PEOPLE Before Profit are holding a day of action in Derry this Saturday, October 9 over the £20 cut to Universal Credit payments.
It will be held at Newmarket Street between at 12 pm.
Local Derry councillor Shaun Harkin said: “Boris Johnson and the Tories should burn in hell for slashing Universal Credit in full knowledge it will throw workers and vulnerable people – including thousands of children – into poverty.
“The Stormont Executive has done virtually nothing to oppose this criminal cut. The hypocrisy of the DUP’s ‘concern’ is putting ‘crocodile tears’ on a new level.
“The cut will hit Derry harder than anywhere else but the two biggest parties here, Sinn Féin and the SDLP, haven’t organised a single protest or action.
“Sinn Féin and the SDLP have sat on their hands doing nothing as rising numbers of people have been forced to food banks.
“On their watch, more than 27% of people in our district area languish below the poverty line.
“They’ve told people for years to ‘leave it to us’ and discouraged people from taking action.
“It hasn’t worked. It won’t work.
“There’s plenty of ‘concern’ from Derry’s two biggest parties but the statistics show poverty is worse – we have the highest levels of poverty in the North.
People Before Profit Councillor Shaun Harkin
“The Executive won’t agree to this automatically. We’ll get the usual ‘no money’ excuses but they’ve been shovelling cash into the bank accounts of elites all through the pandemic.
“People Before Profit’s ‘Day of Action’ in Derry and across the North this Saturday will call on the Stormont Executive to immediately agree to find the necessary funding in order to restore the £20-a-week Universal Credit cut.
“We need a real people power fightback to get vicious Tory policies off our backs.”
Tags: