New photo UN slams British government's 'mean-spirited approach' to the poor

The UN's special rapporteur Philip Alston said Tory policies and cuts to benefits are 'entrenching' poverty and inflicting misery its most vulnerable

The UN's controversial poverty envoy today accused Britain of swapping compassion for a 'punitive, mean-spirited and callous approach' to its poor, a damning UN report said today.

Special rapporteur Philip Alston said Tory policies and cuts to benefits are 'entrenching' poverty and inflicting misery on its most vulnerable people.

Australian Mr Alston is on a two-week ‘human rights fact-finding visit’ to the UK to ‘investigate Government efforts to eradicate poverty’.

In particular he has been looking at the rollout of Universal Credit, child poverty, and the implications on poverty of Brexit. 

And now he has released a report claiming 14million people - a fifth of the population - live in poverty.

He added that four million of these are more than 50 per cent below the poverty line, and 1.5million are classed as destitute because they are unable to afford basic essentials. 

He said: 'British compassion for those who are suffering has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous approach apparently designed to instill discipline where it is least useful'.

He accused the Government of choosing to 'impose a rigid order on the lives of those least capable of coping with today’s world, and elevating the goal of enforcing blind compliance over a genuine concern to improve the well-being of those at the lowest levels of British society'. 

The UN expert is on an official visit to the UK to examine what poverty exists in the country, its causes and the impact it has on people's human rights 

Prof Alston 'human rights fact-finding visit' to the UK  is taking in : Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Essex, Glasgow, Jaywick, London, and Newcastle - to 'investigate Government efforts to eradicate poverty'

This week he went to the poorest village in Britain and then met Londoners who said they have been left 'homeless and hungry' in the wake of welfare cuts.

On his tour, Prof Alston is to speak to pressure groups, academics, trade unions, food bank organisers, and homelessness campaigners while also visiting Cardiff, Oxford, Newcastle, Glasgow and Belfast.

At the meeting in Newham, east London, on Monday, Prof Alston heard from a West African mother how she had to wait for 20 hours outside social services after fleeing an abusive relationship .

She said while waiting she was left so hungry she had to drink her child's milk.

Another disabled man said he was fined for making a mistake on his universal credit application, and he heard how a new mother was placed in a hostel with her three-day-old son.

After hearing the witness statements Newham's mayor, Rokhsana Fiaz, apologised 'on behalf of myself as mayor of Newham and on behalf of the council.'

She told the meeting: 'This treatment of our residents, regardless of their circumstances, their backgrounds, of how long they've been here, has to stop.'

He also paid a visit to the seaside village of Jaywick in Essex.

Despite its tiny size and a population of less than 5000 people, the village has become the ultimate symbol of decline after finding itself at the centre of a furious row involving the US elections.

An old image of Jawick Sands was used in the recent mid-term elections by an American political candidate to illustrate extreme poverty much to the anger of residents and local officials.

Residents in east London told the United Nations meeting how they have been left homeless and hungry in the wake of stringent welfare cuts

An old image of Jaywick Sands was used in the recent mid-term elections by an American political candidate to illustrate extreme poverty much to the anger of residents and local officials

The UN envoy has sparked outrage among some, who are questioning why it has come to the UK

Prof Alston went to Jawick, a post-war settlement of bungalows once described as a shanty town just a mile from Clacton on Sea, and met senior members of Tendring District Council who have in recent years launced a number of multi-million pound improvement schemes for the seaside community.

UN envoys have produced a series of controversial reports about the UK.

As well as comments about Brexit, the UN special rapporteur on racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Tendayi Achiume, said UK immigration policy was so discriminatory it might even violate international human rights laws. She had been in the UK for 12 days.

Prof Alston's trip to Britain is the second mission to a Western European country by a poverty rapporteur in the last 100 years, the first being to Ireland in 2011.

David Gordon, director of the Townsend Center for International Poverty Research at the University of Bristol, said: 'There's an oddity to this, obviously.

'When you think of the special rapporteurs on extreme poverty and human rights, you expect them to be visiting sub-Saharan Africa or Haiti. You don't expect them to be visiting the U.K.' 

Visits by the UN-appointed envoys have a long history of controversy in the UK.

In 2014, a visit from the UN’s inspector Raquel Rolnik caused a political row after she was accused of producing a ‘misleading Marxist diatribe’.

