Reply To: Elections Aftermath: Was our 2019 Vote & the EU Referendum Rigged? #TORYRIG2019


Latest News Forums Discussion Forum Elections Aftermath: Was our 2019 Vote & the EU Referendum Rigged? #TORYRIG2019 Reply To: Elections Aftermath: Was our 2019 Vote & the EU Referendum Rigged? #TORYRIG2019

#64591
Kim Sanders-Fisher
Guest

In America the Federal authorities are finally confronting how to combat having the narcissistic, mentally unstable, maniac, Donald Trump, in a position of ultimate power making insane dictates that cost lives. Meanwhile in the UK we have an equally dangerous narcissistic maniac, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is still making insane decisions that have cost thousands of lives, but we have yet to come to terms with the urgent need to remove him from office. This malevolent conduct was never more apparent than when the PM tricked parents into returning their children to school to accelerate the transmission of a highly contagious strain of Covid 19. In the Skwawkbox Article entitled, “Video: ‘Sunday Johnson’ insisted schools were safe. ‘Monday Johnson’ said they are spreading virus. The consequences are deadly,” the consequences of his cruel dictate are laid bare with the video documentation to prove his malice. How many more innocent people have to die in the Tory ‘Slaughter of the Sheeple’ before we end this tyranny?

The Skwawkbox remind us that, “On Sunday, Boris Johnson repeatedly insisted schools were safe and must remain open and boasted of keeping schools open for a long time in high-infection areas. One day later, he said they are ‘vectors’ for COVID to spread and must close. Watch the video below to see ‘Monday Johnson’ contradicting ‘Sunday Johnson’, who repeatedly insisted that there is no doubt schools are safe. The consequences of his arrogance and misleading continue to be deadly: As well as insisting that ‘schools are safe’, Johnson also claimed there is very little risk to teachers. At least eight teachers died of COVID-19 in the last term, and the school ‘vectors’ have driven infection and death rates to horrific levels. SAGE scientists, meanwhile, say they have known for a long time that school children are seven times more likely to spread coronavirus to their homes than any other cause. Johnson should be in the dock, not in Downing Street.” When are the British going to confront the danger he poses?

The vile Tory plan to deliberately use children as vectors to spread the infection to older members of the multigenerational families in which they have been forced to live due to lack of housing has succeeded in driving case numbers as high as one in every fifteen people in parts of London. The Tories know exactly who their ethnic cleansing of the capitol is eliminating from the census as they watch NHS Hospital staff struggle to cope. The deliberate ‘seeding’ of Covid 19 into Care Homes removed countless thousands of burdonsome pensioners through the Tory Government’s sadistic ‘Holocaust in Care.’ Assisted by the benefit cap, rapidly dwindling access to social housing and extortionate rents, the gradual gentrification of the city has been removing the poor from London ward by ward for the past decade, but Covid has acted as an accelerant on the funeral pyre. When will the public finally recognize the conscious Tory decision making driving this super high infection rate cull and crippling our NHS ready for corporate take over?

If Boris Johnson and his toxic Tory cabal actually cared about the ability of the most deprived children in the UK being able to learn effectively, both in the classroom and at home, they wouldn’t be compelling them to attend school hungry or subsist on the brink of starvation in homes their families cannot afford to heat. Children cannot learn when they are sick, dizzy and faint from hunger, but the massive reliance on foodbanks is ample testament to our vanishing social safety net that is soon to disappear altogether as the Tory Sovereign Dictatorship solidify their grip on absolute power with post-Brexit austerity. If there are so many people incapable of buying enough food to feed their families despite working full time, what will happen when grocery prices climb precipitously due to our shambolic exit from the EU? It is vital that this new wave of oppression and annihilation is aggressively resisted with protests to demand justice, decent wages and proper support for the growing number of people being forced out of their jobs due to Covid.

Workers can gain more leverage by banding together in Trade Union membership to resist the pay freezes and the ‘fire and rehire’ exploitation tactics. Trade Unions need to exert far greater pressure on the Tory Government, but they are also in a position to defund the Labour Party for not supporting the interests of working people. Before Sir Keir has a chance to line up new Corporate donors to fund his lurch to the right, Unions can impact the future of the Labour Party by removing funds until Starmer steps down in accordance with the demands of hundreds of CLPs now voting ‘No Confidence’ in his leadership. This country does not need to remove the dictatorship of Johnson only to replace it with the dictatorship of Starmer, equally under the cosh of the wealthy elite, and the Zionist Likud Party of Israel. The prohibition of free speech and dictatorial conduct of Keir Starmer was a serious red flag: he is a Trojan horse planted by the far right to neutralize the opposition by destroying the Labour Party from within its own ranks.

We cannot allow Covid to muzzle our protests. A group of people gathering with due regard to social distancing and also wearing masks, pose no more Covid risk than most workplaces people have been forced to return to on overcrowded trains. When this Tory Government orders people to work from home they are referring to the comfortably well off, laptop owning elite; they are not expecting this mandate to apply to the working poor. The drive to get comerse up and running again for the benefit of the wealthy corporate bosses, pays no heed to unsafe conditions spreading the Covid virus at work, because those impoverished, exploited masses are totally expendable. There will be many thousands who will be desperate for work, unfairly driven by lack of support and cruel benefit sanctions, to accept pitance pay on zero hours contracts. The Tory commitment to ‘Level up’ is about moving money ‘UP’ from the hopelessly enslaved working poor into the bulging coffers of the already ultra rich Tory supporting Corporate bosses.

The common Tory retort about how work is the way out of poverty is only valid when work actually pays enough to sustain a normal life free of starvation. For this Tory Government, savage cuts in the Department for Work and ‘Punishment,’ DWP, to benefits, the corrupt ‘Work Capabilities Assessments’ and a brutal Sanction Regime and fake ‘Apprenticeships’, have provided a steady stream of truly desperate unemployed people ready to accept the pitance wages offered for working hours at the convenient discretion of exploitative company bosses. The sanctimonious Tory lectures about the confected link between poverty and work are terrifyingly close to the phrase “Work sets you free” the infamous slogan known for appearing over the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps: “Arbeit Macht Frei” in German, the translation meaning “Work sets you free” or “Work makes one free”. The combined catastrophic damage of Brexit and Covid 19 will create a worker exploitation bonanza for the wealthy Tory elite.

Huge numbers of people here in the UK will lose their jobs, but Universal Credit remains dysfunctional. The Canary Article entitled, “The DWP is continuing with sanctions despite a national lockdown,” captures the essence of how the Tories intend to ‘Decimate Down’ by capitalizing on the desperation of the existing and newly unemployed. They say, “The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has just announced that Jobcentres will remain open during the latest coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown. While this is not new, the devil is in the detail. Because the DWP has not publicly said whether it is suspending sanctions or not, like it did in March 2020. But now, The Canary has received confirmation that the DWP will continue to impose sanctions on claimants in some circumstances. On Wednesday 6 January, the DWP issued updated guidance about Jobcentres. It said that they: will remain open, as they have throughout this pandemic, to provide essential services and support to those who we cannot help in any other way.”

Reporting on this issue the Canary say, “The DWP also noted that: We will ensure that this support continues to be delivered in line with the latest government and PHE guidance – such as maintaining social distancing and rigorous cleaning regimes – keeping our colleagues and customers safe. This approach from the DWP is not new. The Canary previously reported at the start of the pandemic in 2020 on the DWP’s plans. At the time, the DWP said that from 19 March 2020: People receiving benefits do not have to attend jobcentre appointments for at least 3 months, starting from Thursday 19 March 2020. People will continue to receive their benefits as normal, but all requirements to attend the jobcentre in person are suspended. Now, it appears that the DWP is continuing with this approach. But compared to March 2020 other parts of its guidance are not so specific.”

The Canary not that, “Previously it stated the following:
• ‘people who need to claim ESA or Universal Credit because of coronavirus will not be required to produce a fit note’.
• ‘when claimants tell us in good time that they are staying at home or that they have been diagnosed with coronavirus, they will not be sanctioned, we will review their conditionality requirements in their claimant commitment, to ensure they are reasonable’.
• ‘claimants who are staying at home as a result of coronavirus will have their mandatory work search and work availability requirements removed to account for a period of sickness’.
But the new guidance does not give details on the above points, most notably conditionality, which is covered in points two and three above.”
The growing incidence of mental health problems is exacerbated by the totally unnecessary stress of conditionality.

