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Category: Disability

  • Make no mistake: disability benefit cuts are a feminist issue

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability benefit cuts affect all disabled people – there’s no doubt about that. They will plunge thousands into poverty, isolate individuals, and without the ability to fund their disability aids, care, or therapies, impact their independence, and this is true for those across the community. However, for disabled women and marginalised genders and their families, it’s critical to understand the ways that the cuts are even more of a threat.

    To comprehend the context of the cuts as a gender issue, it must first be understood that disability itself is a feminist issue across the board. Women are more likely to be disabled, and often left undiagnosed or without the support they need for longer. It is also women who commonly bear the brunt of state underfunding.

    DWP disability benefit cuts: women are providing more care

    Just as women are more likely to perform household tasks and take on the burden of social reproduction – the unpaid and unseen work to keep society functioning – they are more likely to be providing care. Whilst social reproduction refers to a wider profile of tasks, without proper social care funding, the responsibility of care for disabled individuals often falls on the shoulders of families. Notably, this heavily primarily impacts women, who make up 59% of unpaid carers.

    For families providing care themselves, Personal Independence Payment (PIP) can be what keeps them afloat, to make up the difference in funds where they are caring rather than working. This is particularly true because Carer’s Allowance is still criminally low, and still places limits on how many hours can be worked to top up funds, as well as often being tied to eligibility of other benefits.

    In 2024, the Centre for Care found that the economic contribution of unpaid carers in the UK was £184 billion a year – whilst the combined NHS budget in 2021/22 was £189 billion. This makes unpaid care provision equivalent to a second NHS: to cut support to the bone to these families is shameful.

    For many, the disability benefit cuts will push them even further away from employment due to having to provide further unpaid care, or stop their ability to undertake part-time work. It means the impact on employment rates may have the opposite effect to what Reeves intends. When the reasoning for the cuts supposedly surrounds boosting employment, this is absurd: the cuts are not only to benefits, but to gender equality.

    The additional threats to disabled women

    For disabled women and marginalised genders, the disability benefit cuts also pose additional threats. Disabled women and marginalised genders are more than twice more likely to experience domestic abuse, and the cuts mean that these individuals are much less likely to be able to leave such a situation without access to funds.

    In particular, disabled women and marginalised genders are more likely to experience economic abuse, and are four times more likely than their non-disabled peers to have a partner or ex-partner stop them, or try to stop them, accessing benefit payments that they or their children are entitled to receive.

    Similarly, disabled women are over three times more likely to have a partner or ex-partner refuse to give child support or maintenance (or pay it unreliably) when they can afford to pay it normally. For many, PIP or similar benefits are a lifeline that keep themselves and their children out of poverty.

    290,000 of children in poverty are living in families on PIP, and children living in a family with a disabled person are more likely to be in poverty than those without. This shows the further devastating impact for families, and particularly the women within them, who are bearing the burden of care and labour much more heavily.

    It is fundamentally reprehensible for the chancellor to allow these cuts to have such impacts across vulnerable populations, and leave those who are multiply marginalised behind, in search of ‘savings’. While the government’s argument that they have inherited a difficult financial position is true, the reality is that this is not the only way they can fix that. Hitting disabled people, and particularly women and marginalised people the hardest, is something utterly unnecessary.

    The disability benefit cuts must be seen intersectionally

    It’s key for the cuts to be understood from an intersectional lens, and to be aware of the double burden these changes will have on women and those of marginalised genders.

    Similarly, it must be acknowledged that those who are also marginalised by their race will be more heavily impacted, and are often more likely to experience some of the issues discussed in this article. This includes living with certain conditions such as autoimmune diseases, and being less likely to receive needed painkillers and support.

    Disabled Black and brown women will also be hit harder by the disability benefit cuts. They experience the additional burden of racism that is often seen in the medical and benefit system, as well as lower standards of living than both their non-disabled or white peers.

    When discussing the cuts and advocating against them, we must understand this as not isolated to disability: this is an issue that feminists and those working in gender equality must also be a part of pushing back on.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Charli Clement

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Senior Labour minister delivers bare-faced lie over DWP PIP live on the BBC

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is rolling out controversial reforms to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) that could dramatically affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of disabled individuals and their families. Yet a senior Labour Party government minister denied the reality of this live on the BBC – claiming that actually, the number of disabled people the DWP would cut PIP from was tiny.

    Labour: lying to cover their cruel reforms

    Chris Bryant is a government minister. He was on BBC Question Time on Thursday 3 April. During the show, he said:

    Nobody is taking money away from people on PIP… There will be more people on PIP in the next few years, but the number isn’t going to be increasing by a thousand every week… [People on PIP are] not going to lose it till their next reassessment.. 90% of people will not lose anything.

    His claim that 90% of people will not lose anything is a bare-faced lie.

    According to a DWP impact assessment, as many as 370,000 current claimants could lose their PIP entitlement due to changes in eligibility rules set to be implemented in November 2026, pending parliamentary approval.

    Crucially, about 430,000 future applicants are anticipated to be denied the benefit, creating an average annual loss of around £4,500 for those affected. Therefore, Bryant’s 90% figure is not accurate – because people, including children transitioning from Disability Living Allowance to PIP – will lose out. The figure is nearer 20% based on the DWP’s own data – plus 150,000 carers who will also lose their Carer’s Allowance.

    What the department has also failed to even calculate is how many people will lose higher rate Daily Living because of its cuts.

    DWP PIP has been a critical source of support, helping chronically ill and disabled people manage the additional day-to-day costs they face.

    Yet, with these new rules focused on tightening the eligibility criteria for the daily living component, it’s unclear how many will continue to receive the assistance they need.

    As it stands, DWP PIP is calculated through a points system based on the individual’s ability to perform essential tasks related to daily living. However, under the proposed reforms, individuals will now be required to achieve a minimum score of four points in one specified task to even qualify for any level of support.

    DWP PIP: a life line for chronically ill and disabled people

    The methodologies used by the DWP for evaluating disability have long been the subject of scrutiny. DWP boss Liz Kendall recently faced questions regarding the fairness and accuracy of these assessments when she stated:

    We will legislate for a change in PIP so that people will need to score a minimum of four points in at least one activity.

    Critics warn that this change would unjustly penalise individuals who require help across multiple areas but may not achieve the required thresholds in specific questions.

    To put this into perspective, the daily living component, which ranges from £290.60 to £434.20 every four weeks, is geared to assist with crucial areas like food preparation, personal hygiene, and medication management. For people already struggling with conditions that limit their ability to perform these activities, the potential loss of financial support is nothing short of devastating.

    Moreover, the DWP’s focus on increasing in-person PIP assessments contrasts sharply with the ongoing reliance on remote assessments that many say minimise the personal consideration necessary for understanding the unique challenges faced by each claimant.

    Blatant misinformation

    Bryant’s blatant misinformation regarding DWP PIP seems part of a clear agenda from the Labour government. That is, it will steamroll these reforms through at the expense of the reality of the impact they will have.

    Moreover, all this will come at the expense of chronically ill and disabled people’s wellbeing and right to live an independent life – things that have already been severely impacted by previous governments.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Sanders: 67,000 Will Die Waiting for Social Security Benefits Due to Musk Cuts

    The plans of Elon Musk — the richest man on Earth — to slash Social Security and force mass layoffs will cause tens of thousands more Americans to die while waiting for their disability benefits to be approved, a new report by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has found. Right-wing cuts to Social Security have already caused an erosion in services over the past decades, and in recent years…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • The DWP has been caught lying about how many people claim sickness on Universal Credit

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has once again been caught red-handed, disseminating grossly misleading information to the public. In a damning rebuke, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) compelled the DWP to retract its inflated claim of a 383% surge in Universal Credit claimants deemed too ill to work—a figure that, in reality, stands at a mere 50% increase.

    This blatant manipulation of statistics is not just a minor oversight; it is emblematic of a department that consistently prioritises political agendas over the well-being of the very people it purports to serve – as the DWP’s actions have repeatedly shown.

    The DWP: lying about Universal Credit

    As the Big Issue reported, the DWP and Labour Party government have been manipulating the public, and the media, over how many people claim Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) under Universal Credit. It noted that:

    The statistics regulator said the DWP had inflated the rise in the number of people considered too sick to look for work when it said there had been a 383% increase in less than five years.

    OSR said the government department had counted people who had migrated from legacy benefits. The true figure is in fact a 50% increase.

    This staggering lie from the DWP has been used as propaganda by the government to justify its cruel cuts to Universal Credit.

    As the Canary previously reported, the DWP under Labour is changing the eligibility criteria for Personal Independence Payment (PIP). It is also freezing chronically ill and disabled people’s Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) elements of Universal Credit, at £97 a week – and reduced them to £47 a week for new claimants – with only people with the most severe conditions able to apply for LCWRA. People under the age of 22 will no longer be able to claim these top-ups under Universal Credit at all.

    Initially, the government had claimed that Reeves’ proposed DWP cuts would save them £5 billion. However, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has had to clarify that the savings will actually be £3.4 billion – hence the freeze in LCWRA rates.

    The OSR was stark in its verdict on the DWP. It noted that:

    The figure does not recognise that the majority of this increase is due to the process of migrating people from legacy benefits, such as employment and support allowance (ESA), to universal credit over the last few years. When these people are accounted for, the actual increase in the number of people claiming disability elements of universal credit is 50%.

    Rotten to the core

    Despite this, the DWP still showed contempt. As Big Issue reported:

    After initially being called out by the OSR, which is the UK’s independent monitor of official statistics, the DWP updated its press notice to reference people moving from other benefits. However, the reference to a 383% increase remained and the OSR has asked for it be removed by 4 April – almost a full month after the claim was first made.

    That is, the DWP dragged its heels to continue to manipulate the public in order to prop-up the government’s cuts.

    Of course, the corporate media cannot be trusted to call the DWP’s lying and manipulation out for what it is: lying and manipulation. This is how the story has been reported – with all the MSM focusing on what the OSR said:

    DWP Universal Credit LCWRA

    The DWP’s litany of failures – including this latest piece of statistical deceit – paints a grim picture of an institution that has lost its moral compass.

    The human cost of these systemic issues is immeasurable, with countless lives plunged into hardship and despair. It is imperative that the DWP undergoes a radical transformation, prioritsing transparency, compassion, and genuine support for the most vulnerable members of society.

    Anything less would be a continued betrayal of public trust and a perpetuation of unnecessary suffering.​

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The DWP forced a deaf claimant to have a PHONE interview for his PIP

    In a distressing turn of events, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has come under fire for its handling of benefit claim processes, particularly concerning deaf and disabled people. A profoundly deaf man seeking benefits found himself in a frustrating and discriminatory situation when the DWP scheduled a phone interview for his Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claim, despite his inability to engage in audio-only conversations.

    DWP phoning deaf claimants over their PIP???

    The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, suffers from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and is nearly entirely deaf.

    His representative, James Merrell, who is a qualified nurse with a decade of experience and previously worked as a PIP assessor, shared the details of this case with the Daily Star. Merrell has been assisting the unnamed claimant with his application and is frustrated that the DWP has failed to accommodate his client’s needs.

    In a conversation with the Daily Star, Merrell detailed the significant barriers that deaf people like his client face when dealing with the DWP:

    The DWP’s decision to schedule a phone interview for them when they are profoundly deaf and registered deaf has put them at a significant disadvantage.

    Under the Equality Act 2010, it is paramount for government bodies to make reasonable adjustments for deaf and disabled people to avoid discrimination.

    Merrell continued:

    Being deaf, they rely heavily on lip-reading to communicate, and they face considerable barriers when it comes to telephone conversations.

    His assertion highlights a systemic oversight by the DWP that results in unnecessary hardship for claimants who rely on accessible communication methods. “It’s deeply concerning that this type of oversight continues to happen, especially when alternative methods such as video calls or face-to-face interviews are readily available,” he added.

    Not an isolated case

    This incident is not an isolated case. The boss of CWS Limited, a company that assists PIP claimants throughout the application process, echoed Merrell’s concerns:

    Unfortunately, this type of situation is not uncommon. Many individuals with various disabilities, whether physical, mental, or sensory, are regularly forced to navigate the system without the necessary adjustments.

    In other words, the DWP is systematically breaching its obligations under the Equality Act. Ask any claimant, and they’ll probably have a story of such an incident.

    One such example was documented by Disability Rights UK. It wrote:

    For more than two years, George and his carers begged DWP staff to communicate with him by phone, rather than through his online UC journal.

    Because of a neurological impairment, George experiences regular seizures, memory problems and “brain fog”, and has significant care needs, needing assistance with washing, dressing, eating, reading, writing, and completing paperwork.

    But DWP staff failed to put markers on his UC account to alert colleagues that he was a “vulnerable claimant” and that he needed reasonable adjustments to be made for him, after he registered a new claim in February 2020.

    When he lodged his claim, he was told – wrongly – that he could only make a claim digitally, rather than by telephone.

    He was only able to submit the online claim with the help of a Citizens Advice Bureau.

    On numerous occasions over the following months, his requests for support were ignored or refused.

    He made repeated attempts to complain about the discriminatory way he was being treated, but many of these complaints were never investigated.

    Claimants like the anonymous deaf man and George highlight the daily challenges faced by many in the crooked DWP system.

    The requirement for a phone interview in the deaf man’s case is seen as not just an inconvenience but indicative of a broader issue where the DWP ignores the needs of disabled people during critical processes.

    The comments from Merrell and CWS Limited’s representative bring to light the urgent need for the DWP to reassess and improve its protocols to ensure that disabled people can access services equitably.

    DWP: not fit for pur… oh, we’ve said it so many times

    The DWP has not provided comment or clarification regarding this situation and the apparent failings in accommodating the diverse needs of claimants. This silence raises questions about the accountability and responsiveness of the DWP in dealing with issues that significantly affect vulnerable people.

    The ongoing struggles of disabled people navigating the PIP application process seem to underscore a larger narrative of systemic shortcomings within the DWP. With claimants often left to fend for themselves amidst bureaucratic hurdles, the need for change is more pressing than ever. Yet Labour is not recognising this – instead putting cruel, callous, and potentially deadly cuts in place to disabled people’s support.

    It appears that until the DWP takes the necessary steps to implement truly inclusive practices, many will continue to suffer from the repercussions of a system designed in ignorance of their needs.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Two MPs openly back DWP benefit cuts – yet sit on the parliamentary group for ME/CFS

    The Labour Party’s brutal Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits cuts will be a disaster for people living with the devastating chronic systemic neuroimmune disease myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). Appallingly, as it turns out, that hasn’t stopped two of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on ME openly backing them.

    It means that the pair of staunch Labour right sycophants are claiming to champion ME patients in one breath, while simultaneously throwing the community under the bus in another.

    Get Britain Working group: Steve Race and Luke Charters

    The Labour MPs in question are one freshly elected Exeter MP Steve Race, and Gen Z Labour right newcomer MP for York Outer, Luke Charters.

    Notably, at the start of March, the duo both signed the infamous letter to DWP boss Liz Kendall. Proclaiming themselves the ‘Get Britain Working’ group alongside 34 other MPs, this issued a public statement of support for Kendall’s and chancellor Rachel Reeves’ plans to cut chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits.

    Needless to say, the Canary has found that think tank Labour Together was inextricably wrapped up in the group. And, as the Canary’s Steve Topple pointed out, this was partly the brainchild of none other than prime minister Keir Starmer’s now chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. Significantly, the think tank – and McSweeney – have long been torchbearers for the neoliberal Labour establishment now at the helm of punching down on chronically ill and disabled people:

    For example, Reeves before she was chancellor platformed much of her ‘securonomics‘ thinking via Labour Together. McSweeney ran Kendall’s 2015 leadership bid. And ex-shadow DWP secretary of state Jonathan Ashworth is now Labour Together’s chief executive.

    Unsurprisingly, both Race and Charters took substantial donations from Labour Together or individuals linked to it for their election campaigns. And who else backed Kendall’s leadership bid? Race too of course, back when he previously stood as a candidate for Labour in the 2015 election.

    So, it’s hardly surprising the two MPs have both gotten behind this corporate-captured sham of a Labour government and its sweep of catastrophic welfare cuts. What should be at least somewhat surprising though, is that they are also part of the APPG on ME.

    APPG on ME: membership shows it’s a whitewash

    The APPG on ME restarted in December 2024. Charters was present at the inaugural meeting, and both are now registered members.

    Controversial major organisation Action for ME acts as the group’s secretariat. And the non-profit has named Race as one of its ‘Parliamentary Champions’ for ME.

    On its website, Race is quoted stating his support:

    I am honoured to become a Parliamentary Champion for Action for ME and look forward to supporting their vital work raising greater awareness of and advocating for people with ME

    The tragic passing of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, a young woman from Exeter who had severe ME, has brought to light the significant challenges faced by people living with ME within our healthcare system. Her inquest highlighted the urgent need for better understanding and specialist care for those living with ME.

    I am committed to working with Action for ME to push for greater awareness and action, ensuring that the voices of ME patients are heard and that they receive the care and support they deserve.

    As the MP for Exeter, where Maeve Boothby O’Neill lived and whose local NHS services disastrously failed her to fatal consequences, Race contends to be greatly aware of the consequences of the ongoing systemic problems for people with ME.

    In November, he tabled a parliamentary written question asking if the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) would:

    take steps to prioritise research funding for myalgic encephalomyelitis.

    Similarly, in September, Charters also tabled a written question to the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) about ME services in his local area.

    Yet, at the same time the two have called for more services, support, and funding, they’ve got behind their government slashing social security for people living with ME.

    PIP: already near impossible to get for people with ME

    How many people living with ME get PIP? The most recent data shows 56,102 claiming it with ME listed as their primary condition.

