I am no Corbynite but I see firsthand, through my job and my personal life, what the Tories' austerity policies are doing to people, especially the most vulnerable. Over the last ten years a steady drip-drip-drip of propaganda like 'My Life on Benefits' style programmes and pitting the less well off against each other for the scraps while those in power and their corporate associates cream off the profits have successfully demonised those who have to claim benefits for any reason. The DWP's own figures show a fraud rate for DLA of less than 1%, yet they set a target to get 20% of disability benefits claimants off those benefits. Which would be fine if they were also implementing more policies of inclusive, flexible, disability-friendly employment rights to support those who might be able to work with the right support to get into the workplace (and that's disregarding that DLA/PIP were/are supposedly in-work benefits anyway). But they haven't, and they have no intention of doing so - quite the opposite; they want to remove more of our employment rights in order to maximise profit. So they are knowingly taking benefits from over 19% of claimants who they themselves have previously acknowledged to be disabled and in need of financial support. The Tories have made being poor and/or disabled into a moral failing, and too many people are swallowing that bullshit.
I think people who have never had to navigate the system themselves or help someone else do so believe that "genuine" disabled people can still get help without too much trouble and it's only the 'scroungers' who suffer. I can guarantee this is not the case. I, Daniel Blake should be rebranded as a documentary and made compulsory viewings in schools and workplaces. I see it play out over and over again in the comparatively deprived area in which I live and work. The average waiting time for the DWP to reconsider a PIP decision through their own internal procedures is 69 days. The average waiting time for the next stage, appeal at tribunal, is 190 days. That's more than half a year without the money meant to help make life more bearable - or in some cases, possible at all - for someone with a disability. The success rate for claimants at appeal is 75%. So the decision-making policies within the DWP are palpably not fit for purpose as they're getting it wrong so many times, but they remain in place. Because it is a calculated, ideological policy on the part of the Conservatives to make life harder for the most vulnerable.
I dislike Corbyn as an individual, I condemn anti-semitism (I'm no fan of the beliefs one must hold to be able to call Muslim women who wear the niqab 'letterboxes' either, although that's apparently just a jape, what is Boris like eh?) but right now, the Tories' policies are actively killing people. They're killing people by denying them the benefits they need to live (approximately 5,700 disabled people died within six months of being found fit for work by the DWP - some within weeks, even days, of the decision) and by systematically defunding the NHS. That is not scaremongering, that is the reality of life under the Tories for those who aren't comfortably enough off to have other options.
I'm not 100% sure whether I will vote Labour in the GE, but if it's the best chance of getting the Tories out, I'll have a cross against my red MP candidate's name faster than you can say knife. I honestly fear for how many more people will needlessly, avoidably die under another five years of Tory rule. But yeah, Corbyn's the bogeyman for wanting to take a few more pounds of your money.