We continue to call on Government to implement all its recommendations and ensure carers do not receive overpayments.
Gathering your experiences is vital for this campaigning. If you've experienced an overpayment, please share: https://t.co/5X5zsz9Mm9
Last weekend, I spoke about why it takes courage to stand up for women’s rights, and how our values give us the foundation to do so.
Women are a universally and uniquely oppressed group and, as a political class, deserve rights, dignity and protection. Everything else is downstream from this: being able to name, and fight against, violence against women, exploitation in prostitution, pornography and surrogacy, and other forms of oppression. And to fight for the dignity, safety and equality of women.
It should not take courage to say so. But civil society spaces have cast out women from their own “communities” for insisting on sex-based rights and have made belonging conditional on conformity.
I have experienced all of this myself. The thorough capture of activist movements: feminist and women’s rights organisations, anti-racism networks (including those working on anti-Muslim racism), refugee and migrant organisations, disability rights groups, youth activism, the climate movement, development cooperation.
It is not only deeply unpleasant, but has existential consequences: reputational damage, loss of income or funding, exclusion from platforms, networks and opportunities, monitoring and reporting, de-banking and removal from income generating services, court proceedings for hate speech and extremism, threats, harassment and attacks.
Values are only meaningful if they can be held under pressure. Civil society depends on space for disagreement. And women’s rights depend on clarity about sex-based inequality.
I am grateful to the European Network of Migrant Women (@ENoMW) for the courageous work they are doing to protect this. And for inviting me to share my experience, my perspectives and the reasons that led me to create @AthenaForumEU.
Today our Chief Executive, @Helen_M_Walker, spoke on BBC’s Morning Live about Carer’s Allowance and the concern that it stops for many as they reach pension age.
You can watch the full interview here: https://t.co/G6jfNgfQzM
Many congratulations to NDPSG founding officer Dr Elizabeth Corcoran and team. Our friends @DSRF_UK continue to press for Down syndrome specific medical research by funding projects and disseminating the findings. Follow them to see their latest work.
✨ If you're struggling with present times, this might help: where I discover an amazing work of art hidden in plain sight in Richmond, Yorkshire: 👉 https://t.co/ZX7v74Gw3J
I've been given a copy of a briefing from Labour MPs 🧵.
Campaigners want Lauren Edwards or Andrew George to insist an identically flawed and widely criticised bill should become law using powers designed for, and only ever used by, an elected government.
Text:
The Parliament Acts plan: Members are being asked to force an unsafe bill into law
When it comes to enabling the state and doctors to help end vulnerable people’s lives, Parliament must be confident that any law it passes is safe. This Bill has already failed once because of its inadequacies.
Assisted dying campaigners want MPs to demand that the Parliament Acts are used on a Private Member’s Bill for the first time ever: to insist an identically flawed and widely criticised bill should become law using powers designed for, and only ever used by, an elected government.
This plan would mean entrenching in law known risks to vulnerable people – and to the NHS – that have been identified by experts including the Royal Colleges and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Even the Bill’s sponsor has accepted that changes are needed in at least eleven areas.
Throughout, politicians on both sides have expressed strong support for palliative care, including hospices. Yet over the period this Bill has been debated, the availability of that care has shrunk. Hospices are cutting services, closing beds, and struggling to meet rising demand. Choice cannot be theoretical.
The Parliament Acts plan asks MPs to close their eyes and pretend the law is fit for purpose and no changes are needed.