Workfare
Sanctions
Jobcentres – Britain’s secret penal system
Zero hours contracts
Cuts to workplace protections
Cuts to legal aid
Gig economy
Getting rid of safety ‘red tape’
Scrapping social housing
Scrapping housing benefit for young people
Food banks
Child poverty
Extreme inequality
The ‘free’ market economy
Government attacks on disabled people
The intention to scrap the Human Rights Act
Grenfell – murder
War on the poor
Class war
The above is a list, just a list, although there are plenty of supporting links below, it is a list I am not going to expand on as I have been doing that for five years. The list uses words familiar to anyone paying attention to life in Britain today under the most brutal Tory regime since Victorian times when the poor were brutalised in work houses for the crime of being poor.
The end of the British slave trade was finally made law in 1838 through the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act, it was achieved only through bitter struggle against powerful resistance from those who reaped vast profits from slavery, including the British establishment, amongst whom was an ancestor of David Cameron, the clergy, small businessmen and a great many widows who, then as now, outlived their husbands.
The law, however, did not mean changed hearts or minds and abolition was only achieved by generous compensation for the loss of ‘property’ to slave owners. Slaves received not a brass farthing for their years of abject misery and the abolition of slavery was far from the end of their misery as no provision was made to aid them in their newly ‘given’ ‘freedom’ and they were also compelled under the Act to provide 45 hours of unpaid labour each week to their former masters for a further four years after their supposed liberation. So not only did they have to contribute to the cost of their own liberty, they were cast adrift with nothing, and plantation owners were quick to exploit them further.
It would be a mistake to think that the mentality of the establishment, the so called financial elites and the aristocracy has changed significantly despite hard won legal protections for ordinary people and since 2010, and exploiting the financial crash, the Tories have ruthlessly set about the brutal control and exploitation of the lives of ordinary people in Britain. Put the list above in a pot and shake it, tip it out and what will appear is ‘Slave Nation’. We may have moved on from bull whips, floggings and chains, but the attitude has not changed one bit, nor the desire to exploit and impoverish people for profit.
Whether it is Iain Duncan Smith and his bringing to the DWP the Nazi slogan “Arbeit macht frei”, in his own words “work actually helps free people”, from the German death camps in his welfare reforms, to Damien Green celebrating the gig economy and insecure employment as exciting, “Just a few years ago the idea of a proper job meant a job that brings in a fixed monthly salary, with fixed hours, paid holidays, sick pay, a pension scheme and other contractual benefits. But the gig economy has changed all that.” Adding, “The potential is huge and the change is exciting.” For him, maybe, for us, it means misery and exploitation.
At what point do we stop and admit what’s staring us in the face? Cameron used our money to pay off the bankers debts and then passed on the resultant economic black hole to us and introduced swingeing austerity. That is not in any degree anything less that a slaver would do to pay down his debts.
In 2015 after David Cameron had pledged not to cut Tax Credits, in his budget speech George Osborne said, “As Alistair Darling has said, the sheer scale of Tax Credits is “subsidising lower wages in a way that was never intended.” So those who oppose any savings to Tax Credits will have to explain how on earth they propose to eliminate the deficit, let alone run a surplus and pay down debt.” At that time the Office for National Statistics reported that ‘Britain’s richest 1% own as much as poorest 55% of population’. Yet who did Cameron and Osborne target for living profligate lifestyles with their wide screen TVs and tattoos and their culture of entitlement? The poorest people in society, only swapping the bullwhip for food banks and sanctions and suicide. The rich got richer.
To borrow the words of George Osborne, those who oppose any suggestion that we are a slave nation will have to explain how on earth they deny the facts sitting right under their noses. Today’s slavers praise the bravery and courage of our frontline workers and yet cheer as they vote down a pay rise for them. Grenfell Tower was a scene of multiple murders because the lives of slaves don’t matter, their lives entirely expendable, deprived of the most basic protections, safety measures and procedures.
Modern slavery differs only in the means used to enforce it, our lives are just as expendable and our slave masters could not give one damn as long as they enjoy the rich rewards they steal from us to maintain their lives of luxury.
There are many, many reasons why Theresa May must go, along with the rest of her party of the privileged, but the main reason she must go is that she’s a modern day slaver driving Britain ever deeper into a slave nation. Today’s slaves don’t even qualify for food and housing.
KOG. 22 July 2017
https://www.boycottworkfare.org/event/day-of-action-against-sanctions-workfare-cuts-to-esa/
https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/benefit-sanctions-britains-secret-penal-system
https://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace-issues/health-and-safety/workers-memorial-day/government-cuts-vital-health-and-safety-%E2%80%98red
https://www.trusselltrust.org/2017/04/25/uk-foodbank-use-continues-rise/
https://www.cpag.org.uk/child-poverty-facts-and-figures
https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/about-inequality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj4gurADHUM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcJPlkqOYX0
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/fury-over-catastrophic-war-poor-12719128
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuFMbY4Rq6Q
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/12/british-history-slavery-buried-scale-revealed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jn504jJCjo
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/07/summer-budget-2015-full-text-of-george-osbornes-speech/