Then-work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith criticised her report as ‘utterly ridiculous’ following her demands for better housing for travellers.

Earlier this year, a UN envoy sparked fury from Theresa May after criticising Tory policies and immigration policy.

Tendayi Achiume also said the Brexit vote had made Britain more racist, and slammed the ‘hostile environment’ for illegal immigrants and the anti-terrorism programme Prevent.

But Downing Street pointed out she had welcomed many of Mrs May’s initiatives to bring about racial equality, while Mr Duncan Smith said her report was ‘complete rubbish’.

Last week Mr Duncan Smith questioned the impartiality of the UN envoys, saying: ‘The issue isn’t that [racist reportage].

‘The issue is about the nature of the self-appointed groups who using the UN’s title are often invited in by political opponents for short term political gain.

‘Too often they come with the outcome of their visit already set which makes them far from impartial.’

'HOSTILE' UK LABELLED 'RACIST' BY UN CHARITY OVER IN TREATMENT OF TRAVELLERS

By Claire Ellicott, Political Correspondent for the Daily Mail 

MPs and Ministers have encouraged 'racist' reporting on critical United Nations investigations into the UK, a Foreign Office-funded charity claimed.

The United Nations Association (UNA), which is tasked with promoting the UN, complained that its inspectors had been treated with hostility in Britain.

UN 'special rapporteurs' have infuriated MPs in the past after they branded Britain racist and demanded better housing for travellers.

In a report published earlier this month, the UNA set out the reasons for the current visit of the UN's special rapporteur on 'extreme poverty and human rights'.

Former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has questioned the impartiality of the UN envoys

It concludes: 'Unfortunately, several recent visits to the UK by UN special rapporteurs have been marred by misleading, hostile and occasionally racist reportage.

'At times, this reporting appears to have been encouraged by MPs and, on occasion, Government Ministers.'

The UNA also published a list of times it felt its work had been challenged by British MPs, including the Prime Minister.

It accused Tory MP Philip Davies of a 'racially charged attack' after he said in 2015: 'This lecture on human rights by somebody from Africa is staggering. He should clear off back to his own continent.'

The note concludes: 'Such language diminishes the United Kingdom in the eyes of the international community, and can also be used to legitimise the actions of rights violators and of the UK's strategic rivals.

In 2014, a visit from the UN's inspector Raquel Rolnik caused a political row after she was accused of producing a 'misleading Marxist diatribe'

'Officials in Kenya, Sri Lanka and Russia have used statements of this sort to justify negative actions with respect to human rights in their own country.'

The briefing note also criticises policy in Britain, saying there is a 'misconception' in the UK that the rights to vote, worship and freedom of speech represent all human rights.

It suggests that this ignores rights to 'education, food, shelter, health, work, social security, and an adequate standard of living'. 

Visits by the UN-appointed envoys have a long history of controversy in the UK.

In 2014, a visit from the UN's inspector Raquel Rolnik caused a political row after she was accused of producing a 'misleading Marxist diatribe'.

Then-work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith criticised her report as 'utterly ridiculous' following her demands for better housing for travellers.

Earlier this year, a UN envoy sparked fury from Theresa May after criticising Tory policies and immigration policy.

Tendayi Achiume also said the Brexit vote had made Britain more racist, and slammed the 'hostile environment' for illegal immigrants and the anti-terrorism programme Prevent.

But Downing Street pointed out she had welcomed many of Mrs May's initiatives to bring about racial equality, while Mr Duncan Smith said her report was 'complete rubbish'.

Mr Duncan Smith questioned the impartiality of the UN envoys, saying: 'The issue isn't that [racist reportage].

'The issue is about the nature of the self-appointed groups who using the UN's title are often invited in by political opponents for short term political gain.

'Too often they come with the outcome of their visit already set which makes them far from impartial.'

The UNA's most recent accounts, from 2016, show that it received £50,000 from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office - its largest grant.

The charity was founded in 1945 and is independent of the UN and receives no funding from it.

It describes its aim as 'building support for the UN amongst policymakers, opinion-formers and the public'.

Many countries issue 'standing invitations' to the UN's special rapporteurs, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, which is a body elected by the UN General Assembly.

 

 

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News Pictures UN slams British government's 'mean-spirited approach' to the poor 

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