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A disabled art activist has sent a powerful message to Labour over its DWP benefit cuts

Disabled art activist Dolly Sen is sending the Labour Party government a clear, and harrowing message. That is, the callous plans of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will lead to countless more deaths of disabled benefit claimants.

An act of art activist resistance against the DWP’s cuts

Sen will send A5 postcards to all 404 Labour MPs to highlight the DWP’s brutal policies that have led to the deaths of disabled claimants.

As the Canary’s Steve Topple has reported previously, between 2011 and 2018 alone, the DWP was responsible for over 35,000 (recorded) deaths. Of course, many more people have died since due to the DWP.

So crucially, Sen’s postcards will spell out that it will happen on Labour’s watch if they act on Starmer’s dangerous and false rhetoric on disability benefits. Sen’s action is a plea to MPs to do the moral thing and oppose the plans.

The postcard displays the photographs of “just a handful” of disabled people the DWP’s brutal policies have killed:

Postcard displaying the photographs of nine claimants the DWP's policies have killed. On the left, the text reads: 1000s of disabled people have died thanks to the brutal policies of the DWP by starving some to death after their benefits were stopped, some driven to suicide, and some dying from their conditions after being 'fit to work'. Here are just a handful. MARK WOOD STARVED TO DEATH ERROL GRAHAM STARVED TO DEATH PAUL REEKIE TOOK OWN LIFE PHILIPPA DAY TOOK OWN LIFE DAVID BARR TOOK OWN LIFE KAREN SHERLOCK DIED AFTER BEING FOUND FIT TO WORK STEPHEN CARRE TOOK OWN LIFE JODEY WHITING TOOK OWN LIFE KER FEATHERSTONE TOOK OWN LIFE On the right, six squares that read "Killed by Labour gov" and: The current Labour government wants to continue this devastating work, using the same contrived tactics and lies spreading (for example, benefit fraud has always been less than 0.5%) This means we will need to add more boxes for Labour MPs to fill in the details of those who will die in the future on their watch. YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO HIDE THIS FROM HISTORY

On the other side, the postcard lists a haunting block wall of names under the caption: “Some DWP deaths” and “there are thousands more”:

Text in black and red reads: SOME DWP DEATHS there are thousands more Timothy Finn - Starved to death / Stephen Carrè - Suicide/Paul Reekie - Suicide/ Ms DE - Suicide /Karen Sherlock - Died after being found 'fit to work' / Colin Traynor Died after being found 'fit to work' / Edward Jacques - Suicide / Brian McArdle - Died after being found 'fit to work'/ Linda Wooton - Died after being found 'fit to work' / Stephanie Bottrill - Suicide/ David Clapson - Died after being Sanctioned/ Mark Wood - Starved to Death/ David Barr - Suicide/ Michael O'Sullivan - Suicide /Tim Salter - Suicide/ Faiza Ahmed - Suicide/ Sue Holt - Died after Work Capacity Assessment/Luke Alexander Loy - Died after being found 'fit to work'/ Moira Drury - Died after benefits stopped/ Frances McCormack - Suicide/ Paul Donnachie -Suicide/ Susan Roberts - Suicide/ Lawrence Bond - Died after visiting Job Centre/ Jodey Whiting - Suicide/ Diane Hullah -Suicide/ Mark Barber - Suicide/ Errol Graham - Starved to Death/ Roy Curtis - Suicide/ James Oliver - Died after Benefits stopped/ Stephen Smith - Died after being found 'fit to work'/Phillipa Day - Suicide/ Christian Wilcox - Suicide/ Philip Pakree - Died from Stress of Upcoming WCA/ Ker Featherstone - Suicide/ Richard Sanderson - Suicide/ Paul Wilcoxson - Suicide/ Leanne Chambers - Suicide/ Kayjah Pardo - Suicide/ Elaine & Robert Christian - Suicide/ David Groves - Died day before benefit assessment/Shaun Pilkington - Suicide/ Nicolas Peter Barker - Suicide/ Robert Barlow - Deemed 'fit for work' despite being given a few months to live/ Cecilia Burns - Died after being found 'fit to work'/ Steven Cawthra - Suicide/ David Coupe - Benefits cut whilst terminally ill / Jacqueline Harris - Suicide/ Vicky Harrison - Suicide/ Stephen Hill - Died after being found 'fit to work'/ Craig Monk - Suicide/ Terry McGarvey - Died on the day of 'fitness to work' assessment / Mark & Helen Mullins -Suicide/ Larry Newman - Died after being found 'fit to work'/Carl Payne - Suicide/ Lee Robinson - Suicide/ Martin Rust -Suicide/Tim Salter - Suicide/ Elenore Tatton - Died after being found 'fit to work'/ Paul Turner - Died after being found 'fit to work'/ John Walker - Suicide/ Julia Kelly - Suicide/ Ben McDonald - Suicide/ Michael Connolly - Suicide/ Martin Hadfield - Suicide/ Janet McCall - Died after being found 'fit to work'

The postage for this intervention was crowd funded.

‘Wouldn’t it be a government to be proud of’ if no disabled claimants died from DWP policies?

Dolly Sen has previously made a documentary on DWP deaths and has undertaken two art interventions at the DWP head office in London.

She has also made an accompanying video about why she is doing this action, which you can view here:

Disabled people have been seen by successive governments as easy targets and very little actual truth about the situation is publicly known. For example, even the DWP’s own figures on fraud shown it is less than 0.2% and is going down.

Sen hopes her postcard will nudge the humanity of MPs and compel them to do the right thing. Ultimately, she’s challenging the Labour government to be better than the Tories with the DWP, poignantly asking:

Wouldn’t it be a government to be proud of if no disabled claimant starved to death, took their own life, or die from their condition after being deemed ‘fit to work’?

If they don’t do the decent and moral thing, Sen has put boxes on the postcard to fill in the details of those who will die in future – on Labour’s watch.

Featured image supplied

By The Canary

This post was originally published on Canary.