Disability rights campaigners held a protest outside Secretary of State for Scotland Ian Murray’s constituency office in 31 Minto Street on Saturday. The event was organised to protest against proposed cuts to disability benefits.
Speakers attended from local community groups such as Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty, ‘Crips Against Cuts’ Edinburgh, and local disability rights groups and charities.
Ian Murray was criticised for cutting benefits while receiving an income at taxpayer expense. One attendee broke down in tears describing the effect the proposed cuts to disability benefits would have on their life.
Speakers were followed by live music and an open discussion about how to stop the cuts.
One protester was dressed as the Grim Reaper to emphasise the life-threatening impact of proposed cuts.
The protest was organised by the Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty and the Austerity Resistance Forum.
A member of the forum commented: ”The Austerity Resistance Forum is a political group based in the local community, and on regular assemblies.
“We are sick of years of failed and disastrous austerity policies which are tearing up working class communities. A crumbling NHS, a sky-high cost of living, and social desperation are the direct result of endless government cuts”.
Speeches and statements
John McArdle Co-founder of the Scotland-based grassroots Black Triangle spoke at the demonstration: “The message we need to send to Labour MP’s is that if you vote for this bill we will see you off. You will lose your seat. We’ve done the research. We know that in most constituencies there are more disabled people than the parliamentary majority of those MP’s.
“They are treading on very, very thin political ice, and the only thing they understand is hard political power. Brothers and Sisters, we have that power!
“The message we send to Ian Murray today, and to every Scottish Labour MP who was elected in the new intake is that if you attack us, if you starve us, if you try and kill us – we will shut you down!”
Following the protest, he added: “We have read the ‘Riot Act’ to the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party] now. We have done our homework and the whole community is on our side: if you vote for these cuts, if you continue your betrayal of us; if you remove our support and try to starve us, make us homeless and ultimately kill us, we and our allies will ensure that your constituency majorities will be wiped out and that the Labour Party ceases to be a political force here in Scotland, Wales or the United Kingdom generally.
“We will take you down with our ship. You know it.”
A speaker from a local disability charity also made a speech at the event: “I’ve worked with disabled people now for eighteen years, and this is the worst attack that we’ve seen ..even worse than the cuts under the coalition government … we’re going to see absolute destitution occurring.
“It’s already happening. In Scotland seventy five percent of food bank users are disabled people or their families. [Audience members shout “shame on scotland”] It is an absolute shame, but it’s also a shame on society, wider society, in the UK… I consider myself a disabled person now… I have stage four cancer.
But, I’m above the age where I’ll lose benefits. It really does mean a lot to disabled people that we have allies in the movement that are prepared to take action…You can tell the amount of support that the public has for this issue by the amount of cars that are honking their horns as they pass… We will win eventually. I’m absolutely certain of that. Thank you very much. [Cheering and clapping].”
A local resident with Parkinson’s disease also spoke, while physically shaking: “There are a lot of elements of Parkinson’s disease which are not included in the measurements for assessing disability.
“Like me, without medication I sleep about four hours a night and day after day, week after week, that’s really hard. They way they cut it, it’s just so arbitrary. If you can tell from my voice, I’m American. I’ve been here twenty years, my life is here.
“But I’ve been getting some close reports with what’s been going on with the Trump Administration, which is in power partly because the democrats did not support the people enough and gave rise to populism. [Applause and drums] I think that is going to happen here. I just want to thank every single one of you for showing up today [tears], for making this issue viable.
“Please continue to do so. Thank you.” [Applause and drums].