BEN CHACKO reports on fears at TUC Congress that the provisions in the legislation are liable to be watered down even further
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Britain’s benefit sanctions are beyond cruel
Punishing those in need doesn’t work from any perspective — that is why the Tory government is refusing to allow access to its own data. It is clear that we need a total overhaul of the system, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE MP
CHRIS HOOFE calls for support for GMB’s Potters’ Pledge campaign, aimed at making sure the historic pottery industry based in Stoke-on-Trent is supported over cheap, low-quality imports and counterfeits
Investing the £75 billion slated for defence spending on a green new deal, healthcare and education would create jobs and help communities far more than weapons spending, argues UCU general secretary JO GRADY
Speaking to the Morning Star’s Ceren Sagir, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists LAURA DAVISON outlines the threats to journalism from Palestine to Britain, and the unique challenges confronting the industry through the rise of AI
We must organise broad-based counterprotests and celebratory local community events to rebuild class consciousness and challenge the far-right’s divisive lies, writes KEVIN COURTNEY, ahead of this Saturday’s big demo in London
Artists should not be consigned to a life of precarious working – they deserve dignity and proper workers’ rights, argues ZITA HOLBOURNE
IT’S almost five years since the Economic and Social Research Council, a government-funded public body, told the UN’s human rights body that the British government’s drive to extend and intensify benefit sanctions “systematically undermines the very idea of economic and social rights as a core component of national citizenship status and/or justifications for such rights on the basis of universal human needs,” making many benefit claimants unable to meet those basic needs for food, warmth and shelter.
The UN agreed, concluding that despite its denialism, the government was breaching the human rights of benefit claimants at every turn. The UN repeated its call as recently as November 2022.
Despite the clarity of the warnings, the government did nothing to improve its treatment of the most marginalised — in fact, since then the situation has only gone downhill. The number of people suffering sanctions hit record levels in 2022.
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