    The highest current estimate knocking around for the number of people living with ME in the UK is 1.3 million people. Therefore, this means that only just over 4% of the population living with it are currently claiming PIP. However, this figure takes account of the number of long Covid patients who fit the diagnostic criteria for ME, so we should also factor in the number claiming for this too. Presently, that’s 11,310.

    So, even if we added every single one of those to our ME claim success rates, that still only brings the percentage up to a little over 5%.

    The Canary has also previously detailed how this figure is likely a vast underestimate anyway. In reality, there are no definitive statistics on the number of people living with the devastating condition today – and current numbers rest on prevalence studies over 25 years old and themselves massively limited.

    Needless to say, the PIP process is both enormously inaccessible for people living with ME, as well as its criteria hugely exclusionary of it as a fluctuating condition. Unsurprisingly, the DWP’s own research has revealed this on a number of occasions. A tranche of reports the previous Conservative government had buried exposed this in October. In its output, three separate publications littered with antiquated terminology for ME and common crossover conditions like Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes (EDS) showed that in a number of cases:

    the DWP’s benefits system is making severely chronically ill ME/CFS and EDS patients – and people with other similarly fluctuating chronic health conditions – sicker. At the same time it’s doing that, it’s regularly denying disability benefits to them.

    Moreover, the department’s data backs this up when you look at the number of those who had to go through mandatory reconsiderations (MR) to get it. In total, this stands at 30,160 – over half of the successful PIP claimants living with ME.

    The point is, the PIP process is already notoriously difficult for people living with ME. Now, the new rules – particularly the 4 points in one category stipulation – will only put up more barriers to ME patients accessing it.

    Medical misogyny, psychologisation, and classism

    On top of this, the Canary has extensively documented the pervasive lingering problem of medical misogyny and misdiagnosis in ME. Notably, a vested biopsychosocial lobby has long psychologised patients living with the disease, ascribing psychiatric labels over recognition for ME and a multitude of co-occurring under-diagnosed and under-recognised conditions.

    So, as Labour seeks to strip PIP from claimants living with mental health disorders, there’s a clear and present danger that many will be people living with ME and connected conditions that doctors have erroneously attributed a psychiatric origin. This will include conditions like depression, various eating disorders, and one infamous contemporary rebrand of hysteria ‘conversion disorder’ that clinicians have long weaponised against ME patients.

    What’s more, the top line figures also likely conceal many more living with the devastating disease. This is because, as well as rife longstanding medical misogyny, there’s also rampant classism at play in diagnoses as well. Doctors misdiagnose many people living with ME with conditions like fibromyalgia. Topple has separately pointed out how diagnoses of this soared after the notorious PACE trial.

    This was the junk study – part-funded by the DWP – that atrociously promoted dangerous treatments to ME patients, which undermined its physiological basis, and ostensibly machinated to force them into work at risk to their health.

    But importantly, he also underscored how diagnoses of:

    fibromyalgia are highest among the poorest in society. For CFS, they’re the lowest

    So, he articulated how there’s classism at the root of this. Specifically, the poorest communities are disadvantaged in getting proper diagnoses, owing to a combination of factors. You can read more about this here.

    However, the crux of this is that there’ll be many people with misdiagnosed conditions like fibromyalgia who will also face more difficulty getting PIP too. And it’s arguably even easier for the DWP to dismiss people with fibromyalgia as fit for work than it is for ME. Partly, ME patients now have some protection from harmful psychologising treatments in the form of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines. Even so, this has largely been a whitewash anyway, since doctors still practice the treatments, rebranded.

    Ultimately, all that is to say that these will hit poor chronically ill communities first and foremost, and that includes misdiagnosed ME patients.

    Get Britain working means people living with ME too

    Then, quite apart from the problems obtaining PIP, there’s also the pure fact that the cuts to Universal Credit (UC) LCWRA will undoubtedly hit many people living with ME. So too will the department rolling the Work Capability Assessment for it into one, so only those eligible for PIP can claim the health-related part of UC.

    Overall then, there’s a lot at stake for people living with ME with the Labour government’s sweep of ‘reforms’.

    By all accounts, when Race and Charters chest-beat their “Get Britain Working” affiliation, that invariably includes people living with ME. Instead of financial support, the DWP wants to supplant these benefits with so-called “support conversations”.

    It foresees some of this taking the form of its favoured work programmes. This includes for instance its recently launched WorkWell pilots – mentioned in the Green Paper no fewer than five times. The Canary previously highlighted how the biopsychosocial model of disability lobby has its fingerprints all over the scheme.

    Crucially, the department awarded the training contract for work and health coaches to the Vocational Rehabilitation Association (VRA). One of the forefathers of the biopsychosocial model – Mansel Aylward – was its patron until his passing in May 2024.

    However, Aylward is just the tip of the iceberg. The whole association is awash with organisations and individuals with links to the scandal-riddled PACE trial. In short, WorkWell is neck-deep in the psychologisation of ME from its outset.

    This is what Race and Charters are backing, and it’d be ignorant of both of them not to be fully aware of what this could mean for people living with ME.

    Wake up and smell the Labour right roses

    To make matters worse, both Race and Charters also voted for Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill at second reading. That is, not only are the pair pushing for dangerous welfare cuts for chronically ill and disabled claimants, they also support legalising assisted suicide which will further endanger the lives of people living with ME. Crucially, in other countries that have brought in legislation, the lack of treatment, social security, health and social care, all underpinned by a lack of research funding and continued psychologisation, has pushed people living with ME towards this.

    The Canary approached both MPs for comment on the detail of this article, but neither had responded by the time of publication.

    This should be a wake-up call. It’s long past time people stopped jumping at the merest mention of ME from the mouths of those in power. Treating MPs like some portentous messiah destined to deliver research funding and curative treatment salvation to ME patients is a doomed and naive misplacement of faith.

    Moreover, the much-vaunted and long-delayed ME Delivery Plan is not happening in a political vacuum. To pretend like it is, is a dereliction of all objective sense that will only end up biting the ME community in the ass in the medium to long-term anyway.

    Worst of all, it’s a failure of solidarity with all chronically ill and disabled people these disgusting cuts are set to hit. No MP that’s choosing to fight for the ME patients with one hand, while taking away support for them and other chronically ill and disabled people with the other, will ever be a champion for the ME community.

    Now, the question is whether people will finally wake up and smell the right-wing Labour roses? Because when push comes to shove, this government is going to turn things around for people living with ME about as much as the last – and the APPG on ME sure as hell isn’t going to change that.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • DWP PIP cuts will lead to a rise in hate crime – as one man’s story shows

    The Labour Party’s cuts to DWP Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and health-related benefits will lead to a rise in hate crimes – and Jason Alcock’s story proves this.

    When Jason Alcock shared his story of grief, living as a disabled person with several complex conditions, and the tragic loss of his beloved wife, he never imagined it would make him a target for online hate and abuse.

    But after his story was published in major newspapers, cruel and abusive trolls from the dark corners of the internet sent him vile messages, which then turned into a serious case of harassment on his front doorstep.

    This led to him fearing for his safety, and even his life.

    Jason Alcock: bereavement and health battles all at once

    In 2018 Jason’s beloved wife Paola sadly passed away from a lengthy ordeal with cancer. This turned Jason’s life upside down overnight, as he lost the love of his life, who he described as his “anchor”.

    Together for 20 years, Paola’s traumatic death left Jason heartbroken, he had lost his soul mate, and his “world”. Then just seven days after her passing, Jason was diagnosed with bowel cancer and had to have:

    40% of my upper intestines removed, and the medication they gave me after the surgery caused me to start hallucinating and seeing myself as my wife and going through her death.

    At this point, Jason was suffering from severe PTSD, associated with his wife’s death, and felt like giving up:

    I wanted to end it all, I had a plan, I was going to end it all because there was nothing to keep me in the world.

    Family and friends encouraged Jason to go out the house, to help him with his severe bereavement. But every time he tried to step out of the house, his hands would:

    just go to the place where I pushed the powerless wheelchair around for almost 20 years, and everything triggered me.

    The coping strategies that Jason had developed over the years as an Autistic person to:

    cope with everything from masking to other strategies was completely torn away from me when she passed away.

    Doctors were therefore lost on how best to support Jason during this truly challenging period in his life.

    DWP PIP benefit cuts: threatening financial support vital to Jason’s independence

    However, a mental health specialist who was treating Jason at the time, discovered that technology could help and support Jason:

    they started using technology, using virtual reality, using computer games and connecting to my special interest.

    From this moment, Jason finally started to feel like his life had begun to “turn around”, despite the fact that he was and still is reeling from the loss of his beloved Paola.

    Due to the fact that Jason has several complex conditions, including Autism, ADHD and bipolar type two, he receives several benefits to provide him with financial assistance including Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and PIP.

    These benefits enable Jason to have a level of independence and help him to be able to pay his bills.
    His mobility scooter, which Jason relies upon due to his sensory and physical needs, gives him a:

    safe space, where I can go to the local Tesco, or I can go to the local park.

    However, Jason worries about what the recent cuts to disability benefits may mean for him and believes that he will have to “cut back on things”.

    A wave of vile abuse after sharing his story

    During the cost of living crisis, Jason was hit hard and was forced to wash himself with a “wet cloth” and had to sell some of his possessions, with some of them being treasured items that had belonged to Paola.

    Therefore, Jason felt inclined to tell his story to the press, including PA media, which was then syndicated to the BBC and other publications.

    But he could never have anticipated what came next, including the vile comments from trolls.

    Discussing the media attention and the hatred that came after it, Jason told the Canary that at the time he was:

    naïve, and as an Autistic person I don’t understand the concept of deception.

    Within the articles he chose to use a picture of himself with his “computer and VR headset” to display his special interests and coping strategies as a disabled person. The articles discussed his struggles during the cost of living crisis.

    After being in the public eye and receiving thousands of comments which dubbed him as “lazy” and a “scrounger”, he said that “some of the trolls started to come onto my stream”, which took place on Twitch and YouTube.

    From there, Jason’s once therapeutic environment became a living hell, as he was consistently berated and bombarded with atrocious abuse.

    From online threats to real-world hate crimes

    At one moment, when he was streaming and playing a videogame, Jason froze. A troll had told him that they knew “where I lived”. He told the Canary how:

    At this point, I froze, I couldn’t run away.

    The troll followed this by saying that they would:

    break the solar panel in the backyard, and climb in my back window, they even said things like, we’re gonna take your wife’s ashes and put them in a pot noodle and make you eat them.

    They even cruelly alleged that Jason had “killed” his wife.

    He then contacted the police, as he was severely worried about his personal safety, but the police were unable to help as the trolls had used “VPNS”. Jason explained that:

    If you ban someone on Twitch or you ban someone on YouTube, they can get a new name in seconds and be back in and it’s all anonymous.

    From here, things only began to get much worse for Jason, as a troll emerged from the dark corners of the internet in February 2024 and turned up at “my front door”.

    Jason said the troll had:

    pushed a pack of skittles through my letter box.

    But as he was wearing a face mask, and he was not able to be identified by the police:

    DWP PIP cuts hate crime

    The troll also mentioned Paola, Jason’s late wife, and said that Paola “would have loved them”, (meaning the skittles).

    Taunted and abused, Jason also received a fraudulent and false letter from “the council” that the trolls were responsible for making. They then posted it through his door, and claimed that he shouldn’t be on benefits, and said:

    we’re going to investigate you, your benefits will be frozen.

    The abuse didn’t stop there however, as the thuggish criminals said that they would:

    report me to child safety, saying that I was a paedophile and all these things.

    Fearing for his safety thanks to negative media narratives

    After each instance of receiving this vile abuse, Jason reported them to the police and the ongoing cybercrimes investigation.

    Jason explained that unfortunately:

    they found that these people had completely anonymised their data and everything so they couldn’t find them.

    To this day, Jason doesn’t know how they:

    got my address because we looked, and we couldn’t find my address anywhere.

    For a while after the hate crimes committed against him, Jason feared for his safety and life so much that he began to put a heatproof mat under his letter box in case the trolls tried to do something much worse to him.

    Asked about whether he believes hate crimes against disabled people will rise after Rachel Reeve’s cuts to benefits like DWP PIP, he said he worries that other disabled and Autistic people will be attacked and abused because of the media’s attention on PIP claimants.

    The media often portrays disabled people in a particularly negative light. Jason feels that this then leads people who are also struggling with the cost of living problem to:

    latch onto an ‘enemy’, to latch onto someone to attack.

    Speaking on behalf of the disabled community he believes that they have been “scapegoated for everything” by the government and certain media networks which fuel an ableist hatred of disabled individuals.

    He also believes that instead of targeting “the most vulnerable people in society” we should be:

    taxing the rich and stopping all the tax loopholes.

    The Labour Party: an ‘evil mastermind’ punching down on disabled people via DWP PIP cuts

    In the 2024 election, Jason had voted for the Labour Party on the premise that:

    there would be a change.

    But instead, he believes that:

    we got an evil mastermind, the way they want to bring in an assisted dying bill, and cutting benefits, it’s like where are you going with this? Yeah, it just feels a bit weird.

    At the current moment, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that a whopping 70,000 disability hate crimes occur every year, with the work concluding that:

    people with learning disabilities and/or autism are four times more likely to be a victim.

    The abuse of disabled individuals, both online and offline, must be stopped to prevent more victims like Jason from enduring such horrific acts.

    Moreover, the government must take a firmer stance to ensure trolls are not given free rein to target vulnerable people and continuously get away with it.

    The government itself should also be wary that its particularly negative attitude towards DWP PIP claimants at the current moment could lead to a rise in cybercrimes and the harassment of vulnerable disabled people.

    Featured image and additional images supplied

    By Megan Miley

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Shocking new research shows DWP cuts could make people’s addictions even worse

    A new study conducted in Norway has brought to light alarming findings regarding individuals receiving disability benefits and their significantly heightened risk of developing gambling disorders. Of course, the study should have implications for the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) too – just as it’s about to make severe cuts to chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits. However, it’s unlikely it and the Labour Party government will take heed.

    Gambling: plaguing chronically ill and disabled people – and now DWP cuts, too?

    This extensive research, which spanned 11 years and involved national registry data from over 65,000 individuals, concluded that those reliant on disability support are more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with gambling disorders compared to the general population.

    The findings have been published in the Journal of Gambling Studies.

    This study’s revelations raise pressing questions regarding the support systems in place not just in Norway but also in the UK, where many depend on DWP benefits such as Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

    Among the shocking statistics, it was noted that nearly one in five individuals diagnosed with a gambling disorder had previously received disability benefits. The disparity was even more pronounced for women, who were nearly four times more likely to develop gambling disorders compared to their non-benefit-receiving counterparts.

    The researchers speculated on several potential reasons for these troubling findings.

    The reasons

    While the study did not establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship, it suggested that the very conditions leading to the award of disability benefits—such as mental health issues and chronic pain—may simultaneously heighten the risk of developing gambling behaviours. With DWP cuts coming in the UK, these problems are only going to worsen.

    Another factor that researchers pointed out is the poverty and isolation often experienced by those on DWP-style benefits in Norway – therefore, here too.

    With limited financial means, some individuals may resort to gambling as either a form of escapism or a misguided attempt to improve their financial situation. The increased accessibility of online gambling platforms only exacerbates this issue, particularly for those with restricted mobility or social isolation.

    The data was drawn from the Norwegian Patient Registry alongside the country’s social welfare database, enabling insights into the potential prospective relationship between receiving DWP disability benefits and developing gambling disorders in the UK.

    DWP cuts: making people’s circumstances even worse

    Such population-level insights provide a compelling case for examining these issues in other nations, particularly in the UK, where gambling has become a rapidly growing concern alongside an increasingly precarious social safety net. There have been studies which have produced similar results in the UK – but they did not focus specifically on chronically ill and disabled people.

    As the DWP continues its push for welfare cuts under the guise of reform, these findings raise crucial concerns about the wellbeing of chronically ill and disabled people.

    A failure to acknowledge the unique vulnerabilities faced by DWP benefit claimants could result in inadequate protective measures. Experts advocate for the necessity of considering disability benefit recipients as a high-risk group for gambling-related harm and suggest implementing targeted screening and intervention programmes tailored for this demographic.

    This Norwegian study’s implications should not be ignored. The gambling landscape has become more complex, and for those receiving DWP disability benefits, it may present an insidious threat amidst the challenges they already face.

    The government should be taking a long, hard look at the intertwined issues of disability, mental health, and gambling disorders to ensure that adequate support systems are in place for the most vulnerable members of society.

    Instead, the DWP are just going to cut their already limited support.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Nearly a year on and severe ME patient Anna is still trapped in life-threatening domestic abuse

    Australia’s government and services have continued to endanger a severe myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) patient trapped in an abusive household. There, her abusers have now repeatedly infected her with Covid – while gaslighting her and withholding care, creating the perfect storm for her health to deteriorate further.

    The Canary first highlighted Anna’s appalling story in May 2024. However, since then, things have only gotten worse. Anna’s situation was already dire, but now, it has become inordinately more urgent that she finds a safe home away from her abusers. This is because every day that goes by that she remains trapped under the same roof, they continue to put her life at greater risk.

    Severe ME: more than 20 years of a devastating disease

    Anna is based in Melbourne and has lived with ME for over 20 years.

    ME is a chronic systemic neuroimmune disease. It affects nearly every system in the body and causes a multitude of debilitating symptoms.

    Crucially, post-exertional-malaise (PEM) is the hallmark symptom of ME, which entails a disproportionate worsening of many of these symptoms after even minimal physical or mental activities.

