of Redrow’s One Commercial St flats and it was a lively affair with the banners dancing to the music of Rhythms of Resistance, a poetic performance and some rousing speeches against social apartheid.
There ws strong police presence but there was no trouble, with a carnival atmosphere and banners dancing up and down the wide pavement in front of the rich door. Most of the police appeared to be enjoying the event too.
As usual after an hour of protesting people dispersed and I went into Aldgate East station to begin my journey home.
Brexit, Inclusion London & Fracking: Protests in Westminster I photographed on Monday 5th September 2016 were for and against Brexit, Disabled People Against Cuts who had been lobbying at Parliament over the Inclusion London report and a vigil by pagans against fracking.
Rival Brexit protests at Parliament
Parliament was debating a petition on the EU referendum signed by over 4 million people calling for a second referendum as there had only been a 52% vote in favour of leaving Europe, with 48% voting against. They argued that this was far too close for such a major constitutional change and at least a 60% vote should have been required for the referedum to be decisive.
Spiked magazine had organsed a protest by pro-Brexit campaigners in Old Palace Yard and they shouted loudly for Theresa May to ‘Invoke Article 50 Now!
A small group who wanted us to stay in Europe had come to Parliament Square where they held flags and banners.
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) had come to Parliament to lobby MPs and to present the Inclusion London report which had highlighted the disastrous effects of cutting care and support funding for personal assistance by the closure of the Independent Living Fund in 2015.
After the lobby they posed on the pavement outside Parliament for photographs and then on the road opposite.
before marching to Downing St.
In front of Downing Street the march came to a halt on the roadway.
Police directed traffic around them as they held a ‘Pop-Up Street theatre‘ performance there.
There were short speeches, poetry and songs from some of the DPAC members, showcasing the creativity of disabled people and the contribution they can make to society with proper support.
Others talked about their physical and mental health problems and the difficulties that they had suffered because of the closure of the Independent Living Fund.
DPAC were supported by other groups and individuals including Winvisible.
The protest was part of a series of protests at the same time as the Rio Paralympics, and a large banner read ‘Rights Not Games’.
On the other side of Whitehall opposite Downing Street pagans were staging a 24 hour vigil against fracking.
Pagans believe that nature is sacred and find spiritual meanings in natural cycles of birth, growth and death and Druidic and other rituals are linked to the seasons. Humans, animals, trees, plants and all of the earth are part of nature, and fracking disrupts the natural order.
A banner with a tree had the message ‘Druids against Fracking – One (heart) for Mother Earth‘ while another had more esoteric symbols with the message ‘We are Nature protecting ourselves‘. One of the Druids was wearing a t-shirt with the sigil ‘The Warriors Call‘, a magic symbol widely adopted as an anti-fracking device.
DPAC 4th July Tea Party: One of the many strange questions that Americans ask on Quora (a web site I occasionally waste some time on and usually regret) is why we British don’t celebrate the 4th of July. It’s actually a rather better question than most – perhaps we should celebrate when we got rid of a nation that can produce Trump and Biden, one of whom still seems likely to be the next president when clearly neither is suitable.
Of course, here in the UK we have our own contest today between Sunak and Starmer, neither of whom in my estimation fit to govern, and, as in the USA elected by an archaic system designed to frustrate rather than provide democracy. If you were unfortunate not to have heard the late David Graeber speaking in person about US Democracy (and haven’t read his book on the subject) you can hear him talking on video (and read a transcript) on The Lost Byway, the site on which more usually John Rogers publishes the videos of his remarkably upbeat walks around London.
Of course I don’t believe that there are Americans dumb enough to write most of the stupid questions that are posted on Quora, which must surely employ a whole squad of AI-driven bots to generate and post them.
Should we need an excuse for a party in the first half of July we would of course do better to wait 10 days and celebrate with the French (also this year embroiled in election madness.) That would almost certainly be far more fun and a good excuse to drink wine, though I might draw the line at accordions. Its 58 years since I found myself in the square in front of the Mairie in a small French municipality a few mile south of Paris and I haven’t forgotten it.
