Austerity is an economic war on the poor
Every month 10,000s of the poorest unemployed people in Britain are sanctioned. Many of them are single parents — some with more than one child. Tens of thousands of sanctions become millions over the years.

We tend to think of sanctions as being applied to countries — for example we sanction North Korea for building nuclear bombs. A sanction on a country is usually to stop them being able to trade with other countries — to reduce their economic activity — to make them poorer. A sanction on a country is economic war on that country.
So why would a government apply a sanction to a poor person in its own country? Why would you want to reduce the economic activity of the poorest citizen? Why would you declare an economic war on a poor person?
The government believes that poor uneducated people are a drag on the economy. They hold the economy back because they need Welfare to prop them up whereas rich educated people are self-sufficient. But this view is wrong.
The poorest spend most of the money they receive back in the UK economy. They buy energy, food and pay for housing with those benefits. Without those housing benefit incomes housing associations would struggle to exist. Without those benefit incomes most local corner shops would have disappeared from the economy. The poorest buy pre-pay energy, food and yes lottery tickets from their corner shop.
But most of the poorest getting benefits are working poor. They work in Costas or clean your school or hotel. Without the working poor you could not have a coffee away from home — or stay in a clean hotel. Your child’s school would be rat infested without the poor cleaning them.
So punishing the poorest with austerity is declaring war on the poor. An economic war has serious consequences. Look at North Korea or Venezuela. Social order is either imposed with an extreme cruelty or it breaks down into civil war.
The austerity economic war on the poorest in the UK is putting rich against poor, educated versus uneducated. Brexit is one battle in that economic war where the poor uneducated overthrew the rich educated. That should be a warning on the danger of austerity.
