TRADE unionists in Merseyside plan to “depose” a government minister they accuse of making disabled people’s lives a misery by ensuring she loses her seat at next year’s general election.
They say Tory Employment Minister Esther
McVey has helped condemn hundreds of thousands of jobless and disabled
people to a life of penury, misery and uncertainty.
They have launched a campaign to overthrow the 2,436 majority which won her Wirral West Parliamentary seat in 2010.
The campaign has been launched by Wirral Trades Union Council.
Wirral TUC secretary Alec McFadden said: “We have already printed the first 1,000 ‘Sack McVey’ stickers.”
Ms McVey’s constituency includes the
mansions of multi-millionaire footballers as well as working-class
council estates and communities such as Woodchurch and Arrow Park.
Ms McVey was to her job at the Department for Work and Pensions in early 2013.
Mr McFadden said: “The number of
sanctions against benefit claimants since she became Employment Minister
has increased both in Wirral and across the UK and now stands at a
record level.”
Sanctions deny jobless people benefits if
they miss or are late for an appointment, refuse unpaid work, don’t
apply for enough jobs — even if they are non-existent — and being too
ill to attend an interview.
Mr McFadden said there were increasing reports of people committing suicide after their benefits were withdrawn.
Annette Francis, 30, a single-parent
with an 11-year-old son, was found dead at her home in Garston in
Liverpool in May. Her benefits had been stopped for six months by the
Department of Work and Pensions.