But I have photographed at protests over the years which have deliberately been timed for various reasons for US Independence Day as well as rather more that totally ignored any significance the day might have.
On Friday 4th of July 2014 Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) celebrated Independent Living Day with an Independent Living Tea Party at the Dept of Work & Pensions, calling for a stop to the removal of the Independent Living Fund which provides funding, education and transport that enables disabled people to live in the community.
The chose American Independence Day stating “The famous Boston teaparty led to a revolution against the British government let’s see where our teaparty leads….”
It wasn’t a huge protest but “Fifteen or so people in wheelchairs along with around as many walking but with other disabilities along with carers and supporters filled the pavement in front of the DWP in Caxton St, and at times made a considerable noise. As well as their voices and a megaphone, some had brought whistles and other musical instruments (and some less musical) to liven up the event. For those with hearing difficulties there was a BSL signer.“
The future looked desperate for the almost 18,000 who then received support through the fund, and they were engaged in a long fight to try to prevent it being closed. In 2013 the government had lost a court case over its closure, but four months later the government had decided to go ahead and close it anyway in 2015. A fresh legal challenge failed.
Responsibility for supporting disabled people being passed to local authorities who were given funding roughly 12% less than the ILF – and this was not ring-fenced. DPAC said that given councils were having already to make massive cuts it seems unlikely that all of this will make its way to the disabled and that councils will largely be unable to find the staff to properly implement fair schemes. They point out that the ILF is a well organised and cost-effective scheme and any replacement is almost certain to be less efficient and to severely impacting the quality of life of severely disabled people.
DPAC fear that many currently usefully employed disabled people will have to give up work and will no longer be able to live independently but will have to go into residential care – at much greater cost.
Protests that are well-behaved and follow the rules seldom get coverage in the media – as last weekends massive Restore Nature Now showed – 60,000 people supported by a huge range of groups marching through London was not ‘news’ for BBC Radio 4, and there has been a huge news blackout on all the many peaceful marches calling for a ceasefire in Palestine.
So DPAC always like to end their events with a little disruptive action, usually in the form of a road block, although despite this their protests are still ignored by the mass media. Around half of those taking part decided to take part and blocked busy Victoria St by stopping their wheelchairs and holding banners on the pedestrian crossing.
Police arrived a few minutes later and tried to persuade them to move, getting a little firmer and eventually threatening protesters with the possibility of arrest for obstructing the highway.
“Before long there were around four times as many police as protesters and when it began to look as if the police might carry out their threat of arrest, the protesters who had been receiving a great deal of support from tourists and others – even including some in the traffic being held up or diverted away down Great Smith St – decided it was time to end the protest and wheeled their chairs away.”
Despite this action I don’t think the event received any publicity outside some specialist print and online media. There were a couple of celebrity weddings, another getting sentenced for indecently assaulting girls, a hurricane in the US, an underpass collapse in Brazil – and some celebrations in the USA and many other stories.
DPAC v Theresa May in Maidenhead: In June 2017 we were also in a General Election campaign after Theresa May called a snap election. Labour would have won back then, but for the deliberate interference by the party right who sabotaged their efforts in some key seats to stop a Corbyn victory. Instead we got another 7 years of Tory blunders and incompetence. May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak…
Even now I wonder when Labour seems to be in a commanding position in the opinion polls whether Labour will somehow manage to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. They are certainly doing their best at the moment to alienate party workers in many constituencies by barring their choice of candidates and imposing often quite unsuitable (and sometimes unspeakable) people in their place.
Theresa May was standing in the safe Tory seat of Maidenhead and was re-elected with a majority of over 26,000 over Labour and in 2019 again with almost 19,000 more votes than the then second place Lib-Dem. This time May has retired but it may well be a close run thing with both Reform UK and the Lib-Dems taking votes from the Tories.
