Theresa May could be in for an unpleasant surprise at this year’s Conservative Party conference. Hopefully, she’ll have some earplugs to hand – as she’s going to be getting a welcome she probably wasn’t hoping for.
Quite the welcome…
Campaign group People’s Assembly has organised a demo to coincide with the arrival of politicians, delegates, and the press at this year’s Conservative Party conference. Meeting at 12pm on 29 September at Victoria Square in Birmingham, campaigners, trade unions, and ordinary people will be marching through Birmingham city centre. They hope to raise awareness of yet another year of chaos under Conservative rule. But the group also wants to apply some more pressure to May and her party.
As the People’s Assembly said in a statement for The Canary:
Theresa May is staggering, dazed and confused after her mauling at the EU summit in Salzburg, into her party’s conference in Birmingham. It’s hard to imagine that it can go worse than last year’s debacle, but it just might.
The Tories are so consumed with trying, and failing, to hold their party together over Brexit that they’ve virtually given up on running the country.
Tory-created chaos
The People’s Assembly highlighted the following Tory-created chaos being inflicted on the UK:
• The serial failure of every bit of the rail network has been exposed, revealing what every rail user already knows: the entire rail network is broken.
• The prison system is in such a disastrous and dangerous place that hard pressed prison staff have walked out on illegal strikes.
• Local councils have announced catastrophic shortfalls in funding.
• Schools are so underfunded that basic classroom necessities are no longer provided, while teachers face lower than inflation pay offers.
• Thousands of staff are haemorrhaging from the NHS – demoralised by low pay and cutbacks.
• The Tories’ Universal Credit system is a standing disaster, inflicting suffering on some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
The People’s Assembly also said:
The truth is that the social fabric, already worn thin by years of cuts and increasing inequality, is now ripped apart.
The People’s Assembly will be joining protesters outside the Tory conference insisting that a government that cannot provide the most basic security for its citizens needs to leave office without delay.
The march will end up back at Victoria Square with a rally. But the People’s Assembly isn’t the only group planning on making some noise in Birmingham this year.
Give ’em hell
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) has also organised a demo; this one being on Wednesday 3 October. Meeting at 11:30am outside Birmingham Council House, also on Victoria Square, DPAC says:
Since our first march against Tory austerity cuts in 2010 thousands of disabled people have been killed by the Tories’ policies and mindless cruelty. Thousands more have lost vital funding for independent living support and are either trapped in care homes or their own homes. [Incontinent] disabled people have been refused the human support they need to go to the toilet and instead been left with packs of incontinence pads. Others are being charged into further poverty as local authorities hike up their charges for social care.
This year on our 8th anniversary we’re going back to the Tory Party Conference in Birmingham to make sure we are not forgotten and to highlight once more the grave and systematic violations of our human rights which we have endured for 8 long years.
It has indeed been a long eight years of Conservative-led rule in the UK. So it makes it all the more important that anyone who can attends the People’s Assembly and DPAC demos. We need to give the Tories a welcome and a farewell they won’t forget.
Get Involved!
– Find out more about the People’s Assembly and DPAC demos.
Featured image via screengrab
