Disability rights

This document on disability and struggles by disabled people was prepared for discussion at Workers’ Liberty’s annual conference on 21-22 November. The Tory-led governments since 2010 have launched a sustained and vicious assault on the living standards and rights of disabled people. Some of the ground for this — for example, the introduction of Work Capability Assessments — was laid by the previous “New Labour” government, but the Tories have cranked it up to an unprecedented degree of cruelty. These attacks have been backed up by media hysteria and portrayal of disabled people as idlers and...

Disabled People Against Cuts held a budget day demonstration in Westminster. The theme of “Balls to the Budget” saw people throwing a wide variety of balls at the gates of Downing Street as Osborne was due to leave to deliver the budget speech to parliament. Several hundred strong, the lively demonstration went on to march to Westminster Bridge and block the road. Tourists looked on bemused as a large banner reading “Balls to the budget” was hung over the wall on the south side of the river opposite the Palace of Westminster. Hopefully some of the MPs inside got the message that the public are...

The Conservative Minister for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, recently declared that the latest figures on poverty in the UK (the DWP’s Households Below Average Income report for 2013/14) show the government is succeeding in tackling poverty and that inequality is falling. Both claims are based on a wilful misinterpretation of that report. There are several measures of poverty used in the report, the most useful being one of relative poverty (set at 60 per cent of median net household income including benefits). After housing costs, this is currently £232 a week. Using this measure, the...

TUC Disabled Workers’ Conference, meeting two weeks after the general election, resolved to mobilise and take direct action – and called on the full Trades Union Congress to do the same. Nearly 200 delegates debated and passed a variety of resolutions and discussed issues and strategies with guest speakers. An emergency motion about the general election from the Disabled Workers’ Committee stated that “With the Conservatives promising £12 billion cuts, we can anticipate further cuts in benefits levels and entitlements, privatisation and closure of health and support services, and new attacks...

As we wage the fight of our lives against Tory government attacks on disabled people, it may seem that discussing “models” of disability is an irrelevance, a distraction, a waste of time. But the approach we use to understand disabled people’s position in capitalist society makes a big difference. Understanding oppression lays the foundation for an effective struggle for liberation. There are several “models” used to describe disability. The two most prominent are the medical and the social models. In short, the medical model sees the person’s physical or mental impairment as the problem, and...

The Tory majority government will be disastrous for disabled people, even more than it is already. Over the last five years disabled people have borne the brunt of the cuts — losing nine times more, in financial terms, from their benefits and services, than other people. If you add all the current and already proposed cuts in benefits and services together, the total financial loss for disabled people up to 2018 will be £28.3 billion. Things like the ending of the Independent Living Fund, the ending of the Severe Disability Premium with the introduction of Universal Credit. Now the Tories want...

In the run-up to this week’s General Election, the Tories have consistently failed to answer questions as to where exactly they intend to cut the welfare budget in order to hit their target of reducing it by £12 billion in the first two years of the next Parliament. One of the areas in which cuts are already being made is benefits for sick and disabled people. Incapacity Benefit has already been replaced with Employment and Support Allowance – an even tougher regime than IB for those unable to work because of a health condition with testing administered by private sector providers – and now in...

Over the last five years, the Tory-led government has targeted disabled people with cuts in benefits, closure of services, and attacks on jobs — backed up by a nasty ideological campaign to portray disabled people as “‘scroungers”‘, which has led to an increase in harassment and abuse. Getting rid of the Tories is literally a matter of life and death for some disabled people. Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) is holding “‘a fortnight of Fight Back and telling politicians throughout the UK what we think of them and what they must do if they want our votes.”‘ Headline protests are targeting...

1 March was a National Day of Action called by Disabled People Against Cuts to protest against the Work Capability Assessment, which has led to thousands of disabled people being wrongly found capable of work and subject to job-seeking sanctions and loss of benefits. Protests at 31 locations across the country under the slogan “Same old circus, new clowns” were aimed at US firm Maximus, which has taken over the WCA after ATOS gave up the contract as a result of public pressure, a backlog of appeals and a failure to make a profit out of disabled people. The central London demo in Westminster...

Campaigners fear that government “pilot schemes” to “help unemployed people with mental health problems find work” will lead to people being bullied off benefits and will not address the causes of mental ill-health. Some Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants will be offered employment support and “psychiatric help’. It is ironic that the government is wiling to provide such help to get people off benefits while many people who want and need therapy have to wait months or even years on waiting lists. The BBC illustrated its report on these pilot schemes with the case of a chef who...