DPAC were not fielding a candidate or supporting one of the other twelve in the 2017 race but were there to protest against the Tory government, the first in the world to be found guilty of the grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s human rights by the UN.
They stated that Tory cuts since 2010 had 9 times the impact on disabled people as on any other group, 19 times more for those with the highest support needs. Tory polices are heartless, starving, isolating and finally killing the disabled who they view as unproductive members of society – and by ending the Independent Living Fund they have has actually stopped many from making a positive contribution.
The Tory Government rejected the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities findings in 2016, which had found failures in the right to live independently and be included in the community, to work and employment, and to an adequate standard of living and social protection across all parts of the UK. A further report by the committee in 2024 found that there had been “no significant progress” since 2016 in improving disabled people’s rights and that there were signs that things were getting worse in some areas.
The 2024 report concluded that the UK has “failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and has failed to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination.” Labour has yet to announce anything likely to improve the situation.
A couple of buses took me slowly to Maidenhead where I met the group from DPAC who had come from Paddington in a quarter of the time. They marched to the High Street with a straw effigy of ‘Theresa May – Weak and Wobbly’ and the message ‘Cuts Kill’. After a hour of protest with speeches, chanting and handing out fliers calling on Maidenhead voters to vote for anyone but Theresa May they returned to the station.
Although it looked to the police who had followed them closely as well as to some of the photographers who had travelled down from London that the protest had come to an end I knew that DPAC would not leave without some further action.
They waited on the pavement close to the station until most of the police had left – and most photographers had caught a train – and then moved to occupy one of the busiest roads into the town. The police came running back and began to argue with the protesters to get them to return to the pavement.
Police find it hard to deal with disabled protesters, especially those in wheelchairs and mobility scooters, and they were rather confused (as I was) by the arguments of ‘General William Taggart of the NCA‘ who claimed a military right to block roads. DPAC told the police that they would leave the road after having made their point for a few more minutes, but the police wanted them to move at once.
Eventually having blocked the road for around 15 minutes the protesters were told they would be arrested unless they moved and slowly began to do so. I left rather more quickly as my bus to Windsor was coming and if I missed it I would have to wait two hours for the next one. I arrived at the stop as it was coming in.
My journey home was not an entirely happy one. There was the usual walk between stops and wait for another bus to take me close to home. I got off, walked a short distance down the road, felt in my pocket for my phone and found nothing – I had left it on the bus, which was by then disappearing around the corner. Fortunately the bus driver later found it and handed it in at the depot and two days later I was able to cycle to Slough and retrieve it.
British Gas & Independent Living: Two protests on Monday 12th May 2014 in Westminster. the first about fuel poverty and climate change and the second over plans to end the Independent Living Fund which enabled many disabled people to continue to work and have an independent life.
Bin British Gas – QEII Centre, Westminster
British Gas were holding their AGM in the QEII centre and a protest outside demanded they stop profiteering from high energy prices and end support for fracking.
The protest was called by Fuel Poverty Action who say there were over 10,000 extra deaths last winter because people were unable to heat their homes, while Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, made £2.5 billion in 2013. While they raised gas prices by 10.4% and electricity by 8.4%.
They also called for government and energy companies to end support for fracking which as well as threatening water supplies in the UK would also lead to more climate-wrecking carbon dioxide emissions.
The campaigners called for greater investment in renewable energy, which in the long term will result in cheaper energy and will help us tackle climate change. But this isn’t popular with the big six energy companies (and the government which is led by their lobbyists) as it enables greater local generation and control of energy, threatening their monopoly of energy production and profits.
At the protest were representatives from fuel poverty, pensioner, climate, housing groups and renewable energy co-operatives. After a number of speeches including from Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, Paula Peters of Disabled People Against Cuts, people came together too tear up British Gas energy bills.