The Canary report that, “In July 2020, the DWP started to phase back in so-called conditionality. It said at the time: We don’t want to sanction anyone. These are difficult, uncertain times for many people and we want to do everything we can to help them find work or increase hours, where that is possible for them. No sanction will be used until the claimant has an up-to-date Claimant Commitment in place. After that, a sanction will only be used where a claimant has not provided good reason for meeting the agreed requirements in the Claimant Commitment. Claimants who are shielding, have childcare responsibilities because of COVID restrictions, etc. will have their Claimant Commitment tailored to reflect their circumstances and will not be asked to do anything unreasonable. The claimant commitment is the things people have to agree to do so the DWP will give them social security.”

The Canary say, “As the website Turn2Us noted: failing to comply with a claimant commitment means you can be sanctioned. A sanction is where the DWP stops a person’s benefit money. Then in November, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request forced the department to publish its latest internal guidance on conditionality. It is called the Sanction Assurance Framework. The document gives DWP staff guidance on when and why to apply conditionality.” But are they, “factoring in coronavirus? For example, it states that sanctions can still be applied if a claimant doesn’t look for enough work. The guidance does state: When considering a possible sanction referral, the work coach must gather evidence and review any changes in the claimant’s circumstances taking into account… pandemic (for example, COVID-19). This suggests that, if a person can’t complete a work search due to self-isolation, then the DWP must take that into account. But this is not the same as the previous blanket ban on sanctions.”

The Canary warn that, “it may still leave some people vulnerable to having their money stopped, even when coronavirus and the circumstances it has left them in is to blame for non-compliance with their claimant commitment. The Canary asked the DWP for further information on its 6 January announcement. We specifically wanted to know if it would reintroduce the easements relating to conditionality and sanctions that it previously put in place last March. A spokesperson would not give us a comment for publication. But they did outline that essentially the same rules it brought in in July 2020 were remaining in place. Of note is that the DWP took 22 hours to finally give The Canary a definitive response. While some restrictions in sanctions are to be welcomed, historically DWP data shows that it has to overturn nearly a third of its decisions to apply a sanction. The rates of sanctions did fall after last March, when the DWP restricted their use. But it’s own data shows it still sanctioned nearly 20,000 claimants in August 2020 alone.”

That is an obscene number of people to be targeting with crippling punitive measures during an unprecedented Pandemic crisis! The Canary conclude that, “It seems that, much like last year, the DWP is being slow to act over an evolving national situation. But in September, a parliamentary research paper noted how: Universal Credit, and DWP staff in particular, have received praise from various quarters, including in recent reports from the Work and Pensions Committee and the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee. It has been noted that the digital and automated structure of the benefit, combined with the temporary changes made by the DWP, has enabled the system to withstand a sudden increase in demand where legacy systems may have struggled. So, you’d think the DWP would react in the same way it did last March. This is now all the more pressing, given that since February 2020 the number of people on Universal Credit has increased by nearly three million, to just over 5.8 million people.”

The Canary alert us to potential problems with this deeply flawed system that appears more punitive than supportive. They say, “It now appears that the DWP is keeping the same sanctions regime that was in place last summer, when the country was under barely any coronavirus restrictions. This approach is dangerous, and could potentially cause catastrophe for countless claimants.” We should bear in mind that while the benefit system will come under massive strain as people try to find new jobs, many will never have experienced the conniving tricks the DWP use to deprive people of support and bully them into accepting very poorly paid jobs. Many of those trying to navigate the system for the first time will have to accept a drastic change of career, but it will focus on downgrading them to below subsistence wages. The Canary ask, “Has the DWP sanctioned you during the coronavirus pandemic? Did you feel it was unfair? Then get in touch with us. You can contact The Canary securely via our Tip Offs page, here.”

The Tories want an ignorant and untrained workforce here in the UK because that is the key to maximizing Corporate profits. For many higher paid professionals, the most lucrative jobs will be assigned to the privileged, privately educated elite. New immigration laws will prioritize the morally bankrupt system of, ‘Scavenge – Exploit – Deport’ to reduce the need for investment in UK training by finding professionals from overseas who will work for less and compliantly accept zero benefits and poor working conditions. The major Tory accomplishments of Brexit will be accomplished by relying on cheaper foreign trained professional personnel, while breaking the power of our UK Trade Unions and nurturing an increased level of submissive ignorance and total desperation among the working poor. Singapore on the Thames will create a home grown slave state population ripe for exploitation with profits to rival the Empire days of colonization and plantation ownership.

