labourpress:

Labour Party members and MPs are planning on attending special screenings of the film I, Daniel Blake across the UK today as part of a new campaign calling on the Government to abandon their plans to cut Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) payments. The cuts will see sick and disabled people lose £29 a week and Labour are demanding that the Government scrap these plans at the Autumn Statement next week. 

Following yesterday’s Opposition Day debate in Parliament which saw Labour members raise serious concerns about the impact of these planned cuts, Labour have teamed up with Ken Loach for ‘I, Daniel Blake Day’ which will see screenings taking place at over 450 locations across the UK.

At the film showings, Labour members will take part in campaigning activity outside the front of the cinemas and urge people to lobby their MP and the Chancellor, Philip Hammond MP, to scrap these brutal cuts.

Labour members will be joined by MPs and Ken Loach at some of the screenings with senior politicians including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn MP, John McDonnell MP, Debbie Abrahams MP, Margaret Greenwood MP and Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, all confirmed to take part.

John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, said:

“At film screenings all across the UK, Labour are demanding that the Government scrap these appalling cuts to the most vulnerable in our society at the Autumn Statement.

“How can it be right, especially when we know people are already struggling - to strip £1,500 a year from sick and disabled people?”

Ken Loach, Director of ‘I, Daniel Blake’, said:

“We can barely believe that this Government will make future cuts it knows will hurt sick and disabled people.

“Go to the foodbanks, Mr Hammond, have the guts to face the people you treat with such conscious cruelty. If you don’t know the suffering you cause you are not competent to be in Government. If you do know, you are not fit for the job.”

Great film, bloody awful government.