A giant bill was torn up and Lambeth pensioner, Ellen Lebethe, brought out a poster-size Fuel Poverty Action ‘Energy Bill of Rights.’
We all have the right to affordable energy to meet our basic needs.
We all have the right to energy that does not harm us, the environment, or the climate.
We all have the right to energy that does not threaten health, safety, water, air, or the local environment of a community.
We all have the right to a fair energy pricing that does not penalise those who use less.
We all have the right not to be cut off from energy supply.
We all have the right not to be forced to have a prepayment meter.
We all have the right to energy that is owned by us and run in our interests.
Inside the Centrica AGM, a member of Reclaim Shakespeare Company had stood up holding a can of beans and a skull to read a version of Hamlet’s iconic monologue, entitled “To Heat or Eat, that is the question”, and this was read out at the protest. Shortly after the actor came out from the building to tell us about what had happened inside.
The protest ended with people planting 100 small windmills made from folded British Gas bills in the grass outside the QEII centre.
Save Independent Living Fund – Dept of Work & Pensions
The Independent Living Fund (ILF) was set up in 1988 under the Thatcher government to provided financial support to some of the most severely disabled people in the UK. Its main use was to enable them to have carers and personal assistants so they could live in their communities and for many to continue in useful employment.
The ILF was administered by a separately funded body and was highly cost-effective, providing support at much lower costs than residential care as well as enabling those receiving support to live independent lives Around 18,000 people were being assisted by the fund in 2014.
When the government announced it was scrapping the scheme in England in 2010 it was met with protests by disabled people and in 2013 was taken to court. The government won the case that its decision was lawful, but lost in the Court of Appeal.
A revised proposal was then made by the government to announce once again in March 2014 that ILF would close. A fresh legal challenge failed in December 2014 and the scheme ended in June 2015, with responsibility for supporting disabled people being passed to local authorities who were given funding roughly 12% less than the ILF – and which was not ring-fenced.
Police tried to persuade the protesters to keep to a small area well to one side of the Dept of Work & Pensions but they refused and protested in a larger space in front of the two main doors, which were both locked for the event.
At the centre of the protest was a small cage, with the message ‘NO ILF – NO LIFE‘ across its top, and below the barred window ‘Without Support We Become Prisoners In Our Own Homes – Save the Independent Living Fund’. Squeezed into this was Paula Peters of DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, the group who had organised the protest.
A number of people told their ‘ILF stories‘ of how the fund had helped them and how they feared its closure would seriously limit their lives. DPAC tried to deliver a letter to Minister for the Disabled Mike Penning but were refused entry to the building and no one from the department was prepared to come and receive it.
One of the protesters who had travelled from Newcastle phoned her MP from here wheelchair outside the DWP, and Mary Glindon, the Labour MP for North Tyneside came down to support the protest. She failed to get DWP security to let the protesters deliver their letter but offered to deliver it for them. She was let in through a side entrance to do so then came out and spoke briefly giving her support to the protest.
Independent Living Ends, Robin Hood Gardens. On Tuesday 30th June 2015 I joined disabled people at Downing St marking the ending of the Independent Living Fund before going to Robin Hood Gardens, a brutalist estate in Poplar doomed for demolition.
DPAC’s ILF Closing Ceremony – Downing St to Old Palace Yard
Disabled people and supporters of DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, met outside Downing St to bring a petition with over 25,000 signatures calling for a continuation of this essential support for the disabled.
The Independent Living Fund which was coming to an end on that day had given them to money to employ support to enable them to live with dignity and for many to continue in work and make a contribution to society. Without it they fear they will simply be shut away and left to rot, many fearing they will now be left for many hours at a time in incontinence pads.
Outside the gates of Downing Street they wrote slogans on incontinence pads; Paula Peters of DPAC had a message for Iain Duncan Smith, then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions responsible for the ending of support, ‘I want dignity – I want to be treated as a human – You wear one of these I. D. S. They are awful’.