In the Left Foot Forward Article entitled, “Tories scramble to distance themselves from Trump after coup attempt,” Joe Lo says, “They’re trying to rewrite history. After Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to break into Congress, Conservative politicians across the UK are trying to make out they never supported the outgoing President. As Paul Goodman, a former Tory MP and editor of Conservative Home put it: ‘Conservative MPs, publications and activists will condemn the President, suggest that they’ve never had any time for him, and hint that were they Americans they would have voted for Joe Biden instead.’ But, the veteran Conservative, pointed out: ‘It is necessary for the record to point out that this is far from being the whole story. Among those finally (almost) criticising Donald Trump was Boris Johnson himself. ‘Disgraceful scenes in U.S. Congress. The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power’.”

Will more corrupt despots be ousted and jailed in 2021, including Netinyahu in Israel and our PM? Lo reminds us that, “Johnson and Trump were political allies even before Johnson became Prime Minister. In a meeting with then PM Theresa May, Trump asked why Johnson wasn’t the party’s leader. When he did become leader, Trump told crowds of supporters unprompted that Johnson was ‘a really good man’, ‘tough’, ‘smart’ and ‘Britain Trump’. At which, Trump’s supporters cheered loudly. The praise was reciprocated. In 2018, Johnson told Sky News: ‘If [Trump] can fix North Korea and if he can fix the Iran nuclear deal then I don’t see why he’s any less of a candidate for the Nobel peace prize than Barack Obama.’ He was similarly positive with US diplomats, telling them privately that Trump was making America great again. Ben Quinn, ‘Priti Patel being challenged by @bbcnickrobinson on how close her party came to Trump. Says Michael Gove was pictured ‘gurning’ with him.”

Joe Lo says, “Another back-tracker is Michael Gove who retweeted Johnson’s condemnation yesterday. But he was one of the first to suck up to the US President. When Trump was still just President-elect, Gove flew to New York to interview him for The Times. While Gove claimed to be acting as a journalist, the interview was fawning and The Times owner and then Trump supporter Rupert Murdoch was in the room. The post-interview photo sums up the atmosphere. It was hardly Frost/Nixon.” No surprise to see that, “Another early Trump supporter is the Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg. In 2016, Trump looked unlikely to win and most Conservative politicians diplomatically refused to say who they were supporting. Not Rees-Mogg though. Without even the excuse of sucking up to the powerful, he told the BBC he would ‘almost certainly’ vote Republican if he was American. He continued to support Trump throughout his time in power and has yet to condemn the storming of the Capitol.”

Joe Lo reports that, “Even more moderate, Remain-voting Tories like Jeremy Hunt helped enable and legitimise Trump. Hunt may condemn him now but when it mattered he supported him. Just before Trump touched down for 2019’s state visit, he tweeted that London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan was ‘short’ and a ‘stone cold loser.’ Jeremy Hunt Tweeted: “Priti Patel being challenged by @bbcnickrobinson on how close her party came to Trump. Says Michael Gove was pictured ‘gurning’ with him.” When asked about these comments, Hunt blamed Khan for his criticism (which was political not personal) of Trump and attacked Labour for boycotting the state visit. He called Trump ‘the leader of the free world and our closest ally’.” The unruly hoard of ‘Proud Boy’ extremists and far right racists, some of whom were armed and caused significant damage incited by the President, did not project that noble ideal, but if they had not been predominantly white they would have faced violent resistance from the police.

In reality Johnson and leading members of the current Tory cabinet have a great deal in common with the openly racist views that harnessed deprivation and discontent to fuel their wretched Brexit campaign. Many of the core support team and organizations behind putting a truly unhinged man in the White House were instrumental in using the exact same dirty PsyOps tricks to con the British public into voting against their own best interests in the EU Referendum. In any other country the insurrection in the US Capitol would have been reported as a failed coup attempt, but few have dared to ‘call a spade a spade’ in their condemnation of this dangerous attempt to thwart democracy. America needs to set an example now, but can Trump be arrested and removed from office to face prosecution or impeachment for inciting this angry mob to storm the Capitol Building? He certainly should be as this riot resulted in four needless deaths, but can Trump be charged with ‘Sedition’ less than two weeks before stepping down?

