A NEW single-issue party, focused on scrapping the bedroom tax and other Coalition welfare reforms is to make its debut in Glasgow.
Led by a former city councillor, the No Bedroom Tax - No Welfare Cuts party will contest the council by-election in Govan on October 10. Its candidate and leader is John Flanagan, until last year a Labour councillor in Govan, and who chairs Govan Housing Association.
The so-called bedroom tax, which affects around 100,000 Scots households, cuts housing benefit to council and housing association tenants by between 14% and 25% if they are deemed to have one or more spare bedrooms.
Tenants unable to pay the difference face eviction unless they downsize to a smaller home, but there are too few one and two-bedroom homes in the social rented sector to meet demand.
Flanagan, 51, said his work with Govan Housing Association, which has 1300 properties, had shown him the " misery" produced by the reforms across Glasgow.
He said: "The bedroom tax is simply unjust. It's going to create homelessness and poverty in Glasgow, and we have to stand firm against it and the other welfare cuts.
"Housing associations across Glasgow are seeing the impact on people whose benefits are cut.
"People are living in fear of being forced out the homes where they lived all their lives. They're being punished.
" The Coalition are putting people into poverty because they haven't thought this through."
The by-election was caused by the death of former SNP group leader in Glasgow, Allison Hunter.
With two councillors already in Govan, Labour is hoping its candidate John Kane will become the party's third, while the SNP has put its hopes on political rookie Helen Walker.
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