A campaigner dressed as Brittania was among those who had come to hand in the petition which had gained support from a video by the stars of Coronation Street and the Graeae Theatre Company’s 2014 UK Tour of The Threepenny Opera. One of those stars spoke in front of the gates of Downing Street.
From Downing Street the campaigners marched the quarter mile or so to Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament, led by John Kelly as Schimmel, the equine star and proud battle horse of the Threepenny Opera.
Here they were joined by others including Labour MP John McDonnell who spoke at the rally marking the end of the Independent Living Fund, at the end of which a wreath with the message’s ‘RIP ILF’ was laid.
The ILF protest had ended a little before 1pm and it was a fine day and I decided to take another visit to Robin Hood Gardens in Poplar, where demolition had begun after the refusal to list the site. Listing had been recommended for listing by the advisory committee of English Heritage in 2009, but the then Minister of Culture Andy Burnham had issued a certificate of immunity against listing which expired in 2014.
A further attempt was then made to have the site listed, supported by almost every well-known British architect, but Historic England, now responsible for listing buildings rejected this.
An open letter signed by many leading architects including Richard Rogers made clear the value of the site, and I quoted from this in My London Diary.
“The buildings, which offer generously sized flats that could be refurbished, are of outstanding architectural quality and significant historic interest, and public appreciation and understanding of the value of Modernist architecture has grown over the past five years, making the case for listing stronger than ever.”
The refusal to list on both occasions was clearly a political one, almost certainly driven by the huge profits demolition and rebuilding on the site would make for the developers.
As with the award-winning Heygate Estate in Southwark, and the fine Central Hill Estate at Gypsy Hill, Lambeth, the local council, Tower Hamlets, was keen to get rid of the estate and had carried out what I described as “a well funded campaign of vilification“, seeing it “only as a large area with potential for redevelopment at a higher density“, working with “developers who see any area of social housing in London as rich pickings for redevelopment and sale to the rich.”
By the end of June 2015 most of the west block seemed empty and boarded up and I was unable to gain entry. But I could roam the large garden in the centre of the estate, now let to grow wild, and went inside the still occupied east block, going up to the highest public level, a ‘street in the sky’ built rather less wide than the architects had originally intended, overlooking the Blackwall Tunnel approach. From there I took a number of pictures of the views from the block looking towards the east.
As on a couple of previous visits I talked briefly with some of the residents who all told me they were pleased to be living in the block and sad they would have to leave – though some did complain about the lifts (I think only one of the two at the entrance I went in was working.)
Knocking down buildings like these which are structurally in good condition is inexcusable in terms of the huge carbon footprint involved in their construction, demolition and rebuilding. The estate could and should have been refurbished at relatively low cost and would have continued to provide good quality homes for many years. Its replacements – the west section already built – are of lower quality and will almost certainly not last as long as this could have done. The advantage of their roughly three times higher density is at the expense of possible amenity.
As well as walking in and around the estate I also took some pictures of it from the surrounding area, and some other pictures you can see on My London Diary, including a few when I stopped at Canning Town station and took a few pictures of people on the new footbridge across Bow Creek.
DPAC Trash The Tories – Maidenhead Back when the Tories got back into power with the support of the Lib Dems in the UK 2010 General Election they decided to launch a policy of austerity, making deep cuts in the services and benefits that enabled the less wealthy in the country to get by and lead decent lives.
The cuts they proceeded to make had relatively little effect on those in the better-paid jobs many of whom didn’t need or had opted out of public services such as the NHS and state education and didn’t live in public housing or working class areas. But in any case the Tories made sure these people were protected with increasing real salaries as inequality increased. The Office of National Statistics reported in 2020 “The gap between the richest in society and the rest of the population has widened over the 10-year period; the income share of the richest 1% increased from 7% to 8.2% between FYE 2011 and FYE 2020.”