Donald Trump has effectively eviscerated the tenuous moral authority claimed by the US as a ‘becon of democracy.’ This illusion was already a hypocritical facade, with America openly supporting brutal tyrants like Saudi Arabia and working to depose democratically elected Governments as they are still working towards in Venezuela; the veneer of respectability has worn away to expose the US deception. Johnson still enjoys the ‘Empora’s new clothes,’ but how much longer can he dupe the British public into accepIn America the Federal authorities are finally confronting how to combat having the narcissistic, mentally unstable, maniac, Donald Trump, in a position of ultimate power making insane dictates that cost lives. Meanwhile in the UK we have an equally dangerous narcissistic maniac, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is still making insane decisions that have cost thousands of lives, but we have yet to come to terms with the urgent need to remove him from office. This malevolent conduct was never more apparent than when the PM tricked parents into returning their children to school to accelerate the transmission of a highly contagious strain of Covid 19. In the Skwawkbox Article entitled, “Video: ‘Sunday Johnson’ insisted schools were safe. ‘Monday Johnson’ said they are spreading virus. The consequences are deadly,” the consequences of his cruel dictate are laid bare with the video documentation to prove his malice. How many more innocent people have to die in the Tory ‘Slaughter of the Sheeple’ before we end this tyranny?

The Skwawkbox remind us that, “On Sunday, Boris Johnson repeatedly insisted schools were safe and must remain open and boasted of keeping schools open for a long time in high-infection areas. One day later, he said they are ‘vectors’ for COVID to spread and must close. Watch the video below to see ‘Monday Johnson’ contradicting ‘Sunday Johnson’, who repeatedly insisted that there is no doubt schools are safe. The consequences of his arrogance and misleading continue to be deadly: As well as insisting that ‘schools are safe’, Johnson also claimed there is very little risk to teachers. At least eight teachers died of COVID-19 in the last term, and the school ‘vectors’ have driven infection and death rates to horrific levels. SAGE scientists, meanwhile, say they have known for a long time that school children are seven times more likely to spread coronavirus to their homes than any other cause. Johnson should be in the dock, not in Downing Street.” When are the British going to confront the danger he poses?

The vile Tory plan to deliberately use children as vectors to spread the infection to older members of the multigenerational families in which they have been forced to live due to lack of housing has succeeded in driving case numbers as high as one in every fifteen people in parts of London. The Tories know exactly who their ethnic cleansing of the capitol is eliminating from the census as they watch NHS Hospital staff struggle to cope. The deliberate ‘seeding’ of Covid 19 into Care Homes removed countless thousands of burdonsome pensioners through the Tory Government’s sadistic ‘Holocaust in Care.’ Assisted by the benefit cap, rapidly dwindling access to social housing and extortionate rents, the gradual gentrification of the city has been removing the poor from London ward by ward for the past decade, but Covid has acted as an accelerant on the funeral pyre. When will the public finally recognize the conscious Tory decision making driving this super high infection rate cull and crippling our NHS ready for corporate take over?

If Boris Johnson and his toxic Tory cabal actually cared about the ability of the most deprived children in the UK being able to learn effectively, both in the classroom and at home, they wouldn’t be compelling them to attend school hungry or subsist on the brink of starvation in homes their families cannot afford to heat. Children cannot learn when they are sick, dizzy and faint from hunger, but the massive reliance on foodbanks is ample testament to our vanishing social safety net that is soon to disappear altogether as the Tory Sovereign Dictatorship solidify their grip on absolute power with post-Brexit austerity. If there are so many people incapable of buying enough food to feed their families despite working full time, what will happen when grocery prices climb precipitously due to our shambolic exit from the EU? It is vital that this new wave of oppression and annihilation is aggressively resisted with protests to demand justice, decent wages and proper support for the growing number of people being forced out of their jobs due to Covid.

Workers can gain more leverage by banding together in Trade Union membership to resist the pay freezes and the ‘fire and rehire’ exploitation tactics. Trade Unions need to exert far greater pressure on the Tory Government, but they are also in a position to defund the Labour Party for not supporting the interests of working people. Before Sir Keir has a chance to line up new Corporate donors to fund his lurch to the right, Unions can impact the future of the Labour Party by removing funds until Starmer steps down in accordance with the demands of hundreds of CLPs now voting ‘No Confidence’ in his leadership. This country does not need to remove the dictatorship of Johnson only to replace it with the dictatorship of Starmer, equally under the cosh of the wealthy elite, and the Zionist Likud Party of Israel. The prohibition of free speech and dictatorial conduct of Keir Starmer was a serious red flag: he is a Trojan horse planted by the far right to neutralize the opposition by destroying the Labour Party from within its own ranks.

