Another Meeting. Another Inaccessible Venue.

No, laying down a ramp with a 7 cm lip along the front edge does not make your building accessible or make your venue compliant with regulations. If my wheelchair is unable to climb the 7 cm lip on the ramp, then the ramp serves no purpose other than as a tripping hazard for the ambulatory. 

Answering the front door of a meeting place venue and expecting my PA to drag a heavy plywood board to somehow improve the ramp's accessibility is not on either. Especially when the person opening the doors is deep in conversation on a mobile phone.

We on the Left purport to support equality throughout society. Yet, I'm invited to a politically Left-leaning meeting and I'm confronted with an inaccessible venue.

Thus, when leaving the venue totally pissed off, I was not being rude to Comrades who suggested that I return to the venue to see if anything could be done to resolve the problem. No, I was avoiding more attention being focussed on myself; more of being the attraction instead of merely a member present for a discussion and debate. 

Equality has to extend to all if we truly desire an equal society.

There's a video doing the rounds on Facebook. This video, which is at least a couple of years old, shows a young male EDF supporter being interviewed at a rally. The person being interviewed makes a number of anti-Muslim remarks, he trips over his words, he repeats himself in an attempt to articulate his argument. His grasp on the world of Islam comes across as non-existent. He struggles with his words even inventing words such as 'Muslamic'.  
Having viewed the video a few times I get a sense that the lad being interviewed has learning disabilities. Although this in no way excuses his obvious ignorance of Islam and the Muslim world calling him 'dumbo' is also inexcusable. 
Why is it that people who fight against racism are unwilling to stand up for disablism? An injustice made to one is a threat made to all. If as we purport we are fighting for equality, we must then extend equality across all areas of living.
Just as you can't be a little bit married, or indeed more dead, so you can't demand more or less equality. We either have equality or we have inequality.

Well done Real Madrid

Unlucky Liverpool. Salah's early retirement from the field of play through injury; Karius' goalkeeping gaffs; and, a peach of a goal by Bale, were too much with which to contend. You played a good game, but Real Madrid managed to put more goals in the back of the net, and that's what counts.

Why can't people accept that there are winners and losers in any competition? Sure, sometimes there is an element of unfairness in a result, a degree of good luck, some poor refereeing decisions, but these are all an integral part of the game. 

I'd far rather an element of referee error in the game, a bit of luck, good or bad, and players having an off game than a game that becomes so sanitised by robotic player performances, referees that aren't human and an environment free of luck or chance.

Ken Livingstone's resignation was a classic act of positive political expediency

Ken Livingstone's resignation from the Labour Party to stop the story acting as yet another distraction was done for selfless reasons. Yet for some Jewish leaders, this is not enough. They wanted Corbyn to publicly expel Livingstone while eviscerating himself.

Livingstone was not the issue, he was not the prize. No, the real prize was, is, the toppling of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party. 

So, with whispers of a possible General Election in the autumn, October, this is the best time for Ken Livingstone to disassociate himself from the Labour Party. To stop being the distraction.

Sadly, Ken's resignation will not stop anti-Corbyn elements within our Jewish communities from continuing to hound Jeremy Coryn out of the leadership. However, whereas Ken had a habit of allowing his opponents to light his fuse and watch as he did the rest, Corbyn is less likely to walk into a well-rehearsed right-wing-led frame-up.

Speech from Hyde Park on Saturday 12 May 2018

Hello Comrades, I’m Sean McGovern, Unite member and Chair of the TUC Disabled Workers Committee.

Comrades we march together today to demand a new deal and social justice for our class. 

Yet we are confronted by a government clinging onto a failed austerity programme. 

A government that stumbles and blunders through the Brexit negotiations while growth in the economy goes south.

We have a Prime Minister in May who has such a shaky control over her Jenga-like cabinet an edifice that would collapse if a vital piece was removed. 

Can Theresa May hang on to 2022 or will one of her cabinet or back-benchers make the challenge, thus putting her, and us, out of her misery.

Comrades, working people in the UK deserve a new deal from governments who have presided over the most draconian cuts to our public services, jobs and benefits for the past eight years. 

An austerity programme that has only succeeded in the growth of food banks, a disgraceful increase in child hunger and record levels of homelessness and rough sleeping. 

A government that with no hesitation reduces the income of disabled people by slashing their benefits. 

A government that has presided over and allows the continuation of the fatally flawed Work Capability Assessment. 

An assessment system that has led to the unnecessary deaths of thousands. 

An administration that has pushed social care and support into chaos; to the point of collapse. 

As we enjoy the freedom of today’s event there are hundreds of thousands of disabled and elderly people imprisoned in their own homes. 

Disabled people further punished when they are punitively hit by social care charges, an unfair taxation. 

Let us call for social care and support system free at the point of need and funded through general taxation. 