In particular, the government continued to bail out the bankers, despite it being the bankers who had precipitated the 2008 financial crisis – and in the longer term had been responsible for creating instability by creating and exploiting huge loopholes in the world financial system established after the war. It was of course British banks and the City of London which played the leading role in this, making London the money-laundering capital of the world with former colonies at the centre of offshoring and enabling after the break-up of the Soviet Union Russians to legalise their illegal plunder and become oligarchs, with a huge influence in the Conservative Party.
But the Tories came in determined to cut benefits and in particular looked at the amounts going to support disabled people and enable them to live in the community. They thought wrongly that disabled people would be an easy target because of their various disabilities. They were wrong on two counts. Firstly because many disabled people had experience of having to fight for their rights and secondly because they greatly underestimated the wide support for them among the general population. Tories may not have a heart (and certainly many Tories have demonstrated this in recent years) but the general public do.
At the centre of the protests by disabled people is DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, formed by disabled people after the mass protests against cuts in Birmingham in October 2010 had been led by disabled people. On its web site it proclaims “DPAC is for everyone who believes that disabled people should have full human rights and equality. It is for everyone that refuses to accept that any country can destroy the lives of people just because they are or become disabled or have chronic health issues. It is for everyone against government austerity measures which target the poor while leaving the wealthy unscathed. It is for everyone who refuses to stay silent about the injustices delivered by wealthy politicians on ordinary people and their lives.”
On Saturday 3rd June 2017, five days before the General Election called by Theresa May, I joined DPAC for a protest in her constituency of Maidenhead. Her government was the first in the world the UN had found guilty of grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s human rights. Tory cuts since 2010 had 9 times the impact on disabled people as on any other group, 19 times more for those with the highest support needs. DPAC call the policies heartless and say they are starving, isolating and ultimately killing the disabled who the Tories regard them as unproductive members of society. Though it was the cuts, particularly the axing of the Independent Living Fund, ILF, which had stopped many making a real contribution.
It was a fairly small group that arrived at Maidenhead station for the protest. Travel by rail is often very difficult for disabled people. Few stations have step-free access and there are often large gaps between train and platform. Rail companies do make an effort to provide support but this needs to be booked in advance and is sometimes unreliable. And rail fares are an expensive luxury for people on benefits – who may also need a taxi to get to the station.
They paraded a straw effigy of ‘Theresa May – Weak and Wobbly‘ and a hatchet with the message ‘Cuts Kill‘ to the High St for a rally, with speeches, loud chanting and handing out fliers calling on Maidenhead voters to vote for anyone but Theresa May before returning to the station.
Most other photographers thought the protest was ended and some had rushed to get the train back to London, and the police had largely gone away, but I knew DPAC from previous events and stayed with them, taking photographs as they moved to block one of the busiest road junctions in the town for around 15 minutes as police tried to persuade them to move.
Eventually they did get off the road, just in time for me to catch a bus to start my journey home. I was sorry to have to rush away, but the next bus wasn’t for a couple of hours. I changed buses in Windsor and got off in Staines, walked along the road and put my hand in my pocket for my phone and it wasn’t there. At home I went to ‘Google Find My Device‘ and saw on the map it was still travelling on the bus all the way to Slough, where fortunately the driver found it and handed it in to the office and I was able to cycle there and collect it the following Monday.
The Independent Living Fund enabled many disabled people to continue to live with dignity and to work making a positive contribution to society and the government decision to close it led to many protests and to legal actions to try and stop it under the Equality Act.
Although a court ruled that the minister concerned had acted illegally, all it required was that the new minister reconsidered the plans. He did so, and decided to go ahead, though with a three month delay. And a judge ruled in December 2014 that although in axing the ILF he knew that the closure would mean many disabled people would lose their ability to live independently in the community his decision was legal.
The decision to end ILF was clearly wrong, clearly immoral, but so long as the legal niceties were observed the government was able to go ahead with it, and our law gave no protection.