We cannot allow Covid to muzzle our protests. A group of people gathering with due regard to social distancing and also wearing masks, pose no more Covid risk than most workplaces people have been forced to return to on overcrowded trains. When this Tory Government orders people to work from home they are referring to the comfortably well off, laptop owning elite; they are not expecting this mandate to apply to the working poor. The drive to get comerse up and running again for the benefit of the wealthy corporate bosses, pays no heed to unsafe conditions spreading the Covid virus at work, because those impoverished, exploited masses are totally expendable. There will be many thousands who will be desperate for work, unfairly driven by lack of support and cruel benefit sanctions, to accept pitance pay on zero hours contracts. The Tory commitment to ‘Level up’ is about moving money ‘UP’ from the hopelessly enslaved working poor into the bulging coffers of the already ultra rich Tory supporting Corporate bosses.

The common Tory retort about how work is the way out of poverty is only valid when work actually pays enough to sustain a normal life free of starvation. For this Tory Government, savage cuts in the Department for Work and ‘Punishment,’ DWP, to benefits, the corrupt ‘Work Capabilities Assessments’ and a brutal Sanction Regime and fake ‘Apprenticeships’, have provided a steady stream of truly desperate unemployed people ready to accept the pitance wages offered for working hours at the convenient discretion of exploitative company bosses. The sanctimonious Tory lectures about the confected link between poverty and work are terrifyingly close to the phrase “Work sets you free” the infamous slogan known for appearing over the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps: “Arbeit Macht Frei” in German, the translation meaning “Work sets you free” or “Work makes one free”. The combined catastrophic damage of Brexit and Covid 19 will create a worker exploitation bonanza for the wealthy Tory elite.

Huge numbers of people here in the UK will lose their jobs, but Universal Credit remains dysfunctional. The Canary Article entitled, “The DWP is continuing with sanctions despite a national lockdown,” captures the essence of how the Tories intend to ‘Decimate Down’ by capitalizing on the desperation of the existing and newly unemployed. They say, “The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has just announced that Jobcentres will remain open during the latest coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown. While this is not new, the devil is in the detail. Because the DWP has not publicly said whether it is suspending sanctions or not, like it did in March 2020. But now, The Canary has received confirmation that the DWP will continue to impose sanctions on claimants in some circumstances. On Wednesday 6 January, the DWP issued updated guidance about Jobcentres. It said that they: will remain open, as they have throughout this pandemic, to provide essential services and support to those who we cannot help in any other way.”

Reporting on this issue the Canary say, “The DWP also noted that: We will ensure that this support continues to be delivered in line with the latest government and PHE guidance – such as maintaining social distancing and rigorous cleaning regimes – keeping our colleagues and customers safe. This approach from the DWP is not new. The Canary previously reported at the start of the pandemic in 2020 on the DWP’s plans. At the time, the DWP said that from 19 March 2020: People receiving benefits do not have to attend jobcentre appointments for at least 3 months, starting from Thursday 19 March 2020. People will continue to receive their benefits as normal, but all requirements to attend the jobcentre in person are suspended. Now, it appears that the DWP is continuing with this approach. But compared to March 2020 other parts of its guidance are not so specific.”

The Canary not that, “Previously it stated the following:
• ‘people who need to claim ESA or Universal Credit because of coronavirus will not be required to produce a fit note’.
• ‘when claimants tell us in good time that they are staying at home or that they have been diagnosed with coronavirus, they will not be sanctioned, we will review their conditionality requirements in their claimant commitment, to ensure they are reasonable’.
• ‘claimants who are staying at home as a result of coronavirus will have their mandatory work search and work availability requirements removed to account for a period of sickness’.
But the new guidance does not give details on the above points, most notably conditionality, which is covered in points two and three above.”
The growing incidence of mental health problems is exacerbated by the totally unnecessary stress of conditionality.

The Canary report that, “In July 2020, the DWP started to phase back in so-called conditionality. It said at the time: We don’t want to sanction anyone. These are difficult, uncertain times for many people and we want to do everything we can to help them find work or increase hours, where that is possible for them. No sanction will be used until the claimant has an up-to-date Claimant Commitment in place. After that, a sanction will only be used where a claimant has not provided good reason for meeting the agreed requirements in the Claimant Commitment. Claimants who are shielding, have childcare responsibilities because of COVID restrictions, etc. will have their Claimant Commitment tailored to reflect their circumstances and will not be asked to do anything unreasonable. The claimant commitment is the things people have to agree to do so the DWP will give them social security.”