    Like many living with ME, Anna also deals with a number of other serious chronic illnesses. These include endometriosis, hypothyroidism, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and adrenal disease, among others. And for Anna, long Covid has also compounded her condition.

    Contracting Covid-19 in May 2020 and then again in 2022 caused a relapse in her ME/CFS, essentially worsening her condition. In March 2024, family members once again exposed her to the virus. Consequently, Anna currently lives at the severe end of the disease’s scale.

    At least 25% of people live with severe ME. In these cases, people living severe ME are mostly, if not entirely permanently bed-bound or hospitalised. On top of this, they are often unable to digest food, communicate, or process information and are fully dependent on others for their care.

    Still trapped in domestic abuse eleven months on

    All the while Anna has been enormously sick and disabled with severe ME, she has also been trapped in a household where family members abuse and neglect her.

    As the Canary previously wrote:

    Anna told the Canary that her domestic abuser regularly neglects her nutritional needs – sometimes leaving her for days without food.

    On top of this, during the height of Australia’s blistering summer heat between December and February, Anna’s abuser refused her air conditioning. Like many living with ME/CFS, Anna experiences autonomic dysfunction – known as dysautonomia – which can affect blood pressure, heart rate, digestion, and body temperature. So, as Melbourne’s temperatures soared, Anna was left to suffer the impacts this had on her already horrendous health.

    Then, at the end of March, another abusive family member forced a visit on Anna. The family member’s stay ramped up the over-stimulating environment, triggering Anna’s PEM.

    This was when a family member caused Anna to contract Covid in March 2024. And predictably, her family’s abuse has only continued. In November, Anna told the Canary that her family had once again exposed her to a Covid infection. At the same time, the abusive family member that previously visited and gave her Covid – her sister – moved in next door.

    Anna reached out to the Canary over Christmas. Her family was once again putting her health at risk. In particular, while they were all sick, they were refusing to mask to mitigate the risk of her getting infected. She shared a letter with us from her GP with a list of precautions care-givers and healthcare staff would need to implement to keep her safe. This advised that:

    Ongoing measures should be taken to protect [Anna] from future serious infections including Covid-19 including

    • People wearing N95 masks when in the same room as [Anna] (including when asymptomatic) to minimise passing on any respiratory infections
    • People who are in regular contact with [Anna] are encouraged to wear N95 masks when in public, to minimise risk of bringing community-based infections into the house
    • It is recommended that all household members regularly use RATs to monitor for Covid-19 and influenza infections to identify early and asymptomatic infections

    And despite the letter detailing her specific dietary and environmental needs to keep her severe ME as stable as possible, her family have continued to ignore all this.

    Things only getting worse

    Anna told the Canary in March that her family have only continued ramping up the abuse and neglect. She explained that:

    There are mould problems, dust problems, father remodel shower without thought for me

    Crucially, he’d paid no attention to her needs as person living with severe ME, POTS, and MCAS:

    I have been debited shower chair to sit that I offered to pay for he won’t allow on top of hand held shower hose and filter for MCAS and dust filter for central heating he refuses to have cleaned.

    Her council wanted to fix the shower because the set-up is dangerous for her, having hit her head on the side of the bath multiple times. However, her father had also refused to facilitate this. To make matters worse, he has been withholding her shower chair she needs to shower safely due to PEM and POTS. Anna expressed how this compounding abuse is mounting up to put her life in real danger:

    My doctor says if they keep doing all this they will kill me.

    All the while, Anna’s sister has also been exacting coercive control over her health affairs.

    In the past month, her sister has been trying to access confidential details about Anna’s ongoing court case to access Australia’s main disability welfare programme, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Anna explained that:

    She [had] the gall to call my Dr and I don’t know who else so I’m having to go to the trouble of contacting everyone to make sure there’s no leaks and having my case made anonymous and under an unsearchable pseudonym

    Domestic abuse services failing disabled people like Anna

    In January, Anna posted more about the circumstances she is persistently facing in an abusive household:

    However, the problem is, Anna still has no way out. As the Canary detailed before, there are no options available to Anna through the usual domestic violence refuge channels. We wrote how:

    When Anna has sought help at Australia’s domestic abuse shelters, she has found they have no provision available for disabled survivors of violence. This is because women’s refuge services are generally under-equipped to address the care needs of disabled people. On top of this, services do not typically design them with accessibility in mind.

    In short, domestic violence services can’t – and won’t – help Anna because she is disabled. We previously noted how the lack of services was driving Anna to call for help from anyone in Melbourne who could spare her a room and some care. Specifically, we said that:

    Given decades of the Australian state and services failing people living with ME/CFS, change isn’t going to come from within. For that reason, Anna mused to the Canary how she hoped someone would take her in.

    However, it’s a damning indictment when one of the wealthiest countries on the planet places a chronically ill woman at the mercy of medically unqualified, albeit well-meaning strangers for care – and without assurance for her safety.

    Now though, it is literally coming to this since the Victorian state and Melbourne-based domestic abuse services are still shamefully failing her:

    No NDIS, no disability advocate, no help anywhere

    Similarly, Anna has explained to the Canary previously that living in a poor suburb of Melbourne has left her without options for in-person disability advocacy services as well. She told us how:

    I’ve tried them all. Problem is they either don’t work in my catchment or only with NDIS support.

    So, the lack of disability advocacy services in her area has left Anna to fight for herself, despite being extremely sick with severe ME.

    Moreover, as she noted, many of the disability advocacy services she has contacted will only support those accessing Australia’s disability welfare, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). However, here’s the thing: the government overwhelmingly rejects applications from people living with ME. As the Canary highlighted before:

    as of 30 June 2023, the rejection rate for people living with ME/CFS stood at 64% of those who have applied

    What’s more, we calculated that on the basis of even low-end conservative estimates for the number of people living with severe ME in Australia:

    just 0.3% of the people living with severe ME/CFS are currently accessing the NDIS.

    Unsurprisingly then, Anna hasn’t been able to get NDIS either. She explained to the Canary that after the government National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) initially rejected her application, she had to appeal this in court:

    I’d be resting as needed if didn’t have search for housing and NDIS application messed up so gone to court I’m back working on NDIS mid January because have no disability advocate but have charity legal representation. I don’t know if I can do it with no help.

    Anna summed up that a huge barrier is the huge amounts of documented health records and evidence the NDIA requires. For Anna, not only is the process of gathering this putting an immense strain on her health, but there are other issues even obtaining the evidence she needs. She expressed that:

    Well my father threw out the records I was keeping at home and most of my records disappeared when my deceased doctor clinic shut down. He wrote a summary of ever consult. That would be proof. So I have to do more work to dig up info and may still be rejected after 18 months of work.

    And to make matters worse, to get the NDIS, Anna explained how they require applicants to provide:

    proof you tried available treatments and they didn’t work… even if there is no treatment.

    Notably, the NDIA has built engaging with outdated and harmful treatments like Graded Exercise Therapy (GET) and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) into its criteria. Of course, this is hugely problematic – not least because these could cause Anna’s severe ME to worsen even further. Medical professionals have forced Anna into both since she developed ME. It’s highly likely they contributed to her deterioration into severe ME:

    Glacial pace of change putting Anna’s life at risk – but people can help

    Close to a year after the Canary first reported on Anna’s atrocious situation, little has changed.

    As ever, the only people who’ve reached out to help Anna are chronically ill people, often themselves living with ME, or long Covid. Notably, people online have been sharing her story and setting out Anna’s urgent needs. These are:

    • A room in a quiet home with Covid conscious masking. Anna has explained that she can pay rent, but she will need some care assistance. She has already qualified for funding support for this, so can provide for meals and some care hours. There’s a prospect of Carer’s Allowance if the person can assist her long-term.
    • Once she has secured a room in a safe home, she will need a way to move safely, with consideration for her severe ME and mitigating infection risk in the process.
    • She’ll also need funding for moving costs, and aids until she has access to the NDIS.
    • Alongside all this, she needs a disability advocate with experience of complex cases who can assist her in tandem.
    • Separately, she is looking for someone in Australia, preferably in Victoria, to help do verbal communication tasks. Anna has everything they would require documented, so just needs someone to sit on the phone.

    It’s shameful that a person living with severe ME in a wealthy and enormously-resourced country can count on neither the state or specialist services to help her get care, and leave an abusive household. Change for people living with ME continues to move at a glacial pace – but people like Anna can’t wait for it – because by now, it’s already too little, too late.

    In the meantime, if you want to support Anna financially as she prepares to build a life away from abuse and are in a position to do so, her international crowd-funder can be found here. If you live in Australia you can send support to @halcionandon through Beem. Anna would be especially grateful for gift-cards through Amazon (to halcionandon@gmail.com) or Beem, to afford basics.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • 150,000 MORE people set to lose DWP benefits thanks to Labour’s cuts

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has ignited a wave of fury among chronically ill and disabled people and their unpaid carers as it confirmed sweeping alterations to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) regulations.

    With these changes, a staggering 150,000 people are set to lose their eligibility for Carer’s Allowance and the carer element of DWP Universal Credit, as highlighted by the latest announcements from chancellor Rachel Reeves during her Spring Statement.

    DWP: cutting unpaid carers already pathetic benefits

    These changes come against a backdrop of significant cuts to chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits, anticipated to affect as many as 3.2 million families by 2030. According to estimates, individuals could see their annual income plummet by an average of £1,720 due to these shifts in policy.

    DWP PIP, which is crucial for so many disabled people, is split into two distinct components: daily living and mobility.

    Currently, the standard rate for the daily living part of DWP PIP requires claimants to accrue between eight and 11 points, while those eligible for the higher rate must score 12 points or more. However, a new threshold is set to be introduced in November 2026 which will require a minimum score of four points in at least one activity to qualify for the daily living component, although the mobility criteria will remain unchanged.

    Helen Walker, chief executive of Carers UK, sharply condemned the decision, describing it as “the first substantial cuts to Carer’s Allowance in decades,” and calling it an unprecedented step in the wrong direction.

    Poverty is already entrenched. Labour will make it even worse.

    In an interview with Manchester Evening News, she voiced serious concerns over the implications for the many unpaid carers already facing financial hardship.

    1.2 million unpaid carers already live in poverty, and 400,000 live in deep poverty in the UK.

    She further explained that DWP PIP functions as a “gateway” benefit, meaning that changes will have dire consequences on the entitlements and support available to those who are already in difficult positions.

    The DWP itself estimates that 150,000 unpaid carers will lose their entitlements to Carer’s Allowance or the carer’s element of Universal Credit.

    Moreover, the financial burden on carers is exacerbated by the revelation that Carer’s Allowance currently provides £81.90 a week to those who care for someone for a minimum of 35 hours per week, but that support is now dwindling. The carer’s allowance of DWP Universal Credit is £198.31 every four weeks.

    Another disturbing dimension of these reforms is the potential scrapping of the Work Capability Assessment, previously used to determine the eligibility of individuals for Universal Credit work-related support, with plans to replace it with the DWP PIP assessment.

    A concerning reduction in the DWP Universal Credit health element has also been flagged, dropping from £97 a week in 2024/25 to £47 by 2026/27, and remaining at that level until 2029/30 for new claimants.

    “This will cause huge anxiety for hard-pressed carers and their families who need every penny they can get to pay their bills,” Walker warned, emphasising the crucial role that 1.2 million unpaid carers play in the UK economy, estimated to be valued at a remarkable £184 billion a year.

    The DWP: plunging people into chaos

    Walker aptly summarised the situation by stating “they deserve so much more,” highlighting the desperate need for support for those in caregiving roles.

    In addition, the DWP’s announcement regarding Blue Badge applications following the upcoming PIP reforms has aroused concern amid fears of stricter eligibility criteria that may further disadvantage disabled individuals already struggling to maintain their independence.

    Currently, one of the major qualifications for obtaining a Blue Badge is the reception of DWP PIP, and changes to these rules could impede access to essential benefits for many with mobility challenges.

    As these developments unfold, the impact on chronically ill and disabled people and their families continues to loom large – causing untold stress and despair.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The ‘Welfare Not Warfare’ demo was amazing – but it had its problems, too

    If you somehow missed it, on Wednesday 26 March, the Canary stood in solidarity with chronically ill and disabled activists in person and online mobilising against the Labour Party government’s dangerous and brutal cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability and health-related benefit entitlements.

    Four of us joined activists and protesters in London for the major demonstration at Downing Street and outside Parliament.

    We were there as journalists to document, bear witness, and amplify our chronically ill and disabled communities’ voices. Though, as we understand it, the crowd on the ground didn’t necessarily need much of our help on that last one – with our collective calls for “Welfare Not Warfare” reportedly carrying all the way inside Parliament. The chants for our rights were undoubtedly heard by this latest crony cabinet iteration as the chancellor spouted her interminably bullshit budget.

    However, that obviously doesn’t mean that the sleazy corporate sell-out lot of them are actually going to listen. And that’s why we were also there too. We can’t in good conscience stand by as the Labour Party DWP cuts kill more chronically ill and disabled people, particularly targeting neurodivergent folks, and people living with mental health conditions. So we were there for a lot more: to take action alongside everyone as well.

    DWP Welfare Not Warfare protest: the online community came out in force

    On a personal level, I felt buoyed, inspired, and proud even more to turn up due to a sentiment the Canary put out ahead of the protests. This was that we’re a team of activists first, journalists second, and that:

    everything we do is in support of, and solidarity with, those that the system marginalises.

    I live with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), and for many years, I have agonised over not being able to regularly take action alongside the marginalised people and communities I am part of or care deeply for. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wanted to be at demos, and to feel part of the community – because the system punching down on so many of us divides, silos, and isolates us away from each other, when it’s mutual aid and solidarity we need most of all. When we come together to resist as part of intersectional movements, this is an antidote to that. However, it’s hard to connect and contribute when you’re supine in bed with any number of debilitating symptoms.

    As many of us at the Canary are disabled and live with chronic illnesses, we all know how vital it is that these DWP-centred demonstrations include chronically ill housebound and bed-bound folks online. So that was our main goal. Through two separate livestreams, regular video posts on Instagram, and running commentary of both the protests and the chancellor’s speech on X, four of us on the ground and two supporting from home, and the rest of the team covering us too, did exactly that.

    We feel strongly that this is something that all social justice movements should do, because historically, chronically ill people have been excluded from many big demonstrations. This time would have been no exception had the Canary not stepped up to ensure there was online access.

    But more importantly, it was YOU folks at home that got the hashtag trending to number six on X and persistently high throughout the day above all the bluster of the budget itself.

    Ultimately, we simply facilitated, and you did the important bit. It’s the ceaseless efforts of the chronically ill and disabled communities online boldly speaking up together with a united voice that has always made the impact. In short, it was every single person at home who made that happen. Your voices deserve to be heard – and you damn well made sure they were on Wednesday. Thank you for being there and amplifying each-other.

    Kicking off the fight back: a fierce and fantastic start

    So let’s start with some highlights of the on the ground protest – and there are many to choose from.

    For one, there was the turnout. This was among the biggest demonstrations for chronically ill and disabled people’s rights that activists have mobilised in nearly a decade. Of course, it needed to be to respond to the scale of the Labour Party’s assault on the DWP benefit entitlements vital to our daily lives. Moreover, the show of solidarity from grassroots groups of a multitude of social justice movements was unmissable. Anti-war activists, pro-Palestine groups, housing justice, women’s, sex workers’, and LGBTQIA+ rights, all came together to stand in solidarity against the cuts.

    Wheelchair users led the march with ferocious chants on the megaphone from longtime fearless and brilliant DPAC activist Jamie McCormack, to loud echoes trailing back along the crowd filling the road a long way behind to Whitehall. This had an almost electric energy. Activists shouted out loud above the Westminster clamour. “Whose streets? Our streets! Whose rights? Our rights!” rang out to drum beats and marchers abuzz with unified strength and ablaze with fury at Labour’s plans. It was something to behold, something bigger to be part of.

    People also said “balls to the Spring Statement” with more than their words. Protesters threw plastic balls quite literally at Downing Street, because the prime minister thinks that having the “balls” to cut DWP benefits is something to boast about, but we sure as hell don’t. Making a political football out of chronically ill and disabled people’s lives is nothing to be proud of. So, those outside his (likely to-be short-lived) residence made sure to show him that in no uncertain action.

    Where’s the direct action?

    However, this also all highlighted a significant shortfall as well. Despite the size of the protest and the palpable anger feeding into a fierce, fiery, and vociferous collective voice, those raw calls for our rights didn’t translate into anything like the direct action needed.

    There seems to be some aversion to this – and certainly there wasn’t any broadscale planning or agreement on a direct action ahead of the protest. Apart from a handful of seasoned activists at the front of the march – including the Canary’s own indomitable Nicola Jeffery who began to block the road at one point, there seemed little appetite or agitation towards it.

    In 2016, DPAC activists took Westminster Bridge for several hours to say unequivocally “no more deaths from benefit cuts”. Of course the Canary’s ever-brave and unwavering Steve Topple and Nicola Jeffery were there as activists then too – because they’ve always stood right alongside the communities the system is sidelining before anything else.

    Then, the Tories’ callous DWP welfare ‘reforms’ were set to kill chronically ill and disabled people. Now, Labour’s callous welfare ‘reforms’ are about to kill more chronically ill and disabled people. So, there’s a question to be deliberated over: why then, but not today? The stakes are just as high, what has changed?

    To start with, the fact it’s no longer the Tories we’re fighting – but the Labour Party – appears to be playing a part in this. There seems to be this sense that lobbying Labour MPs is the way to go to turn this all around. It rests on this notion that the Labour Party have promised to include disabled people in DWP-related decision-making, so we should work with them, not against them.