The vigil outside the court while the case was being heard attracted wide support, including from Inclusion London, Norfolk and Suffolk DPAC local DPACs, the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, Transport for All, Winvisable, PCS Union, the TUC, and other organisations,and there was even a simultaneous vigil in Toronto, Canada. Three MPs, John McDonnell, Andy Slaughter and Jeremy Corbyn, came to give their support, and there were speeches by campaigners including Paula Peters and Andy Greene, with John Kelly singing.
As expected the vigil ended with a short direct action by DPAC and others, briefly blocking the Strand outside the law courts.
Free Shaker Aamer
This was one of a long series of regular vigils opposite Parliament for Shaker Aamer, an innocent charity worker arrested by bandits and handed over to US forces who have imprisoned and tortured him for over 12 years. He was cleared for release in 2007 but remained in Guantanamo with our government failing to press for his release because his testimony could embarrass MI6 as well as the US.
London Panoramas
I had time before another protest to visit an exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands and on the journey to pause and make some panoramic images.
Probably the most interesting were inside Westminster station, where “the beams and buttresses, designed by Hopkins Architects and completed in 1999 for the opening of the Jubilee Line are also the foundations of the block of parliamentary offices above the station, Portcullis House, and were deliberately Piranesian, though sometimes I get more of the feeling of Escher as you seem to walk endlessly up escalators and around the interior.”
Democracy Camp – Poet Arrested
I returned to Parliament Square where the Democracy Camp was still holding workshops, though police and the GLA ‘heritage wardens’ had fenced off the main grass area.
Danny, one of the protesters had been sitting on the plinth next to the statue of Churchill since the previous afternoon and poet Martin Powell arrived with a pot of food for him, which he tossed up to him, going straight into his hands, despite police warning him he could be arrested.
“How can feeding the hungry be a crime?” he asked and he was arrested and led away in handcuffs around two sides of Parliament Squareperforming his poem ‘The Missing Peace’. I left while Danny was still on the plinth, though later that evening police finally found a ladder and brought him down after over 26 hours.
Musical Poor Doors
It was Class War’s 14th weekly protest at the ‘rich door’ of Redrow’s One Commercial St flats and it was a lively affair, with the banners dancing to the music of Rhythms of Resistance, a poetic performance and some rousing speeches against social apartheid.
There were a lot of police present and some stood in front of the door and ushered a few people in and out but made no attempt to stop the hour long protest, which though noisy remained entirely peaceful. Some of the police clearly enjoyed the music and watching the dancing.
Broad Sanctuary, Westminster Abbey. 28th June 2014
The Independent Living Fund, ILF, was introduced in 1988 to provide financial support to disabled people with high support needs, including those with severe learning difficulties, cerebral palsy, and a variety of other conditions.
Around 18,000 people relied on the ILF, mainly using the average of £300 a week it provided to employ personal assistants or carers to enable them to live independently, enabling some to work and pursue careers. It was administered independently from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) who provided the funding.
The ILF scheme was closed to new applicants in 2010 and the responsibility for providing support in England was passed to local authorities with the ILF ending on 30th June 2015.
There were various problems with the ILF, with regional variations, but the primary reason behind the changes was probably to cut costs. Although the government promised to provide funding to the local authorities for a transitional period, this was around 13% less than under the ILF, and the money, given to cash-strapped authorities already subject to swingeing cuts was not ring-fenced, and so likely to be appropriated for other purposes.
Local authorities were also not given any clear instructions or advice on how to proceed and there were great variations between local authorities in the support that was provided. A survey a year after the end of the scheme showed extreme differences, with some authorities providing similar levels of support to the ILF, but others operating at much reduced levels, creating the real hardship that protests such as this on Saturday 28th June 2014 campaigned against. The loss of ILF was indeed a disaster for many disabled people.
DPAC and others involved in the protest had managed to keep the details hidden from the police, perhaps because it is more difficult for able-bodied police working as undercover officers to infiltrate disabled groups. UK Uncut has provided a diversion with a protest outside Boots on Victoria St when DPAC and Occupy London supporters moved on to the green area in front of Westminster Abbey.
