Report from ATOS + DWP Protest, August 31st

By Liam Hammock, Graveseham and Medway SWP. Disabled activist

AKA @KnarkyBadger on Twitter

A group of around 200 protestors are gathering in the square. A real pick’n’mix of people, some disabled, some not, some politicals, some not, from all over the UK and NI. Myself and 2 comrades had travelled up from Kent, where we’d a successful protest against our local ATOS office on Tuesday.

By 13:00 The crowd was swelling to in excess of 500. Police and private security was visible but just watching. For approx the next hour the square was full of chanting (mostly good natured but angry) and some street theatre centred around the “ATOS Miracle cure booth”. By 14:00-15 The demo was winding down bar some jeering of ATOS employees and/or business visitors dumb enough to leave the building.

At around this time of 14:15 it was announced that the demo would be moving on to protest outside the DWP building at Caxton House, Tothill Street, Westminster SW1, not exactly an easy task given the number of wheelchairs and walking disableds and Londons awful for access public transport system!

Myself and my two comrades arrived in Tothill street at around 15:00 due to my struggling on the Tube. The scene that greeted us was of a smaller demo of around 200 (most likely due to above reasons) but it felt far more alive, vibrant and, above all, militant. A number of protestors with some sources claiming up to 30 had occupied the entrance to the building. In turn the Met had placed a cordon in front of them to prevent any more from accessing the building. There was then a standoff for around a quarter of an hour with chanting, jeering at the DWP, ATOS and the Met, this included the singing of the “You can shove your work assessment up your arse” song which had debuted earlier in the day!

It then started to get ugly. The Met had taken the decision to clear out the protestors from inside the building. Scuffles broke out when it became clear that the Met were being their usual “caring, sharing liberal types” and pulling people from wheelchairs resulting in a fractured shoulder for one user and generally throwing people around. It was at this point a certain Met police Sergeant (investigations are on going to discover his number) took it upon himself to go a bit batshit crazy, this can be seen in numberous videos circulating on the internet both from amatres and tv news crews. This thug in uniform can be seen throwing everyone in his path out of it, regardless of threat or lack there off, I witnessed him pushing people over and he had one young fella by the throat.

The clearing of the entrance led to another standoff but far more tense due to the unnessary violence from the Met. At this point many of the disabled protestors were visably shocked but the violent advance of the Met, with some having to retreat to a safer area to the side of the foyer to recover. As things began to calm a little some letters were read out from the victims of ATOS and their relatives these were repeated via megaphone for the whole crowd to hear. This then led to a half arsed attempt to keetle us on the pavement by the met and their lackeys in G4S but the sheer impracticability of kettling heavy large electric wheelchairs that were in the road was to difficult for them, I bet they were cursing the lack of dropped curbs!! It is also well worth mention that the level of support from the General public was good, people are certainly beginning to realise who ATOS are and why they must be stopped! Well at this point we had to leave the protest because I was totally exhausted and we retired mostly victorious to the pub! Followed by a large number of fellow protesters within 30mins.