This Tory regime and its predecessor, the Coalition, despite insisting that work pays have done nothing to close the employment gap for disabled people who are still massively disadvantaged when seeking employment. 

And rather than promoting and extending Access to Work, instead they place greater barriers in front of disabled workers making our employment precarious and even putting us into debt. 

Comrades, we need change in the form of a government that looks to governing on behalf of the many, not pandering to the greed of the few. 

We need a government that will close the employment gap experienced by disabled people seeking work by placing severe sanctions on employers who discriminate against us; by extending Access to Work to more disabled people and scrapping financial capping of funding.

Let’s elect a government who replace a punitive welfare benefits system with real social security. 

A system that gives disabled people who cannot work the dignity of a decent income.

No more food banks. 

No more sanctioning of benefits. 

No more our children go to school hungry. 

Indeed, let’s demand the harmonisation of educational opportunities by properly funding schools to allow disabled children into mainstream schools.  

Comrades, let’s build a trade union movement that will fight for decent pay, terms and conditions in both the public and private sectors. 

A movement that works with its communities and strives for social justice for all our class.

Comrades, Solidarity. 

Comrades, Happy May Day

Comrades, Happy May Day

I’m Sean McGovern here today from Unite’s London and Eastern Region and the TUC General Council to deliver a message of Solidarity to our class and to voice the concerns of millions of disabled people.

But first, I’d like you all to give a big May Day cheer to a group of Dial-a-Ride drivers, Unite members, from the Woodford and Orpington Depots who are out on strike today. 

This Conservative regime is imposing the most draconian of measures upon disabled people.

We are being attacked across all age groups.

Inclusive education is a far-off dream for lots of disabled children, as more and more are being home-schooled.

Indeed, we hear stories of parents threatening to take their children out of schools if disabled children are placed in the same classrooms.

Thus, a rise in the numbers of disabled children being segregated into ‘special needs’ schools.

Comrades, this kind of treatment often follows disabled people throughout their lives.

There are only 50% of disabled people of working age in employment.

This compared to around 75% amongst the rest of the working age population.

Even though this government has missed successive targets to get disabled people into employment they continue to hound disabled people who are unable to work.

The Work Capability Test continues to fail thousands and thousands of disabled people by assessing them as being able to work when the reality is different.

To further punish this group the government has stringently cut back Employment Support Allowance, forcing scores of thousands of disabled people into poverty.

Benefits sanctions are imposed on disabled people for being unable to climb the very barriers designed and built to criminal levels of inaccessibility.

And yet we’ve not felt the full force of cuts, as more are in the pipeline.

Universal Credit will find disabled people losing disability premiums and tax credits from their benefits.

Comrades, the social care and support sector is in a state of chaos.

This chaos spreads across all sections and players within the sector.

Care workers, carers, support workers and personal assistants are totally undervalued.

They are paid low wages, given bad terms and conditions and afforded poor job opportunities.

Care agencies are going out of business as Local Authority care funding evaporates.

Social workers, occupational therapists and care assessors are increasingly being bullied into cutting care and support packages.

Many are leaving the service rather than do disabled and elderly people a disservice.

And the service users, disabled and elderly people are seeing their care packages cut to criminally unsatisfactory levels. 

Disabled people are often left for hours at a time on their own increasing their isolation and social exclusion.

Living in such conditions have deleterious effects on both physical and mental health.

Therefore, we must fight for a National Care and Support Service free at the point of need and funded through general taxation. 

Comrades, what I have painted is a part of a landscape depicting some features of life for disabled people in a system that employs neoliberal policies.

Neoliberal policies that are contrary to affording people a decent standard of living.

But Comrades, the landscape is a work in progress. 

And while disabled people are on the receiving end of the most pernicious cuts in our benefits and services, we are fighting back.

Every day trade union workplace and equality reps are gaining reasonable adjustments for our disabled members. 

We are assisting with Access to Work claims.

We are defending our disabled comrades from unwarranted bullying and harassment by both bosses and co-workers.

Organisations such as Disabled People Against Cuts, Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance, Inclusion London and ALLFIE are defending disabled people.

By using Judicial Review, we are getting local authority policies turned over.

By lobbying our MPs, we are ensuring people get their benefits, services and housing issues dealt with.

And, by direct action we are sending a message to this government.

A message that we are willing to fight with any means to stop them consigning us to the shadows of social exclusion and to stop them killing our brothers and sisters with their inhumane social policies.

Comrades, any of us can be visited by disability at any time. 

Our struggle is your struggle; just as your fight is our fight.

Solidarity!

Thank you for re-electing me to the Chair of the L&E DMC

I'd like to thank Unite the Union's London and Eastern Disabled Members' Committee for re-electing me as Chair for the next three years. 
Having put their trust in me again I pledge to push progressive policies through and to lead those campaigns we take on for the benefit of Unite members and the wider community.
In Solidarity
Sean