    However, at best, this is naive given that, quite frankly, the government has shown itself serially incapable of doing that. This Green Paper is a case and point – at no stage in its formulation has the Labour-led DWP sought the input of chronically ill and disabled communities. Now it isn’t planning to consult on many of the most dangerous and devastating changes either. What makes anyone think they’re going to actually respond to our fears going forward?

    Labour listening? Not bloody likely

    In all likelihood, anything they do row back on will be fig leaf tinkers at the edges, just so they can say they’ve listened. Then, they’ll just redirect the attack and shift the impact on chronically ill and disabled people in a different way. See: scrapping the DWP PIP freeze in some disingenuous parade of ‘listening’ to chronically ill and disabled people’s concerns. See also: that, followed by Kendall freezing the LCWRA component of Universal Credit right after because Labour fucked up its figures.

    At worst then, it’s getting into bed with the very party now marginalising us. The Canary has consistently called out the Labour right faction now leading the party. Long before they came to power, it was clear that they wouldn’t be working for our communities when they eventually did.

    And let’s be real: when push comes to shove, will the Labour Together-funded new crop of Starmerite neoliberals really rail against the whip? They didn’t for the two child cap on DWP benefits. They didn’t for the winter fuel payment. How many will actually have the integrity to stand up to their government on this?

    So, instead of begging Labour MPs to oppose their own party in government, we need to galvanise change the way mass movements have historically won civil rights: uncompromising civil disobedience through direct action.

    Lack of inclusivity and accessibility

    Aside from the lack of direct action, there were other problems in the organisation of the protest itself.

    As the Canary underscored already, if we hadn’t raised it, and offered to fill in, there also would have been no real attention to accessibility and inclusivity of people who couldn’t be there. However, this issue extended to the protest itself as well.

    Overall, the speeches were too long. Many chronically ill people wouldn’t be able to listen for that length of time. I say that from experience – I personally couldn’t maintain the Facebook livestream for the second batch of speeches at Old Palace Yard, no matter how much I wanted to for people online. This second round of speeches at Old Palace Yard was also inaccessible for deaf protesters – as given the crowds, it was impossible to view the BSL interpreter at a distance.

    At Downing Street, there was nowhere to sit and listen to the speeches except for on monuments. That’s a basic accessibility feature for chronically ill people who can’t be on their feet for long periods.

    The same was true of the march. As the Canary highlighted at a recent Million Women Rising protest – who incidentally, were there in solidarity too – organisers arranged for a bus for those who couldn’t participate in the march, to get from one location to the next safely.

    Met making protesters less safe – the usual

    And speaking of safety, nor were there any safe, less overstimulating spaces for overwhelmed protesters. In that way, it wasn’t hugely accessible for chronically ill, neurodivergent people, or those with mental health conditions either.

    The road severing the speakers from the protesters chanting outside Downing Street was impractical and at times, potentially unsafe too. It also divided the protest – and the split gave the police an opportunity to fill the space – deploying horses at one point along the road.

    Of course, the cops compounded all this. They manhandled one of our journalists and tried to stop us and many other protesters filming. The way they siphoned off protesters at the end of the march into Old Palace Yard and at other points along the march was aggressive and unsafe as well. And it goes without saying that bringing police horses to a disabled-led peaceful protest was a needless display of force. But then, the heavy-handed Met swinging its dicks around is hardly anything new.

    Who gets to speak?

    The Canary also already pointed out how problematic it was to platform the Public and Commercial Servants (PCS) union. On Wednesday, organisers of the demo again gave PCS national president Martin Cavanagh the stage.

    However, we wrote previously how Cavanagh’s words on working class solidarity rung hollow and how his speech:

    should be seen for what it is: a shallow effort to rehabilitate a department rife in ableism, classism, and rampant negligence.

    In short, Cavanagh and his union are the very epitome of tokenised class solidarity.

    The same, class-reductionist drivel applied on Wednesday.

    At the end of the day, Cavanagh and his union represent the very DWP staff who have been vilifying claimants with the department’s cruel and punitive policies. He can make superficial platitudes of solidarity at big demos. However, the PCS union has never gone on strike against these policies or successive government welfare reforms. And, it has a history of throwing disabled benefit claimants under the bus to boot.

    More to the point, there were many groups on the ground who could have had the platform instead. There were plenty of disabled and intersecting communities that didn’t get to speak. Rather than listening to the PCS union president sanitise DWP staff’s complicity, we would have liked to hear from them.

    When these cuts compound so many social injustices for disabled people, it’s important to give as many groups as possible living those realities a platform at protests like these. Some notable issues in the line-up for instance was lack of representation for learning disabled people (with only one speaker from the Inclusion London offshoot Free Our People), and various chronically ill groups that these cuts will massively impact.

    Moreover, there was barely any representation for Black and brown people in the speeches. In fact, the whole protest felt very white-led.

    Ahead of the protests, the Canary also obtained statements from former independent MP Chris Williamson, and former Green Party councillor, health spokesperson, and academic Larry Sanders (brother to US senator Bernie Sanders). Unfortunately, these were unable to be included in the line-up due to various constraints. However, you can read those at the end of the article.

    This is only the start, it has to be up from here until we win

    Broadly, the demonstration on Wednesday was a bold and powerful start to the fight back against Labour’s cruel benefit cuts. What it did well was to make it abundantly clear to the government that chronically ill and disabled people are not going to take it, and will not back down until it scraps its callous plans. Of course, this is only the beginning – because there’ll undoubtedly be more protests where this came from.

    However, there’s work to do moving forward to make sure that these demonstrations are genuinely inclusive.

    We can’t win this without our chronically ill and disabled housebound/bed-bound siblings, Black and brown people, and others.

    And nor should we do this without them.

    Because if we’re committed to the belief that it’s “nothing about us, without us” – and are calling out the government for violating that very pledge – then that means we must live up to that too in everything we do.

    And by now, it must be blatantly obvious we’re not going to win by working with the very people punching down on our communities. It’s time to take action, before we lose any more chronically ill and disabled people to the violent state and system that has taken too many lives already.

    Statements

    Statement from Chris Williamson:

    This Labour govt’s proving itself to be just as cruel and heartless as the previous Tory administration, if not more so.

    Liz Kendall’s announcement last week is just the latest example of the government’s inhumanity. There is literally no economic, let alone moral, justification to inflict this conscious cruelty on some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens.

    And no matter how many times the prime minister tries to hoodwink the public into believing that there is a moral justification, the facts speak for themselves.

    Britain is an incredibly wealthy nation. We’re the sixth biggest economy in the world. And the govt owns the Bank of England, which issues the nation’s currency. So, the govt has all the economic levers at its disposal to create a good society.

    They should be introducing measures to eradicate poverty and provide world class public services. But they’re exacerbating poverty and extending the privatisation of public services instead.

    The Labour MPs who say they’re opposed to these cuts to disability benefits should threaten to resign the Labour whip unless the prime minister changes course. They’ve got leverage over the govt if they choose to use it. So, if Starmer still refuses to budge, they should attempt to bring down his govt and force a general election.

    There is no other way.

    The soul of our nation is at stake.

    Chris Williamson

    Statement from Larry Sanders:

    I am very happy to make a statement about the government’s attack on people with disabilities and chronic illness. Much of my working life has been in direct help and advocacy to such people.

    I have been carer to badly disabled and dying relatives. At my age I spend much of my time with friends with such needs and I have moved into that category myself.

    No amount of money can undo the pain and sadness of our human frailty. But the help and support of others makes life bearable and often a delight. The absence of care means terror and humiliation. Disability benefits, the NHS, Social Care and support in employment and voluntary activity are the public ways in which our society organises itself to provide that support.

    In 1948 the people of this country promised each other that they would provide the health care of every person on the basis of their need, not their wealth. The NHS is always under attack but still survives. These 4 legs of public support are not a burden or something that can be driven by the whims and ideologies of holders of power. They are central to the maintenance of a decent society.

    We are going through a period of enormous danger to democracy and well being all over the world. The Trump menace has grown over 40 years of transfer of wealth from the bulk of the people to the richest.

    The direction has been similar in the UK. Mrs. Thatcher was wrong. There is such a thing as society. But society means real connection between people. A government that ignores and debases large chunks of its people strains that society, increase fear, resentment and distrust. There are always consequences.

    The proposed cuts to PIP and the health element of Universal Credit will have devastating effects on those directly affected, their carers, families and communities. They will also have great and unpredictable consequences for our ability to retain democracy.

    The campaign you are waging all over the country to resist these wicked proposals are entries in a political struggle. They are also part of the mobilisation of all of us who believe in that we can defeat those whose unlimited greed is so destructive.

    Healthcare is a human right; so is social care; so are benefits. As my brother Bernie Sanders is fond of repeating:

    we fight for government of the people, by the people, for the people- not government of, by and for the billionaires.

    We are indeed met on a battlefield of that war.

    Larry Sanders

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The mental and emotional toll of the DWP PIP cuts is unprecedented for disabled people

    Spring is meant to be a time of optimism, but for those with physical and mental health disabilities any cheerfulness ended abruptly when chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the cuts and changes in the Green Paper and the Spring Statement – particularly focused on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability benefit, Personal Independence Payment, known as PIP.

    DWP PIP cuts: hitting the extra costs disabled people need to live

    Hitting severely disabled people with DWP PIP cuts is highly controversial, especially from a Labour government where the savings are linked to increased defence spending.

    It can be difficult to explain how disabled people face extra costs but on one episode of Dragons Den a few years ago, it was made clear when an entrepreneur was showing the ‘dragons’ a wheelchair cushion she had made. When asked the price of the cushion for the customer and how much the landed price cost her, the dragons winced.  She was asked why it was so expensive for the customer, when it cost so little to make.  She fumbled around for an answer before saying the price would indicate ‘quality’.

    This is called the ‘disability mark-up’ where equipment for disabled people has an inflated, excessive price.

    Hospital, council and wheelchair services can only supply so much. Everything else must be self-funded from specialist cushions, to care costs and even the home you may be living in. All, including housing costs, will have this excessive disability-mark-up.

    This leaves those with serious conditions, such as a spinal cord injury (SCI), reliant on the state, when they’re working and when they’re not, because of these excessive costs related to living as a disabled person.

    PIP criteria changes will impact people with spinal cord injury (SCI)

    Elaine who has an incomplete SCI said:

    When I look at the receipt for my online shopping order, I can see that nearly half it is for my disability such as incontinence  pads (I can’t use the ones the council gave me) crème, and dressings for vulnerable areas like my hips. That’s just costs that I have with a job or not.

    To help Elaine with some of the financial barriers, DWP PIP is a benefit to help mitigate these disability-related costs.

    But PIP is one of the most arduous benefits to apply for with a self-assessment form, medical evidence needed from consultants and others involved in the care of the person claiming, plus a face-to-face assessment. There are strict eligibility rules as to who will qualify, and if so, at what rate. Not every disabled person will qualify for this benefit or choose to apply for it.

    But it isn’t just arduous in terms of what you must do to apply for this benefit. It’s also mentally challenging, as you must focus on what you can no longer do physically, what challenges you might be facing psychologically and what care you might need. Mentally this takes a massive toll on a person’s well-being.

    The government is now planning to make the eligibility criteria for PIP tighter. Where it will hit people is on the ‘daily living’ questions. This will mean even more people won’t qualify for PIP, and that might include people with SCI.

    Why is this important? Sustaining a spinal cord injury (SCI) can be costly in many ways.

    Financial price-tags can mount up quickly, and this can add a barrier into finding work with it being extremely difficult finding a salary that can cover or even go near to covering such costs.

    Media maligning and mental health

    But trying to find such work can be challenging for other reasons. Daniel said:

    I am navigating a health and care system that doesn’t work for people with SCI. So, how can I be expected to hold down a job when I am going to have to take time off because I am struggling to access the appropriate care or missing out and falling into cycles of ill health?

    That’s a good question, because finding decent employers where there is an understanding of the needs of disabled people, like those living with a SCI and a salary that can cover the level of disability-related costs, can be a difficult task. If DWP PIP was cut it would create another barrier to getting such employment.

    As a mental health columnist who also has a spinal cord injury, along with secondary conditions, I know the government proposals in terms of PIP will cause a lot of anxiety and distress, especially as many of those with a SCI also have mental health challenges.

    During the austerity years of the previous government, the mental health of those facing cuts deteriorated not only because of cuts, but a depiction by the then chancellor George Osbourne of ‘strivers and shirkers’ – the neighbours who haven’t opened their curtains first thing in the morning.  Such language and imagery was gobbled-up by the press and splurged across front pages

    I see this now, with the ‘usual suspects’ both online and in the printed press demonising those who because they’re disabled, need to claim DWP PIP.

    Many commentators were getting the facts completely wrong, with outlandish claims and airing old complaints about disabled people supposedly getting free cars and blue badges (even though these schemes are separate from PIP).

    Such negative, derogatory and demeaning headlines and stories about disabled people can be highly damaging.

    DWP ‘not set up for this serious level of injury’

    Applying for benefits like DWP PIP can be extremely difficult, no matter what the disability. But for those with SCI, fresh data from the latest What Matters report from the Spinal Injuries Association (SIA) shows that when almost 934 with SCI were questioned in January and February this year, 70% of respondents with SCI faced challenges/difficulties accessing benefits.

    Difficulties in accessing vital benefits in a timely manner was something Dot experienced when she sustained serious spinal cord injuries and was on a ventilator. Costs were mounting-up and one thing that needed to be done was to claim PIP so that these costs could be more manageable. Dot couldn’t tackle the forms, but luckily her close friend Andrea stepped in.

    Andrea recalled her numerous conversations with the PIP office, during which she was repeatedly asked to put Dot on the phone, despite explaining that Dot could not speak due to being on a ventilator.

    She was also told that Dot needed to sign various paperwork, although she could not move her hands, and she was told to get Dot to email DWP PIP directly, even though Dot was at that time incapable. It was only when Andrea was finally able to escalate the case to a manager that they sent someone to the hospital for a face-to-face meeting.

    Andrea said

    Ringing PIP and getting them to understand the severity of the situation, it’s like they’re not geared up for somebody who was in a coma or who has a critical injury. Like Dot, you’re in a very stressful critical situation, but you feel like you’re against a brick wall. The government departments are just not set up for this serious level of injury and at a time when you really need that support.

    DWP PIP changes causing ‘severe hardship’

    Teresa Skinner, support line coordinator at SIA, said:

    Calls regarding benefits, particularly PIP, are a daily enquiry now, mainly because their benefit has stopped. No face-to-face assessments is a big problem: health conditions cannot be assessed over the phone properly. It causes severe hardship, not being able to get out because of loss of cars, not being able to have personal care and help around the home, the list can go on.

    Skinner said it was important assessors need to have better understanding of spinal cord injury and the impact on life. Without this understanding, Skinner said:

    It is causing severe hardship and further mental health problems.

    Dot has said:

    Amazingly, with the patience of good friends and perseverance and a bit of attitude, they’ve managed to get it sorted. They really fought hard for me and spent lots of time doing things, making it possible for me to go home, which is what I really want to do.

    The chancellor already knows disabled people face challenges financially with the disability mark-up making it costly even with PIP, to manage day to day expenses. Tightening eligibility will add further costs to an already disadvantaged group and create a further barrier to obtaining work.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ruth Hunt

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Disabled people and allies just came out in communities nationwide to fight the DWP cuts

    On Wednesday 26 March, there was a nationwide groundswell against the Labour Party government’s brutal cuts to benefits, as chronically ill and disabled people came out in force for #WelfareNotWarfare protests. The enormous turnout in London was only part of it – as people around the country took to the streets to fight the cruel Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans. Together, across the UK, chronically ill and disabled people, and their allies made it clear that government won’t get away with it without a fierce collective resistance.

    Welfare Not Warfare: disabled people mount nationwide protests

    While the major protest centred round Downing Street and Parliament Square in London, plenty turned out elsewhere in the country against Labour’s disgraceful plans.

    In Aberdeen, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) activists gave speeches and hosted a die-in to represent the chronically ill and disabled people Labour’s vicious cuts will kill:

    Activists from Stop the War Coalition turned out in solidarity in Glasgow:

    Meanwhile, in Newcastle, protesters even caught the attention of Reach Plc’s faux local news site ChronicleLive, with the outlet reporting “dozens of protesters” gathering in the city centre:

    DPAC and Crips Against Cuts member Hannah Frost spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. At the protest, Frost highlighted the impact the cuts could have her as a wheelchair-user living with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS). As the news site reported:

    Speaking at the city centre rally, Hannah said: “They are trying to frame this as getting people back into work. But cutting our benefits will not help that, it will make it harder for people to work.

    “I pay for medicinal cannabis through my Pip and without that I am in so much pain that I can’t sleep. How would I be able to work if I don’t have that extra money to spend managing my life? It is expensive needing a wheelchair”.

    Bringing out the best in communities everywhere

    Darlington drew a significant crowd with DPAC banners and speeches against the cuts:

    End Social Care Disgrace campaigners in Leeds brought attention to the connection between the cuts and systemic care failures in social care also impacting chronically ill and disabled people:

    Over in Derry, DPAC Northern Ireland activists gathered together outside the Guildhall:

    DPAC Norwich protesters took over the entrance to Norwich City Hall:

    Labour’s proposals are leaving many chronically ill and disabled people fearful for themselves and their loved ones. As much as they were to resist the government’s callous cuts, the protests were also focal point for people to find solidarity and support. A poignant photo from Norwich of people sitting with a protester in distress showed how these demonstrations also brought out the best in our local communities:

    Making sure Labour MPs got the message: Welfare Not Warfare

    Some protests took the fight right up to the local Labour MPs’ offices to call on their representatives to oppose the cuts. In Chesterfield for instance, the protesters went to make some noise outside Labour MP Toby Perkins’ office:

    Activists in Cardiff continued the nationwide protests into the evening outside Labour Secretary of State for Wales Jo Stevens’ office:

    All told, hundreds of protesters outside London came out on the National Day of Action. This was on top of the thousands in the capital. Overall, the multiple demonstrations all across the country showed the depth of opposition to Labour’s plans. Of course, it’s only the start of the fight back – but the government can be damn sure communities everywhere aren’t going to stop until Labour ends it war on chronically ill and disabled people.

