News / Politics
Anti-austerity ‘die-in’ protest planned
Bristol People’s Assembly Against Austerity will be holding a mass ‘die-in’ on Wednesday in protest against £12 billion of welfare cuts George Osborne is set to announce.
The die-in, entitled #AUSTERITYKILLS, will see protesters laying down as if they are dead in prominent locations around Bristol, including the fountains in the centre, before finishing the protest outside the council’s headquarters at College Green.
Over 600 people are attending on the Facebook event page.
Osborne is due to announce details of the welfare cuts on Wednesday. It is expected the austerity programme will include plans to limit the benefits cap to £20,000, and £23,000 in London, as well as reducing subsidies for social housing tenants on higher incomes.
Osborne told the BBC that he wanted to create “a welfare system that is fair to those who need it, but also fair to those who pay for it”.
But his planned cuts have long since attracted criticism. In May, 2,500 people attended a peaceful protest in Bristol City centre organised by Bristol Against Austerity to oppose the Conservative Government’s programme of austerity.
Bristol People’s Assembly Against Austerity also organised a less successful protest in a “show of defiance” following the austerity plans laid out in the Queen’s Speech.
The group says they are organising tomorrow’s demonstration to highlight “the human cost of Osborne’s cuts”.
It added: “Organisers of the mass die-in aim to show the government that this movement will keep on the pressure, raising awareness of the human cost of austerity.”