The protesters had hoped for some support from Westminster Abbey authorities as many Christians had called the government’s actions immoral. But they had picked the wrong place, and the Dean of Westminster refused even to talk to the protesters, calling on the police to get rid of them. Labour MP John McDonnell tried without success to phone the Dean who refused to take his call or to phone back.
The weather too was against the protesters, with rain falling steadily, and for once a police officer showed some quick thinking, moving to stand in the middle of the main tent the protesters were attempting to erect, without which there was simply not enough shelter for a lengthy occupation.
I was unsure whether I wanted to go inside the area or not when I arrived, and soon police were surrounding the fairly low wall stopping people from climbing over. But I was able to take pictures from outside and move around freely – and to go home when I decided there seemed to be little point in staying.
Disabled activists were prominent, along with pensioners at the Fuel Poverty Action FPA) protest outside the British Gas AGM taking place at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in Westminster. And when that protest ended they made their way to the Dept of Work & Pensions protest against plans to end the Independent Living Fund.
There were over 10,000 excess deaths in Winter 2013-4 because people could not afford to heat their homes, the situation exacerbated after British Gas raised its prices in November, gas by 10.4 %, electricity by 8.4 %. Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, made £2.5 billion in 2013.
FPA call for an increased investment in renewable energy, which in the long term will result in cheaper energy and will help us tackle climate change. But this isn’t popular with the big six energy companies (and the government which is led by their lobbyists) as it enables greater local generation and control of energy, threatening their monopoly of energy production and profits.
They say “Our energy system & economy are run to make private profit at all costs – our rights to warm home and a safe climate are sidelined. We’re being ripped off and left to freeze. We say: things have to change. We need and affordable. sustainable energy system owned by us, not big business.”
At the protest they launched their ‘Energy Bill of Rights’ with the following statements:
We all have the right to affordable energy to meet our basic needs.
We all have the right to energy that does not harm us, the environment, or the climate.
We all have the right to energy that does not threaten health, safety, water, air, or the local environment of a community.
We all have the right to a fair energy pricing that does not penalise those who use less.
We all have the right not to be cut off from energy supply.
We all have the right not to be forced to have a prepayment meter.
We all have the right to energy that is owned by us and run in our interests.
We all have the right to properly insulated, well repaired housing that does not waste energy.
They were joined by an actor carrying a skull, one of a group which had entered the Centrica AGM and performed Hamlet’s iconic monologue ‘To Heat or Eat, that is the question’ and repeated this for the protesters.
For a final photo opportunity, the protesters planted 100 small windmills made of British Gas bills in the grass outside the centre.
The Independent Living Fund (ILF) helps over 18,000 disabled people who have high support needs to live an independent life in the community rather than live in residential care. The funding is ring-fenced and is highly cost-effective compared with the costs of residential care, the care package costing on average £300 per person per week.
Despite this and a Court of Appeal ruling that the minister had not specifically considered the duties imposed by the Equality Act, and that the proposals were unlawful, the DWP announced in March 2014 that the scheme will end in June 2015. Responsibility for care will pass to the local authorities, and provision will be subject to the usual constraints and cuts of local authority expenditure.
At the centre of the protest was a small cage, with the message ‘NO ILF – NO LIFE’ across its top, and below the barred window ‘Without Support We Become Prisoners In Our Own Homes – Save the Independent Living Fund’. Squeezed into this was Paula Peters of DPAC, Disabled People Against Cuts, the group who had organised the protest.
Many at the protest were going on to lobby their MPs, and one who had travelled from Newcastle had phoned Mary Glindon, the Labour MP for North Tyneside, who came down the the protest. She tried to deliver a letter from the protesters to the DWP but was at first refused entry by the DWP security, though eventually they allowed her to do so through a side entrance away from the protest.
All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.