    Featured image supplied

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The DWP has LIED about how many people its cuts will throw into poverty

    The Labour Party government and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have been caught lying about the effects of their cuts to chronically ill, disabled, and non-working people’s benefits. In short, the number of people the DWP has claimed will be plunged into poverty is around 150,000 less than is actually the case.

    DWP cuts: the cruelest for decades

    As the Canary previously reported, the DWP under Labour is changing the eligibility criteria for Personal Independence Payment (PIP). It is also freezing chronically ill and disabled people’s Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) elements of Universal Credit, at £97 a week – and reduced them to £47 a week for new claimants – with only people with the most severe conditions able to apply for LCWRA. People under the age of 22 will no longer be able to claim these top-ups under Universal Credit at all.

    Initially, the government had claimed that Reeves’ proposed cuts would save them £5 billion. However, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has had to clarify that the savings will actually be £3.4 billion – hence the freeze in LCWRA rates.

    Chronically ill and disabled people don’t need to be told by the government how this will affect them. It is obvious that countless people will be throw into, or further into, poverty by the DWP cuts. However, the government has to do what’s called an Impact Assessment when it changes policies that affect a group/groups of people protected under the Equality Act 2010.

    So, what does the DWP Impact Assessment say?

    What does the Impact Assessment say?

    The Canary has crunched the headline figures. The DWP Impact Assessment claims that, for PIP, around 370,000 people will lose their current entitlement to it. Then, 430,000 who do not get PIP but could have been entitled to will not get it. The average loss to these people stands  at £4,500 a year. Overall, 800,000 people will not get the daily living component of PIP due to the four-point minimum requirement by 2029/30.

    As a result, 150,000 will not receive Carer’s Allowance or the Universal Credit Carer’s Element as well.

    For Universal Credit, around 2.25 million current claimants will lose an average of £500 a year for existing claimants and £3,000 for new claimants. Breaking the figures down, 1.4 million single women, many lone parents, will be losing out on average £1,610 a year. 1.1 million single male households losing out by £1,460 a year.

    By comparison, for couples it’s 700,000 affected, losing £2,340.

    In contrast, 2.2 million single women gain £380 a year (mostly due to the Universal Credit basic rate going up). 900,000 single men will be gaining £470 a year. Meanwhile, 700,000 couples households gain £500 a year on average.

    Chronically ill and disabled people hit hardest

    However, all of the above are mostly not chronically ill and disabled people – but non-working or low-earning people.

    By 2029/30, 3.2 million families (some current, some future claimants) who will lose average of £1,720 per year from DWP benefits in real terms. Of these, a staggering 96% (3.1 million) have at least one family member who is disabled. This equates to 20% of all households with disabled family member.

    Households with at least one disabled family member also lose £100 more on average per year than households without a disabled family member. But by comparison, just 1.8 million (48% of total affected) households with disabled family member purportedly gain from the changes, equating to just 12% of households with disabled family members.

    So, it is clear that Labour and the DWP are disproportionately targeting chronically ill and disabled people. But just how many people will it be throwing into poverty?

    Well, the Impact Assessment claims that figure to be 250,000 – including 50,000 children. However, it seems that the DWP is lying about this.

    The DWP: lying – and then lying again

    Iain Porter is a senior policy advisor at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. He posted on X that the actual number of people the DWP is throwing into poverty is nearer 400,000:

    In short, Porter says it’s because the DWP is including the previous Tory government’s planned changes to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) in its poverty figures calculation. Yet, this policy never actually happened – but the DWP is using the figures anyway:

    So, the Canary also dug further into these figures – because the DWP had also used the Tories’ planned WCA changes to make claims about its cuts elsewhere. It states that, because the WCA changes are not going ahead, 370,000 people “will now be eligible for the new UC health element at £50 per week and will gain £2,600 per year”.

    However, this is again a manipulation of the figures – because these 370,000 people are actually losing because the DWP is cutting the LCWRA rate. In reality, the Canary found that these 370,000 people are actually £2,600 a year worse off than if Labour had not changed the LCWRA rate at all. It is unclear how this affects the DWP’s overall calculations.

    Porter says the DWP is using “sleight of hand” with its figures. The Canary say the department, and the Labour government, are wilfully lying to parliament and the public over the impact of their callous DWP cuts – all because they know the outrage that is building.

    Featured image via the Canary

    Additional reporting via Hannah Sharland

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Disabled people launch biggest fightback against the government in a decade

    If you missed the #WelfareNotWarfare protest from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) – supported by Stop The War and the Canary – then either a) you haven’t been reading us, or b) you weren’t on social media on Wednesday 26 March. Because chronically ill and disabled people and their allies launched their biggest protest for almost a decade – and it showed that the Labour Party is going to face resistance to its attempts to cut people’s benefits – and potentially kill them.

    Welfare Not Warfare: disabled people protest and occupy Whitehall and Westminster

    Proceedings kicked off at Downing Street. There was the main assembly organised by DPAC and Stop The War. This saw speakers and groups including Million Women Rise, Support Not Separation, and others gather on the opposite side to Downing Street:

    The protest saw speeches from disabled people and their allies – including former Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. McDonnell told the crowd:

    Disabled people are facing the biggest cuts to their benefits in a decade, causing immense harm… Full support to DPAC which is standing up against this attack… This is not what Labour government’s do.

    Corbyn said:

    If you cut big holes in the safety net, people fall through. You see them sleeping on the streets. You see them begging. That’s what happens when you destroy the security of our welfare state. Poverty is not going to be solved by spending more and more money on weapons of mass destruction.

    You can watch all the speeches via the Canary’s Facebook livestream:

    Then, right outside Downing Street some more lively protesters had gathered. They include people from Stand Up to Racism, Fossil Free London, DPAC, Queers For Palestine, and other groups:

    Police were being problematic. As we previously reported, horses were deployed for disabled people and cops tried to stop us filming. Our friend from DPAC, Carol, was arrested:

    While cops got handsy with others:


    DPAC had organised what is becoming a traditional protest – saying balls to the government with actual balls being thrown at Downing Street and the cops inside it:

    Roadblock!

    Then, wheelchair users led protesters onto a road block:

    Around 1,000 people moved from Downing Street to the main junction at Parliament Square. You can watch the Canary’s livestream of the march here:

    Police were trying to force people back onto the pavement, but failed to do so – and then protesters simply stopped:

    Westminster was then brought to a standstill, amid chants of ‘welfare not warfare’, ‘no more benefit cuts’, and ‘whose rights – our rights’:

    Eventually, people continued to move down to Old Palace Yard – but even then, protesters were snaking back to Whitehall:

    Welfare Not Warfare: disabled people will be back to protest at Westminster

    At Old Palace Yard, more people spoke as the protesters joined a Homes For All rally:

    The Canary had multiple team members on the ground throughout the day. It was arguably the biggest mobilisation of chronically ill and disabled people in Westminster since DPAC blocked the main bridge out of Parliament in 2016:

    Of course, this is only the beginning of Labour’s assault on chronically ill and disabled people. So, there will undoubtedly be more protests and resistance to its plans. And given the turnout and strength of feeling shown on 26 March, opposition is going to be fierce.

    Featured image and additional images and video all via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

  • Filthy Met Police arrest disabled activist at PEACEFUL #WelfareNotWarfare protest

    On Wednesday 26 March, Met Police arrested a disabled activist at the peaceful Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) ‘Welfare Not Warfare’ protest in London.

    #WelfareNotWarfare: pigs arresting disabled people

    Disabled people took to the street to protest the governments vicious planned cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability benefits. During the protest, Met Police arrested Carole, from East London Unite Community Branch.

    It says it all when the police feel the need to arrest disabled people who are protesting over planned cuts which could kill them.

    In the video, originally shared by East London Unite Community branch, officers claim Carole was shouting. However, unless the officers have hearing problems – and lets face it, if they did they wouldn’t be acting like dicks at a disability protest – then they arrested her for no reason.

    It doesn’t get much lower than arresting a disabled protestor:

    The Met also attempted to stop a Canary journalist filming:

    Three little piggies went to Parliament:

    Get those animals off those horses

    Meanwhile, the Met police literally deployed HORSES – to a disabled protest? Talk about pre-meditated violence. No wonder crime rates are so high when the entirety of the met is sat on horseback chasing disabled people through Westminster.

    Activists are encouraging people to head to Charing Cross Police Station where Carole is being held, to show support.

    Feature image and additional images via the Canary

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Rachel Reeves pledges to gift billions to arms industry profiteers – while killing disabled people

    In her Spring Statement, chancellor Rachel Reeves offered billions to help arms industry profiteers with one hand, while taking billions away from chronically ill and disabled people with the other. And she promised to put the business of death and destruction “at the heart of our modern industrial strategy”.

    Rachel Reeves: we will feel the ‘benefits of defence spending’, apparently

    Labour Party chancellor Reeves argued that, “as defence spending rises, I want the whole country to feel its benefits”. But there are strong reasons to believe that’s just smoke and mirrors.

    Arms companies are already raking it in thanks largely to the proxy war in Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza, profiting from people’s pain as politicians play games with their lives. And Reeves has now confirmed prime minister Keir Starmer’s previous dystopian promise to “increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP” by “reducing overseas aid to 0.3% of gross national income” and thus oversee the:

    biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War

    This is perhaps an attempt to please the US as the superpower seeks to push other members of its NATO alliance to significantly increase their defence pledges. Or it could be Labour’s payment for receiving “£4m from [a] tax haven-based hedge fund with shares in oil and arms” that “stood to profit” from the Gaza genocide.

    War gives arms companies the opportunity to increase profits, with the help of a crony government

    Reeves kept talking about instability in the world, probably referring to the US-backed bloodshed of Ukraine and Gaza, and claimed:

    A changing world presents challenges, but it also presents new opportunities, for new jobs and new contracts in our world-class defence industrial centres.

    She added that this would mean “putting an extra £6.4bn into defence spending by 2027” and giving “an additional £2.2bn for the Ministry of Defence in the next financial year”. Then she outlined steps she would take to:

    boost Britain’s defence industry and to make the UK a defence industrial superpower

    You may want to contrast Reeves centring an arms trade industrial strategy with Labour’s previous promise under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership to make a Green Industrial Revolution a “top priority“.

    Part of becoming “a defence industrial superpower”, Reeves said, will entail spending on “drones and AI-enabled technology” (like the ones that have terrorised Palestinians in Gaza).

    And she topped her grim promises off by revealing that the government:

    will provide £2bn of increased capacity for UK export finance, to provide loans for overseas buyers of UK defence goods and services.

    Profiteers of death smile

    UK governments have long engaged in corporate welfare, with billions of pounds of taxpayer money transforming into profits for arms shareholders. Britain’s biggest arms dealer BAE Systems, for example, gave shareholders £7.4bn in around nine years under the Tories while getting 21% of its international revenue from contracts with the Ministry of Defence.

    BAE stocks, as with other big arms firms, have been soaring ever since the proxy war in Ukraine began in 2022 and Israel’s genocide in Gaza began in 2023. But Starmer’s government helped to push these stocks to a new high at the end of February 2025 with his promises to boost ‘defence’ spending. That was the case for BAE and fellow UK operators Leonardo and Raytheon.

    Arms lobbyists have long been discussing the potential of Britain’s arms industry, but US president Donald Trump’s recent approach to Europe has helped to create a rush to enhance military spending.

    Rachel Reeves: neither the only way, nor the best

    A few places in Britain do indeed depend on the arms industry. But as Common Wealth researcher Khem Rogaly has insisted:

    Policy choices have left communities dependent on military contracts because of divestment from public services and civilian industry.

    Nonetheless:

    the connection between military spending and job creation has weakened over time. Despite falling as a share of GDP, Britain’s military budget has grown in real terms since the early 1980s – the height of the cold war – yet at the same time more than half of jobs in the military industry have been lost. The military sector is increasingly a hi-tech employer that relies less on manufacturing and more on IT and engineering jobs in the south of England.

    There is another way, though, because:

    Modelling in the US and continental Europe suggests that investment in public services, environmental protections or renewable energy creates more jobs and more economic output than military contracts.

    Instead of going down the path of increasing military spending, then, mass investment in public services and the planet would be a much better focus to have. But the corporate cronies in this government seem much more interested in pleasing their wealthy donors than actually investing in a positive, hopeful future.

    Featured image via the House of Commons

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Assisted Suicide Bill is on the ropes – now it needs to be binned permanently

    Assisted dying legislation in the UK has entered a pivotal phase, with developments unfolding in both England and Wales and the Isle of Man. However, in the former the proposed legislation has been thrown into chaos – by the architect of it themselves.

    Assisted suicide: railroaded through parliament – but for how much longer?

    The Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has brought forward the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which seeks to provide a legal framework for assisted suicide. During the parliamentary process, the ramifications of the proposed bill are drawing considerable scrutiny, particularly from the perspectives of chronically ill and disabled people.

    In an ongoing debate within the House of Commons committee responsible for it, Leadbeater’s bill allows terminally ill adults, those with a prognosis of six months or less to live, to seek assistance in ending their own lives. As the Canary as consistently reported, Leadbeater and her allies have repeatedly tried to railroad the bill through – wilfully not allowing opposition voices to be heard; removing safeguards, and pushing back against genuine concerns.

    However, the bill now faces potential delays in its implementation timeframe. Currently, if approved, there is a proposal to extend the period for full legalisation from two years to four.

    As the Guardian reported:

    The introduction of assisted dying in England and Wales is likely to be pushed back by a further two years in a delay that supportive MPs fear could mean the change of law is never realised.

    The deferral was proposed by Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP piloting the assisted dying bill through parliament. It means the initial timeline of two years for implementing the law will now stretch to four.

    The earliest an assisted dying service is now expected to be operational is 2029, the year by which the next general election must take place, raising fears among backers of the bill that ministers would be reluctant to push through such a controversial change before voters go to the polls.

    A spokesperson for Leadbeater said she “hopes and believes the service can be delivered more quickly” but that the changes made to the bill since the autumn meant it would “inevitably take longer to implement”.

    Opponents of the legislation express concerns regarding the pressure that could inadvertently be placed on vulnerable individuals to opt for assisted dying.

    Concerns and developments

    They advocate for enhancements to palliative care instead of legalising assisted dying, arguing that everyone should have access to quality end-of-life care. During a committee review of the bill, which is expected to be concluded soon, such concerns are being raised by various MPs.

    Moreover, the developments on the Isle of Man indicate a significant shift towards the acceptance of assisted dying as well. The Isle of Man recently legalised assisted dying through a vote in the capital, Douglas, marking it as the first region in the British Isles to adopt such a law. The legislation specifies that only residents with a terminal illness and a life expectancy of no longer than 12 months will be eligible to seek this option, necessitating a settled intention to end their life.

    Dr Alex Allinson, a local GP and the architect of the private member’s bill, described this legislative achievement as the result of a long journey toward providing dignity and autonomy for terminally ill residents. However, critics argue that the introduction of assisted dying could lead to dangerous implications, particularly for those who are disabled or suffering from chronic illnesses.

    Assisted suicide: on the ropes?

    Meanwhile, concerns about inadequate safeguards have further intensified the debate over the bill in England. Some MPs who previously supported the bill are reconsidering their stance due to a perceived lack of sufficient protective measures against potential coercion or pressure exerted on those in vulnerable positions.

    There have been multiple developments which have made previously supportive MPs question their position. For example, on Tuesday 25 March yet another amendment was accepted by the committee that would see oversight for assisted dying be taken away from the Chief Medical Officer:

    Then, changes to how the NHS would be defined due to assisted dying have caused uproar:

    As the committee prepares for a pivotal vote, there is speculation among insiders that the outcome could effectively end the conversation around assisted dying for the next several decades, should the bill fail to pass.

    For chronically ill and disabled people, the derailing of assisted suicide cannot come soon enough.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • BREAKING: another £1.6 BILLION of DWP cuts could be coming as Reeves messed up her figures

    On the eve of the controversial Spring Statement, the Times has reported that chancellor Rachel Reeves could be about to announce even more cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits – to the tune of £1.6 billion

    In short, it seems that Reeves and her DWP counterpart Liz Kendall got their maths wrong – to the utter detriment of chronically ill, disabled, and non-working people. As the Times reported:

    Rachel Reeves will announce further welfare cuts after the budget watchdog told ministers their benefits reforms will save £1.6 billion less than planned.

    The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) rejected the Treasury’s £5 billion welfare savings estimate in a row that will heighten tensions between Labour and the independent forecaster. It instead put the value of the cuts at £3.4 billion.

    This of course comes after Kendall announced that the cuts to both Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Universal Credit’s Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) element were worth £5bn over the course of this parliament.

    Cruelty from Kendall

    As the Canary previously reported, Kendall announced that the rate of DWP Universal Credit standard allowance for new and existing claims would increase by a whole seven pounds in 2026. Current claimants will have their health element frozen at £97 per week until 2030, while new claimants will receive just £47 per week – down from £97.

    However, the way this is being assessed will also change. It will become part of the PIP assessment to, as Kendall said:

    be based on the impact of disability on daily living, not on capacity to work.

