“When we talk about real action against poverty, that means doing more than tinkering around the edges. It means taxing the rich – fairly, consistently, and without apology. It means closing tax loopholes and making the wealthiest pay their share.”
BFAWU General Secretary Sarah Woolley recently addressed Arise Festival’s online rally: Halt Disability Benefit Cuts Now. You can read an edited version of her speech or watch the event below:
We are here today because we refuse to stay silent while our communities are punished for simply trying to survive. We are here because the government wants to make more cuts to disability benefits – knowing full well the devastation that causes. And we say: enough is enough.
Cutting disability benefits is not about saving money. It’s about making our class, pay for a crisis we didn’t cause. It’s about forcing people – disabled people, sick people, people already living in poverty – to choose between eating or heating and in some cases isolating them. And it is a political choice.
Let’s be clear: there is no shortage of money in this country. There is a shortage of justice. The billionaires have seen their wealth balloon while food bank use has skyrocketed. Corporations are raking in obscene profits while families skip meals and pensioners sit in the cold. This is not a cost-of-living crisis—it’s a cost-of-greed crisis.
And when we talk about real action against poverty, that means doing more than tinkering around the edges. It means taxing the rich – fairly, consistently, and without apology. It means closing tax loopholes and making the wealthiest pay their share so that everyone, can live with dignity.
We need a social security system that does what it says on the tin: provides security. That means raising benefits, not slashing them. That means recognising the added costs disabled people face – not punishing them for needing support.
And it means tackling food poverty head-on. Right now, too many people are stuck in jobs that don’t pay enough to live on. Too many are in homes that cost too much to heat. And too many are having to make the impossible choice between putting food on the table and turning the heating on.
Let me be absolutely clear: access to decent, nutritious, affordable food is a human right. Not a privilege. Not a reward for working a certain number of hours. A right. And we cannot call ourselves a fair society while millions go hungry, or cold, or both.
We need investment in public services. We need real wage increases. We need rent controls. We need a food system that feeds people, not profit margins and a benefits system that provides support to those who need it. And we need policies built on justice – not cruelty.
This is not about charity. It’s about solidarity. And it’s about demanding a government that works for the many – not the millionaires.
So today, we say:
No more cuts. No more excuses. No more crumbs.
We want justice.
We want dignity.
We want food on the table, heat in our homes, and a future we can believe in.
- Sarah Woolley is the General Secretary of the Bakers Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU). You can follow her on Twitter/X; and follow the BFAWU on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram.
- This article is an edited version of the speech given by Sarah Woolley at Arise Festival’s online rally: Halt Disability Benefit Cuts Now.
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