Yesterday, Motability Operations, overseen by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced that it hopes to increase the number of UK-made cars leased through its scheme. This was quickly picked up by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, as a potential boost to UK businesses ahead of her Autumn budget.

However, you’d be forgiven for missing the focus of the announcement, given that the UK’s mainstream media chose to focus on the relative footnote that ‘luxury cars’ would be dropped from the scheme. Well, why not? What better thing could there be for corporate media to follow the DWP’s lead and cast disabled people as benefits scroungers?

The Motability Operations announcement said:

In the short term, Motability Operations will work closely with UK-based manufacturers to increase the share of British-built vehicles leased by customers, while maintaining affordability, choice and quality. This includes doubling the number of Nissan British built vehicles that the Scheme leases to around 40,000. The intention would be that 25% of cars on the Scheme would be UK-built by 2030, up from 7% today.

This long-term commitment includes the 36,500 Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles (WAVs) on the Motability Scheme – built by UK-based converters – along with vehicles with adaptations made by British businesses. Motability Operations works closely with converters and adaptation makers, who invest significantly in innovation and engineering to meet the needs of disabled customers.

The DWP are cartoon villains at this point

The Motability Scheme allows disabled people to exchange their qualifying mobility allowance for the lease of a vehicle. The Scheme is delivered by Motability Operations, a commercial organisation, which is in turn governed by the Motability Foundation charity.

Motability currently helps around 860,000 people get around with a greater degree of independence. It’s funded primarily through the Motability Endowment Trust and the exchange of individuals’ mobility allowance payments, as part of the DWP’s Personal Independence Payments (PIP). The Scheme’s operators do not receive money directly from the government.

Andrew Miller, chief executive of Motability Operations, said:

The Motability Scheme makes a difference to disabled people’s lives every day and our customers tell us it is a lifeline to freedom and independence. Working with government and the automotive sector, we want to do even more to support the economy and our ambitious commitment should put British car manufacturing into top gear.

Yesterday’s announcement made four key points:

• It aims to ensure that 50% of its leased vehicles will be made in the UK by 2035

• This vital scheme for disabled people will thereby also better support the British economy.

• With support from the government and manufacturers, this could create demand for 150,000 vehicles a year. In turn, this would be a boon to UK jobs and investment.

• “Premium brands” like Mercedes Benz and BMW will be removed from the Scheme.

Of note is the fact that Motability already accounts for a significant share of UK-built cars. Of the roughly 100,000 eligible cars built in the country annually, Motability currently leases around 22,000.

Furthermore, the ‘premium brand’ cars previously offered do not cost the taxpayer any extra money. Instead, the drivers who are leasing them pay extra out of their own pockets to make up the difference in cost. As things previously stood, only about 5% of the Motability fleet was made up of premium cars.

Absolute rags

However, because we live in a right-wing media hellscape, the fact that it costs the taxpayer nothing hasn’t stopped the UK’s mainstream media running away with the idea of those nasty disabled people no longer getting fancy cars.

Take for example the Telegraph, which ran with the headline:

Benefits claimants cut off from BMWs and Mercedes in Motability scheme.

The use of ‘benefits claimants’ there is a particularly acute example of blatant manipulation. How’s about the Daily Mail instead:

Rachel Reeves ‘will remove luxury cars such as BMWs and Mercedes from Motability scheme’ in bid to make £1billion Budget saving.

Hint: this won’t save the Budget anything, because the taxpayer wasn’t fucking paying for it. Even Sky News is getting in on the act:

Luxury cars removed from Motability scheme ahead of budget.

Nice neutral tone there, but you’re still choosing to focus on the bit that’s most likely to trigger knee-jerk hatred of a minority group. The same is also true for the Guardian:

Regarding the Motability announcement, chancellor Rachel Reeves said:

Backing British car manufacturing will support thousands of well paid, skilled jobs and is exactly the long-term investment our Modern Industrial Strategy delivers.

We are growing the economy to bring down debt, cut NHS waiting lists and cut the cost of living.

That’s nice, but neither the Motability Scheme or UK car manufacturing are things that the chancellor actually controls directly. Regarding things that Reeves is actually in charge of, she’s already threatened to slash welfare payments:

We can’t leave welfare untouched. We can’t get to the end of this parliamentary session and I’ve basically done nothing … We have to do reform in the right way and take people with us.

As reported last month, that looks set to include an attack on the Motability Scheme. Disability News Service explained:

The chancellor’s reported plans to target the Motability car scheme for new taxes in next month’s budget by removing its VAT exemption could impose an upfront cost of at least £3,000 on even the cheapest cars it offers.

This would place a massive burden on disabled people, many of whom are already struggling to get by thanks to the DWP. Or, as a Motability spokesperson stated at the time:

Introducing VAT on leases would make cars unaffordable for most disabled people, leaving only the wealthiest able to access the Scheme – a result that would fundamentally undermine its purpose.

These attacks on Motability, and the removal of the ‘premium’ brands from the scheme, are an elaborate pantomime. They’re designed to appeal to the kind of shithead who believes that people with ADHD or acne or whatever are gaming the system for a ‘free car’. Attacking Motability gains the taxpayer nothing.

Labour knows this; Reeves knows this. That hasn’t stopped them from joining in with bashing disabled people whenever they think it will make them look better in the eyes of right-wing voters who despise them. This is a cruel and unjust party, attempting to appeal to what they clearly believe is a country of cruel and unjust people – and they have no care at all for anybody they think to sacrifice along the way.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

This post was originally published on Canary.