    Crucially however, this would mean that the claimant would have to qualify for PIP too as well as Universal Credit, though there’s no clear timeline as to when WCA and DWP PIP will be merging, as it will require legislation to do so.

    Kendall insisted however that anyone deemed unfit for work before 2026 and remains on LCWRA wont lose their health element or see their entitlement change.

    However, PIP will also be harder to claim, with Kendall announcing that disabled people will now have to score four points or more on any particular part of the daily living section, meaning for example it would’ve been enough that you can’t wash your torso, now you will only qualify if you can’t wash your lower half. While being incontinent if its due to loss of bowel or bladder control would qualify, you won’t if you can get changed unaided after shitting yourself.

    What are the new DWP cuts?

    Yet none of this has been enough according to the Office for Budget Responsibility.

    So, what more hell is there to come?

    Well, the Times is reporting that Universal Credit LCWRA element for new claimants will now be frozen until 2030 rather than increased in line with inflation. This is on top of the £50 reduction that was already announced. There will also be a small reduction in the basic rate of universal credit in 2029, after Kendall increased it by £7 a week.

    The Times said:

    The two measures will raise about £500 million by 2030.

    It is not just the Times reporting it either:

    DWP cuts and chaos: unconscionable

    So, Reeves and Kendall are still £1 billion short – and there is so far no indication of where this will be made up from. It may well be that further changes will be made to PIP – because ITV is reporting that the OBR thinks the measures Labour want to introduce will not work.

    In a society that alleges it prides itself on fairness and compassion, it is unconscionable that the government continues to target disabled people in its austerity measures. Moreover, there was already weeks of cruel and distressing uncertainty surrounding the DWP cuts.

    Now, Labour has just compounded that – all because Rachel Reeves is not fit to be chancellor.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Terrified, humiliated: three PIP claimants tell the Canary of their fears over Labour’s DWP cuts

    In a move that has sparked widespread uproar, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has announced a series of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) welfare cuts including to PIP and Universal Credit, aimed at reducing government spending that will impact millions of low-income families, and chronically ill and disabled people, who are currently bracing for an uncertain and frightening future under the cruel reforms.

    These reforms will impact the most vulnerable people in society.

    DWP PIP cuts: the thin end of the wedge

    It would appear, from the voter’s perspective, that instead of taxing the rich, Labour has simply chosen to inflict yet more austerity upon those who are already struggling after 15 years of Tory rule.

    This callous manoeuvre has outraged claimants, backbenchers, and charities alike, and it is estimated that the move will deny support to one million disabled people.

    The current system as it stands is a hostile, almost unnavigable one.

    Faced with seemingly endless assessments, reassessments and appeals processes, claimants often have to endure a long and taxing fight to be seen and heard by professionals.

    The reforms include stricter tests for DWP PIP claimants resulting in reduced payments for many – with those under the age of 22 no longer being able to claim incapacity benefit top ups to Universal Credit.

    This austerity dressed up as reform has left millions of disabled people feeling deflated and fearful, as most DWP PIP claimants won’t ever be able to work due to their disabilities.

    Many have also argued that forcing poor vulnerable people into work won’t make any difference – and certainly won’t cure their medical conditions that are often lifelong.

    As part of this investigation, I spoke to three people who all wish to remain anonymous, all of whom are DWP PIP claimants and have a series of complex disabilities that prohibit their ability to work.

    The experience of an anonymous PIP claimant with CPTSD, ME, and arthritis

    One participant who has myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), CPTSD, arthritis of the spine, and CPRS stated “the debate that the government started is verging on dehumanising those who are already at a disadvantage” and said that she felt that the proposed changes had “brought hate filled vile attention and disinformation into a huge number of online discussions”.

    She said she felt concerned at the torrent of abuse that disabled people are currently facing online which has escalated and stirred up more hatred of DWP PIP claimants since Liz Kendall’s speech in the commons:

    A lot of people are now suggesting online that disabled people are slackers, liars, and grabbing benefits that they shouldn’t be allowed.

    This together with the government’s ableist attitude towards chronically ill and disabled people has left many, including this person, with grave fears about their future.

    She said that she believes that the cuts have “moved inclusivity for disabled people back by decades”.

    Further to this, she expressed her fear for the future:

    If I’m brutally honest. I’m terrified, if my neck collapses, or if the nerves are permanently damaged – it could paralyse me.  I can barely function at the movement, and it’s truly terrifying.

    Speaking about the process of applying for and receiving for DWP PIP, the participant told the investigation that she was “severely triggered” by Kendall’s decision as she had spent “over ten years begging for support, investigation and to be heard, to finally have a medical expert say, “I am sorry you are right, you have been ignored””.

    DWP PIP claimant Kelly (pseudonym used)

    This kind of experience is not uncommon however, as another participant who wishes to go by the pseudonym Kelly, spoke to me about the gruelling process she had to go through to claim DWP PIP.

    She said that when she went for an assessment to see whether she was eligible for the benefit, it was a terrible ordeal and the person who saw her “wasn’t medically trained and tried to get me to do exercises”.

    As a result of this poor assessment process, and professionals not taking her disabilities seriously, she was forced to go to court but eventually won the case and started receiving payments.

    Speaking about the reforms to benefits, Kelly said she is extremely concerned about where it will leave her family financially and said if her DWP PIP benefit is taken away then they will “be in deficit every month”.

    Even if Kelly could work, she said she would “have to have a 30-minute break every hour”, as she cannot “stand up for long periods of time”, due to it causing her severe “dizziness and headaches”.

    Kelly suffers from a series of complex and debilitating medical conditions including MS, optic neuritis (meaning she is blind in one eye), as well as osteoporosis and fibromyalgia.

    She said if her DWP PIP stopped:

    I’d not be able to afford my mobility scooter and repairs and taxis to and from appointments.

    When asked about what her message to the government and Liz Kendall would be, she said “I hope one day you might need this and have the same trouble getting it as I did”.

    Tom, who lives with cerebral palsy

    Tom (who wishes to use a pseudonym to protect his identity) lives with cerebral palsy also expressed his outrage at the £5bn cuts.

    As someone who struggles with bathing and getting to and from the workplace, he says that there is a huge “amount of additional costs related to my disability, in my experience including costs related to transport difficulties”.

    His current DWP PIP benefit allows him to “mitigate those additional costs” and means that he can “contribute and achieve whilst not worrying too much about the hardship that I may encounter from increased living costs”.

    However, accessing the workplace is tough for Tom, due to “the lack of a disabled bathrooms”. This is classed as a “reasonable adjustment and therefore if the cost is too high to make the ‘adjustment’, an employer can decline to put it in place” according to Tom.

    When asked about the possibility of losing the benefit, he said it:

    would massively impact upon my ability to do daily tasks and place real mental and emotional pressure on me to find alternative sources of additional income to cover additional living costs like heating and electricity which I need to charge my wheelchair.

    He said although he would love for his disability to get better this isn’t realistic as his “condition is largely the same, if not declining” and filling out forms all the time has placed “huge emotional pressure” on him.

    Tom stated that instead of focusing on DWP PIP:

    the UK government should be asking the question of “why is work inaccessible or challenging?” and “why there is so few MP’s and those in elected office in the UK with a disability?”

    Speaking about his experiences of claiming PIP, he said:

    It is really hard emotionally and it is a humiliating experience sometimes, having to tell a complete stranger, not necessarily a GP or doctor, about how I find it difficult to “cut up food “or “use the toilet”.

    Although Tom works, he fears that in the future he won’t be able to:

    I am concerned that I’m at higher risk of ill health and requiring surgery and therefore not able to continue to work due to my disability potentially getting worse.

    He believes that a proposed solution to this problem could be to “have more disabled parliamentarians present as I think different views would be beneficial” to these complex policy decisions that will impact the most vulnerable people.

    The DWP: entrenching hostility towards disabled people

    For many of these disabled claimants, the DWP PIP reforms represent a terrifying new era where the reds rosette of Labour is almost stained blue, and has a frosty tinge that resembles the policies of the previous government.

    But it is important to not forget that at the heart of this story are people who will suffer under the new reforms that will keep them awake at night, whether it be concerns about their next meal, their electricity and gas bills, or even surviving.

    Many disabled people now feel punished for simply existing in a world that doesn’t feel very acceptant of them.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Megan Miley

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Spectator just committed the most disgusting hate crime against disabled people

    Disabled people are unfortunately pretty used to attacks by the British corporate media – trying to make us out to be fakers or using our fear for clicks. This has of course massively ramped up in the last few months in the run up to evil Liz Kendall and Rachel Reeves announcing plans to kill us off with Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefit cuts.

    But the Spectator may’ve just printed the most disgusting piece of disability hate speech yet.

    The Spectator: disgusting hate speech against neurodivergent people

    As pointed out by ADHD UK, the Spectator has jumped on the bandwagon of taking the piss out of people with ADHD, by claiming it’s not real and that those with it are only saying they have it to excuse bad behaviour. In the cartoon featured in this month’s issue, one man tells another, “so anyway, when I was diagnosed with ADHD it just explained everything”

    The man depicted in the cartoon? Adolf fucking Hitler:

    That’s right, the Spectator has taken the most evil man to ever live and shown him using having ADHD as an excuse for spreading hatred of marginalised people so he could imprison and murder millions of them.

    I can’t even explain how consumed with rage i was when I saw this. The fact that the week after the British government has just announced the harshest cuts to disabled people ever, one of the UK’s leading political magazines would publish a cartoon not only making fun of people who have ADHD because so many believe it’s not real, but to attribute it to fucking Hitler.

    I don’t need to remind you all of the opinion Hitler held of neurodivergent and disabled people, labelling them as “useless eaters” and turning the German public against those who require support to live, in order to gain support to sterilise, torture and eventually kill hundreds of thousands of us.

    In other news – Labour.

    In completely different, unrelated news, we have the “party of work” and its current campaign of saying those on disability benefits are “languishing” and “taking the mickey” whilst pushing the agenda of how good work is.

    I mean it could be worse, I suppose, they could’ve made a back-to-work campaign video showing a brick building with a black iron archway. Oh wait:

    All of this is of course happening whilst certain parts of Labour also push to legalise assisted dying, something they vehemently claim won’t affect disabled people. However, many in Labour want to open it up to those with “incurable illnesses” (disabilities). There’s also the fact that one of the many many amendments rejected was to not allow people to legally kill themselves if they feel like a burden, something Labour are actively doing with cuts and the rhetoric around disabled people.

    Make no mistake, it’s absolutely not a coincidence that this was published in the wake of Kendall’s budget cuts announcement, The media has for a long time been a government tool used to disparage disabled people and feed the hatred of “benefit’s scroungers” and fakers to the British public.

    If you look at the media’s ADHD hate campaign alongside the plans of successive governments, it’s clear that this has been a coordinated attack to ensure that the British public see those with ADHD as faking it for attention and benefits in order to scale back the support they can receive.

    A snowballing propaganda campaign

    Since 2023 outlets of all political affiliation regularly published articles claiming that there were too many people with ADHD, that people were only getting a diagnosis cos it was trendy, that people on TikTok were coaching others on how to say they had ADHD for benefits.

    The BBC even ran an episode of panorama where a man “proved” how easy it was to be diagnosed with ADHD, at a time when so many were struggling to get appointments and medication.

    This has snowballed throughout the past two years, building more distrust in the public about those who are faking it until they believed it enough that Kendall was able to announced her cuts. Whilst the link here might not be clear, when you look at how they want to make PIP harder to claim it is.

    Whilst those who cant feed themselves would still be able to claim, having to be reminded or using time-saving ways to feed yourself wont score enough points, Whilst not being able to wash or change your clothes will pass, again having to be reminded to change your clothes or that you haven’t showered in a while won’t.

    People with ADHD in particular struggle to remember to do basic tasks such as feeding or showering ourselves. These and many other things that won’t score enough points to claim show how much the PIP changes that will directly affect those with mental and neurodivergent conditions.

    The way the media has turned the public against disabled and neurodivergent people has more than paved the way for Labour to destroy their lives.

    The Spectator needs to be held accountable for its actions

    The thing that enrages me the most though, is that this was published THREE days ago, and not a single other media outlet or journalist has acknowledged that this cartoon exists, never mind the harm it causes.

    Not one single person from the left or right of the media has challenged the fact that a major political magazine depicted the most evil man in history using ADHD to excuse his crimes against humanity- and that says it all about the way the media views disabled people

    Despite what the government and media want us to think, we have a right to live our lives without these constant attacks and be respected.

    There is however something you can do about it.

    The corporate media’s own regulatory body IPSO might be (in my opinion) a two bit farce of an organisation built to protect the media over the public. However, we are within our rights to complain about this.

    I’ve had my battles with IPSO over the years who like to tell me that it’s perfectly fine to discriminate against a group of people and that inaccuracy is fine as long as it’s the writers opinion so here’s what I’ve reported them for.

    Accuracy: Hitler was never diagnosed with ADHD.

    Discrimination: the cartoon suggests people use their diagnosis to excuse bad behaviour.

    I more than expect that IPSO will find a way for the Spectator to wriggle out of this, but by using our voices to oppose this we show that disabled people will not allow the media to continue to portray us as liars or at worst evil to suit the governments agenda to kill us all.

    You can report the Spectator to IPSO here.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The Spectator just committed the most disgusting hate crime against disabled people

    Disabled people are unfortunately pretty used to attacks by the British corporate media – trying to make us out to be fakers or using our fear for clicks. This has of course massively ramped up in the last few months in the run up to evil Liz Kendall and Rachel Reeves announcing plans to kill us off with Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefit cuts.

    But the Spectator may’ve just printed the most disgusting piece of disability hate speech yet.

    The Spectator: disgusting hate speech against neurodivergent people

    As pointed out by ADHD UK, the Spectator has jumped on the bandwagon of taking the piss out of people with ADHD, by claiming it’s not real and that those with it are only saying they have it to excuse bad behaviour. In the cartoon featured in this month’s issue, one man tells another, “so anyway, when I was diagnosed with ADHD it just explained everything”

    The man depicted in the cartoon? Adolf fucking Hitler:

    That’s right, the Spectator has taken the most evil man to ever live and shown him using having ADHD as an excuse for spreading hatred of marginalised people so he could imprison and murder millions of them.

    I can’t even explain how consumed with rage i was when I saw this. The fact that the week after the British government has just announced the harshest cuts to disabled people ever, one of the UK’s leading political magazines would publish a cartoon not only making fun of people who have ADHD because so many believe it’s not real, but to attribute it to fucking Hitler.

    I don’t need to remind you all of the opinion Hitler held of neurodivergent and disabled people, labelling them as “useless eaters” and turning the German public against those who require support to live, in order to gain support to sterilise, torture and eventually kill hundreds of thousands of us.

    In other news – Labour.

    In completely different, unrelated news, we have the “party of work” and its current campaign of saying those on disability benefits are “languishing” and “taking the mickey” whilst pushing the agenda of how good work is.

    I mean it could be worse, I suppose, they could’ve made a back-to-work campaign video showing a brick building with a black iron archway. Oh wait:

    All of this is of course happening whilst certain parts of Labour also push to legalise assisted dying, something they vehemently claim won’t affect disabled people. However, many in Labour want to open it up to those with “incurable illnesses” (disabilities). There’s also the fact that one of the many many amendments rejected was to not allow people to legally kill themselves if they feel like a burden, something Labour are actively doing with cuts and the rhetoric around disabled people.

    Make no mistake, it’s absolutely not a coincidence that this was published in the wake of Kendall’s budget cuts announcement, The media has for a long time been a government tool used to disparage disabled people and feed the hatred of “benefit’s scroungers” and fakers to the British public.

    If you look at the media’s ADHD hate campaign alongside the plans of successive governments, it’s clear that this has been a coordinated attack to ensure that the British public see those with ADHD as faking it for attention and benefits in order to scale back the support they can receive.

    A snowballing propaganda campaign

    Since 2023 outlets of all political affiliation regularly published articles claiming that there were too many people with ADHD, that people were only getting a diagnosis cos it was trendy, that people on TikTok were coaching others on how to say they had ADHD for benefits.

    The BBC even ran an episode of panorama where a man “proved” how easy it was to be diagnosed with ADHD, at a time when so many were struggling to get appointments and medication.

    This has snowballed throughout the past two years, building more distrust in the public about those who are faking it until they believed it enough that Kendall was able to announced her cuts. Whilst the link here might not be clear, when you look at how they want to make PIP harder to claim it is.

    Whilst those who cant feed themselves would still be able to claim, having to be reminded or using time-saving ways to feed yourself wont score enough points, Whilst not being able to wash or change your clothes will pass, again having to be reminded to change your clothes or that you haven’t showered in a while won’t.

    People with ADHD in particular struggle to remember to do basic tasks such as feeding or showering ourselves. These and many other things that won’t score enough points to claim show how much the PIP changes that will directly affect those with mental and neurodivergent conditions.

    The way the media has turned the public against disabled and neurodivergent people has more than paved the way for Labour to destroy their lives.

    The Spectator needs to be held accountable for its actions

    The thing that enrages me the most though, is that this was published THREE days ago, and not a single other media outlet or journalist has acknowledged that this cartoon exists, never mind the harm it causes.

    Not one single person from the left or right of the media has challenged the fact that a major political magazine depicted the most evil man in history using ADHD to excuse his crimes against humanity- and that says it all about the way the media views disabled people

    Despite what the government and media want us to think, we have a right to live our lives without these constant attacks and be respected.

    There is however something you can do about it.

    The corporate media’s own regulatory body IPSO might be (in my opinion) a two bit farce of an organisation built to protect the media over the public. However, we are within our rights to complain about this.