The Canary say, “As the website Turn2Us noted: failing to comply with a claimant commitment means you can be sanctioned. A sanction is where the DWP stops a person’s benefit money. Then in November, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request forced the department to publish its latest internal guidance on conditionality. It is called the Sanction Assurance Framework. The document gives DWP staff guidance on when and why to apply conditionality.” But are they, “factoring in coronavirus? For example, it states that sanctions can still be applied if a claimant doesn’t look for enough work. The guidance does state: When considering a possible sanction referral, the work coach must gather evidence and review any changes in the claimant’s circumstances taking into account… pandemic (for example, COVID-19). This suggests that, if a person can’t complete a work search due to self-isolation, then the DWP must take that into account. But this is not the same as the previous blanket ban on sanctions.”

The Canary warn that, “it may still leave some people vulnerable to having their money stopped, even when coronavirus and the circumstances it has left them in is to blame for non-compliance with their claimant commitment. The Canary asked the DWP for further information on its 6 January announcement. We specifically wanted to know if it would reintroduce the easements relating to conditionality and sanctions that it previously put in place last March. A spokesperson would not give us a comment for publication. But they did outline that essentially the same rules it brought in in July 2020 were remaining in place. Of note is that the DWP took 22 hours to finally give The Canary a definitive response. While some restrictions in sanctions are to be welcomed, historically DWP data shows that it has to overturn nearly a third of its decisions to apply a sanction. The rates of sanctions did fall after last March, when the DWP restricted their use. But it’s own data shows it still sanctioned nearly 20,000 claimants in August 2020 alone.”

That is an obscene number of people to be targeting with crippling punitive measures during an unprecedented Pandemic crisis! The Canary conclude that, “It seems that, much like last year, the DWP is being slow to act over an evolving national situation. But in September, a parliamentary research paper noted how: Universal Credit, and DWP staff in particular, have received praise from various quarters, including in recent reports from the Work and Pensions Committee and the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee. It has been noted that the digital and automated structure of the benefit, combined with the temporary changes made by the DWP, has enabled the system to withstand a sudden increase in demand where legacy systems may have struggled. So, you’d think the DWP would react in the same way it did last March. This is now all the more pressing, given that since February 2020 the number of people on Universal Credit has increased by nearly three million, to just over 5.8 million people.”

The Canary alert us to potential problems with this deeply flawed system that appears more punitive than supportive. They say, “It now appears that the DWP is keeping the same sanctions regime that was in place last summer, when the country was under barely any coronavirus restrictions. This approach is dangerous, and could potentially cause catastrophe for countless claimants.” We should bear in mind that while the benefit system will come under massive strain as people try to find new jobs, many will never have experienced the conniving tricks the DWP use to deprive people of support and bully them into accepting very poorly paid jobs. Many of those trying to navigate the system for the first time will have to accept a drastic change of career, but it will focus on downgrading them to below subsistence wages. The Canary ask, “Has the DWP sanctioned you during the coronavirus pandemic? Did you feel it was unfair? Then get in touch with us. You can contact The Canary securely via our Tip Offs page, here.”

The Tories want an ignorant and untrained workforce here in the UK because that is the key to maximizing Corporate profits. For many higher paid professionals, the most lucrative jobs will be assigned to the privileged, privately educated elite. New immigration laws will prioritize the morally bankrupt system of, ‘Scavenge – Exploit – Deport’ to reduce the need for investment in UK training by finding professionals from overseas who will work for less and compliantly accept zero benefits and poor working conditions. The major Tory accomplishments of Brexit will be accomplished by relying on cheaper foreign trained professional personnel, while breaking the power of our UK Trade Unions and nurturing an increased level of submissive ignorance and total desperation among the working poor. Singapore on the Thames will create a home grown slave state population ripe for exploitation with profits to rival the Empire days of colonization and plantation ownership.

In the Left Foot Forward Article entitled, “Tories scramble to distance themselves from Trump after coup attempt,” Joe Lo says, “They’re trying to rewrite history. After Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to break into Congress, Conservative politicians across the UK are trying to make out they never supported the outgoing President. As Paul Goodman, a former Tory MP and editor of Conservative Home put it: ‘Conservative MPs, publications and activists will condemn the President, suggest that they’ve never had any time for him, and hint that were they Americans they would have voted for Joe Biden instead.’ But, the veteran Conservative, pointed out: ‘It is necessary for the record to point out that this is far from being the whole story. Among those finally (almost) criticising Donald Trump was Boris Johnson himself. ‘Disgraceful scenes in U.S. Congress. The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power’.”

