{"id":665099,"date":"2025-12-31T17:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T17:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/665099\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T17:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T17:15:12","slug":"glasgow-campaigner-declines-new-year-mbe-over-welfare-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/665099\/","title":{"rendered":"Glasgow campaigner declines New Year MBE over welfare cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  However, the campaigner has said she will not accept the award due to concerns over how the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heraldscotland.com\/topics\/uk-government\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">UK Government<\/a> had treated disabled people in the most recent budget announcement.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\"\/>King Charles announced the New Year Honours List on Monday. (Image: Aaron Chown\/PA Wire)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  In a letter to the Cabinet Office, which was published to social media, Burke wrote:\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cDespite being grateful that the life-changing work of my organisation, Glasgow Disability Alliance, has been acknowledged, I feel that I cannot accept a personal honour because disabled people are being so dishonoured at this time.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cIn fact we are being demonised, dehumanised and scape-goated for political choices and policy failures by consecutive governments.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cDisabled people are becoming more unwell due to unfair, inadequate and inaccessible work, barriers to securing work, inadequate benefit levels and rising extra costs including backdoor taxation for social care support and rising costs like heating, clothing and vital independent living equipment.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Burke said she was notified of the award on 26 November, the same day the budget was announced, which she described as \u2018draconian\u2019 for disabled people.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  In the letter, Burke also hit out at cuts to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motability.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Motability<\/a> scheme, which helps disabled people and their families lease cars, scooters, and powered wheelchairs.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <strong>Read more:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  She wrote: \u201cThe budget includes no commitments for social care, accessible transport, adapted housing, education or national wheelchair services and this lack of investment and missed opportunity on disability related spending will deepen existing inequalities and leave disabled people facing exclusion, isolation, homelessness and unsafe care levels.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cThe negative framing of disabled people, including references to \u2018luxury\u2019 cars and reforming welfare \u2018so that it doesn&#8217;t pay to be off sick rather than work\u2019\u00a0 is misleading and belies reality.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"However, the campaigner has said she will not accept the award due to concerns over how the UK&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-665099","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115815312443301513","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}