    I’ve had my battles with IPSO over the years who like to tell me that it’s perfectly fine to discriminate against a group of people and that inaccuracy is fine as long as it’s the writers opinion so here’s what I’ve reported them for.

    Accuracy: Hitler was never diagnosed with ADHD.

    Discrimination: the cartoon suggests people use their diagnosis to excuse bad behaviour.

    I more than expect that IPSO will find a way for the Spectator to wriggle out of this, but by using our voices to oppose this we show that disabled people will not allow the media to continue to portray us as liars or at worst evil to suit the governments agenda to kill us all.

    You can report the Spectator to IPSO here.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • There’s a protest at the Treasury TONIGHT over Rachel Reeves’ toxic Spring Statement

    On the eve of Labour Party chancellor Rachel Reeves’ controversial Spring Statement, protesters will rally outside the Treasury to demand the government raises taxes on the wealth of the super-rich instead of slashing public spending.

    Protests on the eve before Reeves’ Spring Statement

    The government sparked fury ahead of the budget, by announcing deep cuts in chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits, and international aid spending. What’s more, it is doing so all while boosting investment in the military.

    So on Tuesday 25 March between 5pm and 7pm, hundreds of protesters will gather with banners and placards outside the Treasury. A light projection will beam “Tax the Super-Rich” onto the building behind them.

    War on Want, Oxfam, Greenpeace, and others have organised the demonstration to take the Labour Party government to task over its warmongering austerity-fueled agenda.

    Author and economist Gary Stevenson, Green Party Co-Leader Carla Denyer, Labour Peer Prem Sikka, and Ecotricity Founder Dale Vince will address the crowd. Alongside them the leaders of union, environmental groups, and anti-poverty organisations will deliver powerful speeches against the disgraceful slate of public spending cuts.

    ‘Cut after cut to the poorest and most marginalised’

    Ahead of the protest, campaigners from various groups involved have underscored the devastating impacts of the budget Reeves is set to lay out to Parliament.

    Tax Justice UK’s head of advocacy Caitlin Boswell said:

    Across the country, inequality is soaring and people are being left behind, struggling to make ends meet and dealing with broken public services, all while the very richest get richer. Choosing to make cut after cut to the poorest and most marginalised, while leaving the vast resource of the extreme wealth of the super rich untouched, is immoral, harmful, and will not deliver for our communities or the economy. Instead, this government could choose to tax the wealth of the very richest people and corporations. This would raise tens of billions annually to address the cost of living crisis and deliver the long-term investment our country needs.

    Linda Burnip of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) said of the government’s cruel and brutal cuts to disability and health-related benefits:

    The Labour government has clearly chosen to target Disabled People for budget savings to finance their war effort instead of targeting the super rich and tax avoiders. Over a decade of Tory cuts have led to the death of thousands of Disabled People”… “Instead of facing the reality that more and more people struggle with their physical and mental health, Labour is feeding in the narrative that Disabled People receiving benefits are work-shy and should be punished. Resistance is mounting and dozens of protests are already taking place across the country.

    Tax the rich: Reeves and Labour ‘siding with the super-wealthy’

    There have been mounting calls for the government to raise taxes on the assets of the super-rich. The Trades Union Congress endorsed one last summer, and in October, a dozen Labour MPs broke ranks to support the call.

    According to Oxfam, the richest 1% of Brits own more wealth than the poorest 70%, and the world could see multiple trillionaires within a decade. Meanwhile, Greenpeace has calculated that levying even a 2.5% tax on assets over £10m could raise £36bn annually.

    Senior economic justice campaigner at War on Want Nuri Syed Corser said:

    Inequality is soaring, the climate is collapsing, and public services are at breaking point. We need huge public investment to tackle these crises. But instead, the government is gearing up to deliver lethal cuts to welfare, international aid and green investment, claiming there is not enough money to fund these life-saving policies. Meanwhile, the obscene wealth of the super-rich is surging and going largely untaxed. It’s time to tax it.

    Others highlighted how the Labour Party’s programme of cuts to public services and welfare makes it a budget fit for billionaires and big polluters only. Campaigns director at Stamp Out Poverty Louise Hutchins said:

    The big oil and gas corporations have raked in billions in profits over years, while households are struggle with soaring bills and the climate crisis deepens. Why is Rachel Reeves punching down and getting ordinary people to pay? Isn’t it obvious that she should be getting the fossil fuel polluters to pay up?

    Similarly, UK Campaigner at 350.org Matilda Borgström argued:

    Rachel Reeves’ decision to slash welfare while refusing to tax the super-rich is both cruel and misguided. Instead of making billionaires like Jim Ratcliffe – who profits from fossil fuels that drive the climate crisis – pay what they owe, she is choosing to side with the ultra-wealthy at the expense of ordinary people. A wealth tax on billionaires could fund vital support for those struggling with the cost of living – accelerating the transition to renewable energy could slash energy bills, insulate homes and create future-proof jobs. Instead, Reeves is prioritising the interests of a handful of elites over the well-being of millions. This is not just an economic failure – it’s a moral one.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • If you’re not supporting disabled people on Wednesday – then where the hell are you?

    On Wednesday 26 March, hundreds of chronically ill, disabled, and neurodivergent people, those living with mental health issues, and their allies will gather outside 10 Downing Street from 11am. It will be in protest at the Labour Party government’s proposed £5bn cuts to people’s social security. It comes after decades of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)-led abuse of benefit claimants – and this time, those affected are promising not to go quietly. They’re going to be raising their voices both in person and online – and the Canary will be amplifying them. However, we want our readers to get involved too.

    Balls to the DWP – and the Spring Statement

    Supporters of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) will be saying ‘balls to the Spring Statement’ – making sure Keir Starmer’s government knows that they will not quietly accept these DWP-led attacks on their most fundamental rights:

    DPAC Balls to the Spring statement

    After speeches and direct action at Downing Street, protesters will be making their way to parliament – and they’ll be ensuring that the politicians sitting inside know they’re there, too. As is always the case with DPAC, there will be some surprises on the day. So, come prepared for action.

    Stop the War are helpfully supporting this action directly, with the help of a stage and PA system. Other groups such as Black Lives Matter UK, London Renters Union, WinVisible, and more have also come out in solidarity.

    Away from London, local DPAC groups alongside new campaign group Crips Against Cuts are having actions across Great Britain and the North of Ireland. You can find all the details here.

    However, if people cannot make the protests in person then DPAC and its allies are calling on them to get involved online.

    What is independent media good for?

    The Canary, one of the UK’s longest-established online independent media outlets, has given its support and labor to DPAC on the day.

    The team will be livestreaming the entire event via its TikTok – @thecanaryuk – to ensure that any chronically ill, disabled, and neurodivergent people, and those living with mental health issues, who cannot physically attend get to experience the protest as best as possible. The Canary will also be using its Instagram to release videos and images form the rally in real time. Plus, over on its X account we will be bringing you all the updates from both the protest and chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement as they happen.

    As an independent media outlet, the Canary has never sat on the fence. Nor have we hidden the fact that everything we do is in support of, and solidarity with, those that the system marginalises. Therefore, it would seem natural for us to lend our support and labor to DPAC. We believe that it is the duty of every independent media outlet which has any moral fibre to be doing this.

    We have always been a team of activists first, journalists second – which is reflected in our work. Now, we want to expand on our near-10 year legacy of campaigning journalism – by actively campaigning by the side of marginalised groups like chronically ill, disabled, and neurodivergent people, and those living with mental health issues.

    The Canary believes this should be a core function of independent media. It is no longer enough to report on what the state and the system are doing to the very people they marginalise. Independent media should be actively fighting back with those impacted – and we don’t just mean reporting on protests. We mean boots-on-the-ground action. Getting your hands dirty, if you like.

    We’d urge our readers to get involved too.

    Fight back against the DWP – in person and online

    If you can, be at Downing Street at 11am and be prepared to make some noise.

    If you can’t make it in person, get involved online using #WelfareNotWarfare. We are determined to drown out politicians’ propaganda on the day. So, share your experiences of the DWP, your thoughts on Labour’s planned social security cuts, tag your MP telling them to oppose the DWP plans, and repost all the protest content, using the hashtag:

    DWP

    The Canary and DPAC want to ensure #WelfareNotWarfare is trending and that as many people – including the corporate media – see the level of opposition there is to Labour’s callous cuts.

    We need to stop the Labour government in its tracks over these vicious cuts to chronically ill, disabled, and neurodivergent people, and those living with mental health issues’ social security. But we can’t do it without your solidarity and support. So, please join us on the day in any way you can.

    Let’s rise up and say ‘balls to the Spring Statement’ together.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • DWP embroiled in more scandal as Universal Credits overpayments row deepens

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has come under further scrutiny regarding its handling of Universal Credit overpayments after a coalition of over 30 organisations, spearheaded by the Public Law Project, sent a letter warning of a “scandal in the making.”

    The alarming communication has emerged in light of significant overpayment issues that have left numerous claimants burdened by debt due to errors made by the very department tasked with supporting them.

    DWP: causing chaos with Universal Credit again

    The letter outlines a deeply concerning trend, revealing that within the 2023/24 period alone, 686,756 new official error Universal Credit overpayment debts were logged on the DWP’s Debt Manager system. These figures indicate that a substantial number of individuals and families are facing financial hardship, not from their own mismanagement, but due to mistakes by DWP officials.

    It includes poignant individual anecdotes that highlight the broader issue.

    One striking case is that of Michael, a state pension-age man who, as a carer for his disabled son, sought guidance from DWP personnel. He was repeatedly misadvised to claim Universal Credit, only to be hit with an overwhelming overpayment debt of over £38,000 after the department acknowledged its error regarding his partner’s earnings. Such financial demands can have devastating consequences on families already managing significant challenges.

    Another distressing story mentioned is that of a widow who, having been overpaid Universal Credit due to the DWP neglecting to consider her Widow’s Pension income, was informed four years later that she owed £7,258.08. Having relied on prior assurances from the DWP in good faith, she used the funds for essential living expenses, highlighting the precarious nature of many Universal Credit claimants’ financial situations.

    The coalition of organisations argues that the ongoing recovery of these debts from claimants not only strains their finances but also showcases a systemic failure in DWP processes.

    Changes needed and urgently

    They are calling for amendments to the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill (FER Bill), which they believe could provide a means to rectify these injustices. Specifically, they demand the bill includes provisions that would ensure overpayment recovery only occurs where claimants could not reasonably have been expected to recognise that they had received too much financial support.

    In their letter, the group asserted, “The FER Bill presents an opportunity for the Government to ‘right’ these DWP wrongs, address unfairness and demonstrate the DWP’s commitment to getting payments right first time.” This proposal reflects a desire for transparency and accountability within the DWP and hopes to alleviate the burden of debt on those who have already been impacted by systemic errors.

    Claimants, especially those with disabilities and precarious financial situations, now find themselves at risk of further hardship due to the DWP’s missteps. The organisations involved have expressed optimism that the Government will take this opportunity to rectify the unjust practices currently in place.

    The DWP: callous to the core

    As the DWP continues to mismanage Universal Credit, it faces growing pressure to ensure that such errors are minimised and that claimants receive fair treatment. The call for reform rests on the importance of building trust between the DWP and the public, demonstrating that the system can function effectively and empathetically for all those reliant on it.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Here are all the details of the nationwide DPAC protests happening on Wednesday

    On Wednesday 26 March, protesters across the country are mobilising against the Labour Party-led Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) brutal cuts to vital disability and health-related benefits. In multiple cities and towns all over the UK, activists will turn out with a resounding message to the Labour government: to end its war on chronically ill and disabled people.

    DWP benefit cuts: the disability green paper will end in disaster

    As the Canary previously reported, on Tuesday 18 March DWP boss Liz Kendall laid out the government’s broad catalogue of plans to ‘reform’ disability and health-related income-based benefits. It set this out in its Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working green paper. Broadly, this made for a callous cocktail of catastrophic cuts and changes that will harm chronically ill and disabled claimants.

    Notably, the paper included a suite of regressive reforms to make it harder for people to claim disability benefits like Personal Independence Payment (PIP). As expected, the changes it’s proposing will target certain claimants in particular, namely young, neurodivergent, learning disabled, and those with mental health disorders. Alongside this, there’ll be cuts to out-of-work benefits like the LCWRA health-related component of Universal Credit. Once again, it additionally wants to make this harder to claim, and all as it ramps up reassessments and conditions for doing so.

    The government is now consulting on some of these plans until 30 June. You can respond to this here. However, there’s also a number of plans the government isn’t consulting on. And appallingly, the government has yet to publish any impact assessment on these plans. However, what’s clear already is that these will hit chronically ill and disabled claimants hardest. Research from multiple think tanks and campaign groups over the proposals – many put forward by previous Conservative governments – have painted a bleak picture of the harm these will enact on some of the most vulnerable communities.

    DPAC and others gear up to take on the DWP cuts

    So, in response to Labour’s cruel plans, activists have organised numerous demonstrations across the country.

    Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) are holding a major protest in London to coincide with chancellor Rachel Reeves delivering the government’s Spring Statement.

    Protesters will meet outside Downing Street at 11am for a day of protest and action.

    The Canary is supporting there in support and solidarity on the day, and will be livestreaming the event:

    Alongside the all-day demonstration in London, under the banner and hashtag #WelfareNotWarfare, groups over the country are participating in the National Day of Action:

    National Day of Action: where are protests taking place?

    At the time of writing, protests have been planned for the following locations on 26 March:

    Scotland

    Aberdeen – Meet Outside Marischal College, Broad Street, Aberdeen, AB10 1AB 12pm (organised by DPAC)

    Glasgow – Meet outside Ministry of Defence 65 Brown Street Glasgow G2 8EX  12:30pm

    Northeast 

    Newcastle – Grey’s Monument, 150 Grainger Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 5AF 12-2pm (organised by Crips Against Cuts)

    Darlington – Darlington Town Hall, Fleethams, Darlington DL1 5QT 12-2pm (organised by Crips Against Cuts)

    York  – Meet Outside the Guildhall, St Helen’s Square, York 5pm onwards (organised by YDRF)

    Leeds – Leeds Bus station 11am-1pm  (organised by DPAC, supported by Leeds and York Unite community)

    Northwest

    Lancaster and Morecambe – Dalton Square, Lancaster, LA1 1PL (organised by DPAC)

    East

    Cambridge – Leafleting outside the Grafton Centre 12.30-1.30pm, rally outside the Guildhall 5.30-6.30pm (organised by DPAC)

    Norwich – outside Norwich City Hall, St Peter’s Street, Norwich Norfolk NR2 1NH 12-2pm (organised by DPAC)

    Midlands

    Chesterfield  – outside Chesterfield Labour Club, Unity House, 113 Saltergate, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, S40 1NF 4.30pm onwards (organised by Crips Against Cuts)

    Wales

    Cardiff – Office of Jo Stevens MP, Secretary of State For Wales, 116 Albany Road, Cardiff, CF24 3RU 6.30pm ( organised by Cardiff People’s Assembly)

    Swansea – Castle Square, Swansea SA1 3PP 1pm onwards (organised by DPAC)

    Northern Ireland

    Derry – Guildhall, Londonderry, BT48 7BB 1pm onwards (organised by DPAC)

    Southeast 

    Brighton – Hove Town Hall, Brighton, BN2 3BQ 11am – 1pm stationary protest with banners (organised by Crips Against Cuts and DPAC)

    Margate – outside east Thanet’s Labour MP Polly Billington Office 44, Northdown Road, Cliftonville, Margate, Kent CT3 2RW 11am (organised by DPAC)

    Additionally, some groups have planned actions for after the 26 March:

    1 April – Manchester – 32 Market Street, Manchester, M1 1PL 12pm (organised by DPAC)

    5 April – Portsmouth – Portsmouth Guildhall 2-4pm

    A message loud and clear to Labour

    If the Labour Party government thought it could get away with its cut to little fanfare, it has another thing coming. Chronically ill and disabled people and allies will remind the Labour-led DWP that “nothing about us, without us” means listening to our communities first and foremost, rather than railroading dangerous policies through that run roughshod over them.

    On 26 March, protesters in 16 places around the country (and counting) will make sure the Labour government hears them loud and clear. The Labour-led DWP’s war on chronically ill and disabled people must end and it must no longer use us as its convenient political football.

    Featured image via DPAC

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Crips Against Cuts mounted nationwide DWP protests – but they weren’t without incident

    Chronically ill and disabled activists and allies took to the streets on Saturday 22 March against the Labour Party’s planned brutal cuts to their benefits. Protesters mobilised across the country in 14 locations to call out the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disgraceful move to slash social security for sick and disabled people to meet chancellor Rachel Reeves’ arbitrary self-imposed fiscal savings.

    The demonstrations kicked off the start of chronically ill and disabled resistance to the government’s dangerous austerity-driven punch downs on the community. However, the protests weren’t without issue or incident.

    Most alarmingly, protesters were met with violent physical hate crimes at one protest – showing the unsafe and hostile climate Labour’s plans and rhetoric has stoked.