Will more corrupt despots be ousted and jailed in 2021, including Netinyahu in Israel and our PM? Lo reminds us that, “Johnson and Trump were political allies even before Johnson became Prime Minister. In a meeting with then PM Theresa May, Trump asked why Johnson wasn’t the party’s leader. When he did become leader, Trump told crowds of supporters unprompted that Johnson was ‘a really good man’, ‘tough’, ‘smart’ and ‘Britain Trump’. At which, Trump’s supporters cheered loudly. The praise was reciprocated. In 2018, Johnson told Sky News: ‘If [Trump] can fix North Korea and if he can fix the Iran nuclear deal then I don’t see why he’s any less of a candidate for the Nobel peace prize than Barack Obama.’ He was similarly positive with US diplomats, telling them privately that Trump was making America great again. Ben Quinn, ‘Priti Patel being challenged by @bbcnickrobinson on how close her party came to Trump. Says Michael Gove was pictured ‘gurning’ with him.”

Joe Lo says, “Another back-tracker is Michael Gove who retweeted Johnson’s condemnation yesterday. But he was one of the first to suck up to the US President. When Trump was still just President-elect, Gove flew to New York to interview him for The Times. While Gove claimed to be acting as a journalist, the interview was fawning and The Times owner and then Trump supporter Rupert Murdoch was in the room. The post-interview photo sums up the atmosphere. It was hardly Frost/Nixon.” No surprise to see that, “Another early Trump supporter is the Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg. In 2016, Trump looked unlikely to win and most Conservative politicians diplomatically refused to say who they were supporting. Not Rees-Mogg though. Without even the excuse of sucking up to the powerful, he told the BBC he would ‘almost certainly’ vote Republican if he was American. He continued to support Trump throughout his time in power and has yet to condemn the storming of the Capitol.”

Joe Lo reports that, “Even more moderate, Remain-voting Tories like Jeremy Hunt helped enable and legitimise Trump. Hunt may condemn him now but when it mattered he supported him. Just before Trump touched down for 2019’s state visit, he tweeted that London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan was ‘short’ and a ‘stone cold loser.’ Jeremy Hunt Tweeted: “Priti Patel being challenged by @bbcnickrobinson on how close her party came to Trump. Says Michael Gove was pictured ‘gurning’ with him.” When asked about these comments, Hunt blamed Khan for his criticism (which was political not personal) of Trump and attacked Labour for boycotting the state visit. He called Trump ‘the leader of the free world and our closest ally’.” The unruly hoard of ‘Proud Boy’ extremists and far right racists, some of whom were armed and caused significant damage incited by the President, did not project that noble ideal, but if they had not been predominantly white they would have faced violent resistance from the police.

In reality Johnson and leading members of the current Tory cabinet have a great deal in common with the openly racist views that harnessed deprivation and discontent to fuel their wretched Brexit campaign. Many of the core support team and organizations behind putting a truly unhinged man in the White House were instrumental in using the exact same dirty PsyOps tricks to con the British public into voting against their own best interests in the EU Referendum. In any other country the insurrection in the US Capitol would have been reported as a failed coup attempt, but few have dared to ‘call a spade a spade’ in their condemnation of this dangerous attempt to thwart democracy. America needs to set an example now, but can Trump be arrested and removed from office to face prosecution or impeachment for inciting this angry mob to storm the Capitol Building? He certainly should be as this riot resulted in four needless deaths, but can Trump be charged with ‘Sedition’ less than two weeks before stepping down?

Donald Trump has effectively eviscerated the tenuous moral authority claimed by the US as a ‘becon of democracy.’ This illusion was already a hypocritical facade, with America openly supporting brutal tyrants like Saudi Arabia and working to depose democratically elected Governments as they are still working towards in Venezuela; the veneer of respectability has worn away to expose the US deception. Johnson still enjoys the ‘Empora’s new clothes,’ but how much longer can he dupe the British public into accepting the deliberate and brutal Covid 19 cull? How soon before we are able to expose the naked truth about the Covert 2019 Rigged Election to question, challenge and Investigate the corrupt result currently validating our perilously shallow fake UK democracy? We cannot continue passively ignoring the spiraling death toll as the PM engineers new ways to slaughter the poor and most vulnerable in our society; we must rebel before we reach that shameful tipping point at which the US has just arrived: Get The Tories Out ASAP! DO NOT MOVE ON!