    Crips Against Cuts: protests against the Labour-led DWP’s plans

    As the Canary previously reported, local disabled activists from the new decentralised grassroots group Crips Against Cuts coordinated the protests across the country. They held these in:

      • London
      • Birmingham
      • Sheffield
      • Leeds
      • Bournemouth
      • Exeter
      • Brighton
      • Bristol
      • Portsmouth
      • Edinburgh

    Crips against cuts protests planned for this weekend. Please follow the QR for details and please please please repost on your accounts 💜

    @crips-against-cuts.bsky.social

    [image or embed]

    — Just Em x (@agirlcalleddave.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 9:57 AM

    In London, a small group of protesters gathered at Southbank along the River Thames holding placards and giving powerful speeches against the cuts:

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Samantha Baines👑 (@samanthabaines)

    One disabled protester called the corporate media’s recent attacks on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants’ access to the Motability scheme out for what it is:

    Hands off my PIP, you traitorous arseholes. Great @crips-against-cuts.bsky.social rally. You’ve riled the disableds @teamlabouruk.bsky.social, we will fight your abominable cuts till we win, we will not vote for you again 🧑‍🦼👩🏽‍🦼‍➡🤬🤬🤬 #pip #disabilityrights #wheelchair

    [image or embed]

    — elbelbumble.bsky.social (@elbelbumble.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 9:28 PM

    Exeter activists held a die-in to represent the deaths of chronically ill and disabled people that Labour’s cuts will foment:

    #DisabledPeopleAgainstCuts #Exeter protest against cuts to disability benefit and personal independence payments today.

    I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the crowd’s reaction. I’ve been to a fair number of protests which are usually met with […]

    [Original post on social.coop]

    [image or embed]

    — Jules (@afewbugs.social.coop.ap.brid.gy) March 22, 2025 at 4:19 PM

    Sheffield drew a sizeable crowd with some poignant and on-point placards:

    This is what community looks like ✊🏻 Thanks for showing up Sheffield! Don’t forget to take action – write to your MP, and follow @crips-against-cuts.bsky.social on insta or bsky!

    [image or embed]

    — Miranda Debenham (@mdebenham1.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 9:15 PM

    Labour MPs didn’t have the balls to face protesters

    Protesters in Cambridge pitched up outside a local Jobcentre with a big banner. They followed this up by draping the banner over a local bridge in defiance against Labour’s plans:

    In Edinburgh, campaigners took their protest right to the constituency office front door of Labour Secretary of State for Scotland Ian Murray MP:

    #WelfareNotWarfare

    Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty Kicked Off DPAC local actions across the UK in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a lively protest outside Ian Murray MP Sec of State for Scotland

    Write up Edinburgh Reporter theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2025/03/prot…
    Photos with Alt text 📢⬇

    [image or embed]

    — Disabled People Against Cuts (@dis-ppl-protest.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 6:36 AM

    Local media site the Edinburgh Reporter was on the ground interviewing protesters who spelled out what the cuts would mean for them and their loved ones:

    Protesters outside the constituency office of @ianmurraymp.bsky.social were keen to tell him what they think of the UK Government’s plans to wipe £5billion off the benefits bill. He wasn’t there but we had asked him about the proposed cuts earlier…

    [image or embed]

    — The Edinburgh Reporter (@edinreporter.bsky.social) March 21, 2025 at 5:02 PM

    However, as the outlet noted, while Murray was in Edinburgh, he clearly didn’t have the balls to look his constituents in the face outside his office.

    Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer on the ground, but…

    Meanwhile, activists gathered together on College Green in Bristol to host speeches:

    As the Canary highlighted ahead of the protests, Bristol Central MP and Green Party leader Carla Denyer came out in support of chronically ill and disabled people fighting the cuts:

    Choosing to cut support for disabled people, knowing that many already live in poverty, and that being disabled means that life almost always COSTS MORE – that’s a political choice

    Pleased to join @crips-against-cuts.bsky.social in Bristol today, angry that it had to happen

    (📸 by Clare Reddington)

    [image or embed]

    — Carla Denyer (@carladenyer.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 6:02 PM

    Though, a word of caution might be warranted here. This is the same Denyer who also voted for Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill at second reading, alongside her Green Party colleagues.

    All 350 Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) are against it due to the enormous risks it poses to chronically ill and disabled folks.

    So, while she may be an ally in opposing these cuts, protesters should be wary of thinking that she’s genuinely listening to the valid concerns and fears of our communities.

    Hate crimes: protesters attacked in Exeter

    The widespread protests show the depth of opposition to Labour’s callous plans from chronically ill and disabled people across the country.

    However, while these protests brought out the best of our communities, it also sadly drew in some of the worst. These were some of the very first protests chronically ill and disabled people have mounted against these cuts, but immediately they’ve exposed the disgusting ableist bigotry at the beating heart of Labour right Britain.

    In Exeter, this came to a head with some local residents committing violent hate crimes against the protesters. In one disturbing scene, a bigot threw a chair into the crowd:

    Another incident involved local people lobbing cap bombs at protesters:


    It’s clear who’s to blame for this despicable display of rancid ableist abuse: Labour and its client media cronies.

    That is, the vile rhetoric Labour ministers and the right-wing corporate media have been spouting, painting claimants as ‘scroungers’, ‘skivers’ and ‘fraudsters’ has already culminated in disgusting real-world consequences for chronically ill and disabled people.

    In short, it’s a shameful indictment that chronically ill and disabled people can’t go out and exercise their right to protest without threats to their person. Of course, this is one very visible,

    However, it’s characteristic of the types of discrimination and abuse chronically ill and disabled people experience every day. From outright verbal and physical bigotry, right through to ableist micro-aggressions, these all add up to a dangerous climate for chronically ill and disabled communities.

    Moreover, it’s the thin edge of the wedge of the state-sanctioned violence perpetrated against them through the systemically ableist DWP. Now, Labour is only amping up its war on chronically ill and disabled people with this fresh round of cuts. It will mean only more of this hostile environment.

    Where are our ‘allies’ on the Left?

    One thing that’s also immediately striking from the sparse photos and videos currently available is the scale of the protests.

    Unfortunately, this isn’t in an off-the-charts turnout kind of way. Instead, apart from the odd exception, the protests largely seem to have garnered modest crowds. Compare the numbers in these locations to nationwide demos in recent years – ongoing Palestine protests, workers’ strikes, climate emergency mobilisations, and for a nationwide call out, the protests on Saturday were pretty small.

    Of course, many chronically ill and disabled people couldn’t be there too (myself included thanks to a flare), so that’s another reason the turn out wasn’t huge. But that again begs the question – where were allies when we needed them?

    Non-disabled people, I’m looking at you. Come to the protests, de-centre yourself, and just listen, support, make noise alongside us.

    And chances are, many have a chronically ill or disabled family member or friend too – so where were they?

    Now, that’s not to take away from the brilliant people who did turn up, and the folks who poured their hearts into organising these demos in the short space of less than a week.

    However, what it is a reminder is how disability rights is still seen. That is, it’s the non-glamorous social justice sibling, way down the priority list. This isn’t anything new of course. And Crips Against Cuts managed to motivate more people at a local level than perhaps has been seen in some time over DWP welfare reforms.

    Historically, people just don’t turn up to support chronically ill and disabled protests. That should be a stain on the conscience of the left. Partly, this is a product of left-wing movements focusing on working people, as the Canary’s Steve Topple recently highlighted:

    When you centre working people as the priority (and let’s be real, based on the weighting of the line up, white people) and leave chronically ill, disabled, homeless, and non-working people – as well as minoritised women – as an after thought, you expose yourselves for the political games you are actually playing.

    People on the left regularly signal their intersectionality, but somehow chronic illness and disability are forgotten when it counts. Or worse still, tokenised as part of other campaigns, and deployed at and for their convenience.

    PCS union: handwringing DWP staff won’t strike for us

    And there is perhaps no clearer example of this than the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union.

    PCS national president Martin Cavanagh gave a speech at the Bristol demo:

    Throughout, he appealed to ‘class solidarity’ and argued that:

    Those who need support are somehow the problem. Those who need support are somehow the cause of all our ills in the UK. Well we all know that is a damn right lie. And every single one of us has a duty and responsibility to call it out.

    However, as always with the corporatist union handmaidens at the top, it has long been a case of “strike for me, but not for thee”. This was, after all, Cavanagh – the PCS’s DWP Group president – who despite all the platitudes over the years of solidarity with chronically ill and disabled benefit claimants, has mustered only hand-wringing defiance of his employer’s unconscionable welfare reforms and punitive sanction policies.

    Where was Cavanagh and his colleagues when DWP grim-reaper Iain Duncan Smith unleashed his devastating wave of welfare cuts?

    Where were they every IDS-reprising DWP boss since who’ve slashed benefits, and overseen the “systematic” and “grave” violation of disabled people’s human rights?

    Where were they when the Tory-led DWP presided over the deaths of tens of thousands of chronically ill and disabled claimants?

    The short answer is, the snivelling sell-out lot of them sure as hell weren’t striking. That’s reserved solely for their own work conditions. But then, it’s hard to imagine snobby middle class managers that populate the DWP and look down their noses all day at claimants sacrificing their job security. God forbid they’d be finding themselves signing onto the dole alongside us!

    Tokenised class solidarity

    Moreover, Cavanagh seemed to skip over the part where it’s DWP staff that he and his union represent who have enacted years of the department’s violence against chronically ill, disabled, and poor claimants. Instead, he sung the praises of the ‘good’ folks at the DWP, working day in, day out in public service:

    And comrades, what I find particularly disturbing, is that my background is DWP – clearly I’ve been evil in a previous life. But absolutely we understood and we knew back in the 1980s when I first started, that you absolutely on day one learned that anyone who came through that door, whether they were sick, had a disability, or just couldn’t find work, your job was to support them. Give them the financial leg up that they needed, when they needed it.

    And you were absolutely told that they shouldn’t leave that building until you’ve done everything you could to help them. And how quickly times changed.

    It’s almost chilling to see him convinced that the DWP is, or was ever anything other than the brutal arm of the state punching down on chronically ill, disabled, and poor people. His speech should be seen for what it is: a shallow effort to rehabilitate a department rife in ableism, classism, and rampant negligence.

    In short, Cavanagh and his union are the very epitome of tokenised class solidarity. Over a decade ago, his union abandoned claimants forced into ‘workfare’. This was the government’s policy forcing claimants into unpaid labour in order to claim benefits. Of course, little has changed today – Labour’s latest work requirements conditionality regime will usher in only more of the same.

    Now, does anyone really believe beyond Cavanagh’s warm words, that the PCS union isn’t going to throw chronically ill and disabled people under the bus once more?

    Working class solidarity is conditional when it comes to disability rights. And Cavanagh laundering the PCS union’s image at these protests should be ample evidence of that.

    Chronically ill people: an afterthought

    Moreover, the protests were also somewhat marred as much by who wasn’t included, as by who they did.

    Crucially, the precious few posts from these protests illustrated something important. This is how the lack of online live-stream, videos, and action left out a whole contingent of people the cuts will undoubtedly impact: chronically ill people.

    Many are bed-bound/house-bound or immuno-compromised and so unable to make it to in-person demos. So, making it so they can participate online – or view back speeches not in real-time is a key matter of accessibility.

    It speaks to a problematic persisting feature of the left’s protest spaces more generally. And notably, it unfortunately often extends to protests held by disabled groups. This is, the lack of inclusivity and accessibility for their chronically ill siblings-on-the sharp end of state violence.

    A movement that’s sorely needed all the same

    On the whole, the Crips Against Cuts protests were a welcome and vital show of chronically ill and disabled people’s collective resistance against the DWP. Its quick organisation and power to pull in activists nationwide is needed now more than ever. Credit where it’s due.

    However, the left more broadly need to take a good look in the mirror and reflect why so many failed to turn out to these protests. Moreover, the movement should be careful who it gets into bed with – because when push comes to shove, not everyone who proclaims to stand up for us really have our backs.

    Nonetheless, Crips is just getting started, and they’re sure to continue being a force for chronically ill and disabled people going forward.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • People living with coeliac disease are facing shocking cuts to their NHS prescriptions

    A significant gathering has taken place in the heart of London, as Coeliac UK delivered a petition to the government demanding the protection of access to gluten-free prescriptions for individuals afflicted with coeliac disease.

    The charity’s action saw a strong turnout from supporters nationwide, highlighting the pressing need for continued support for those reliant on a gluten-free diet.

    Coeliac disease: prescriptions being cut across the UK

    Among the voices raised at Parliament Square was Katherine Clarke, a mother from Portchester who has faced the burdens of coeliac disease since her diagnosis at 23. Speaking candidly about her experiences, she said:

    I have been receiving gluten-free bread prescriptions since my diagnosis in 2016. I’m a stay-at-home mum of two boys and having this support has been a lifeline for me.

    She emphasised the financial and logistical challenges posed by rising bread costs and shortages in supermarkets, stating:

    The cost of a gluten-free loaf compared to gluten-containing bread in recent years is ridiculous and the cost of my food shopping is only getting higher and higher.

    coeliac UK protest parliament

    Coeliac disease affects approximately one in 100 people in the UK and requires those diagnosed to adhere to a strict gluten-free diet as the only viable treatment. Access to gluten-free staple foods through NHS prescriptions has been integral for many, providing much-needed support.

    However, recent policy changes enacted by several Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) in England have led to a withdrawal of gluten-free prescriptions in various regions, intensifying the challenge for those on a limited income with this chronic illness. This development raises concerns about food security for a vulnerable segment of the population:

    Tristan Humphreys, head of advocacy and public affairs at Coeliac UK, said:

    The turnout today demonstrates the strength of feeling on this issue. Patients, healthcare professionals and MPs have all come together to demand that the government takes action to prevent further health inequalities.

    The sentiment clearly resonates with many as health inequalities have been amplified by these abrupt policy shifts.

    Exacerbating existing health inequalities

    The emotional toll of navigating coeliac disease was further illustrated by Clarke’s experience.

    With her reliance on gluten-free prescriptions, she stressed the essential nature of the support these prescriptions provide amidst the sector’s mounting costs and the destabilisation of food availability. Clarke’s story is just one among many, reflecting the critical need for accessible gluten-free options that are standardised across the country.

    In their petition, Coeliac UK called upon the government to issue clear and comprehensive guidance to ICBs. They insist that access to gluten-free prescriptions is a necessity and that all individuals with coeliac disease should be entitled to this support, irrespective of their geographical location.

    Additionally, the charity urges policymakers to work in tandem with healthcare professionals and patients to forge best practices that address the widening gap in access to essential gluten-free staple foods.

    As the dialogue surrounding health policy and the welfare of those with long-term conditions continues, the voices of affected individuals like Katherine Clarke are crucial.

    Their experiences underscore the need for a robust response and a commitment to safeguarding the rights and health of disabled people and those who find themselves navigating life with dietary restrictions.

    The actions taken by Coeliac UK and their supporters have highlighted a rallying call that seeks to unify healthcare, reduce disparities, and demand accountability from the powers that be.

    Featured image and additional images via Coeliac UK

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Our very own Rachel Charlton-Dailey is up for an award. You know what to do…

    Nominations have gone live for the National Diversity Awards 2025, and not to brag… Scratch that, we’re going to brag, because a certain incomparable disability rights journalist, activist, and all round legend – the one, the only, fiercely friggin’ fabulous Rachel Charlton-Dailey – is up for a Positive Role Model Award for Disability (we know her!).

    Before anything else, go vote for her RIGHT NOW. And please, feel free to gush to your heart’s content in 2,000 characters or less (who are the awards kidding, that’s like trying to fit a list of that sleazy little shit Starmer’s U-turns into one X post).

    Unlike the treacherous prime minister facing a no confidence motion any day now however, it’s all good vibes and votes for the wonderful Rachel Charlton-Dailey. So, we’re just going to leave this here…

    Rachel Charlton-Dailey is up for a National Diversity Award!

    Now, as Canary readers, you’ll probably know her best for her bold and blistering no-holds-barred The Week in Ableist Bullshit column. For nearly a year, Charlton-Dailey has sounded off with fire, finesse, and zero fucks about the feelings of a veritable cesspool of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wankers.

    Along the way, she gifted the final toxic Tory in a long line of turgid toxic Tories heading the DWP a fitting title. Who can forget Mel Stride the Wet Wipe? Well hopefully, everyone, as he sinks into eternal irrelevance alongside his callous shadow cabinet colleagues. We’re not saying Charlton-Dailey’s columns constantly shaming the former DWP sec single-handedly nearly delivered his General Election wipe-out, and his subsequent loss in the Tory leadership race, but we sure think it helped. Or more like, hurt the wet wipe’s election prospects so effectively, he got binned not once, but twice in the space of time it took his Labour successor Liz Kendall to metamorphose into the latest IDS clone – feat red tie and lurking McSweeney.

    For Labour’s two cents – or should we say, thousands in dodgy donations – she sprung Labour health sec Wes Streeting a sassy new slander: ‘Ozemprick’, because that’s what he is.

    However, apart from all the masterful monikers, what her column does best is what Charlton-Dailey has always done best as a disabled journalist most of all: speak up, speak out, and speak loud for the chronically ill and disabled community.

    Standing up for all of us – and doing so with style

    When she wasn’t sticking it to the shameless, slimy lot at Whitehall, she was giving chronically ill and disabled people a voice – and making sure they got heard. So much of her work platforms the Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) that she fights alongside.

    In her first article for the Canary, she wrote powerfully, poignantly, about the pain of witnessing the UK government try to paint themselves as something other than the architects of the “grave” and “systematic” violations of chronically ill and disabled people’s human rights. This was at the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). The piece played to what she also does best through her writing – take chronically ill and disabled people along with her.

    And amid the constant drone of demonising and ableist drivel in the corporate media, all this could not be more vital. Speaking of, Rachel has been there every step of the way calling out the right-wing press’s scapegoating narratives. In particular, the cruel soulless clickbait merchants at Reach Plc have landed themselves her arch nemesis. She hasn’t pulled any punches in pointing out how BirminghamLive and its sister publications have exploited disabled people’s fear and the uncertainty Labour has also propagated with its deliberate lack of information on its plans, for ad revenue.

    The irony isn’t lost on Rachel that she previously wrote for Reach publication the Mirror. However, there she was a force advocating for chronically ill and disabled people’s rights. In a classist, ableist corporate media landscape where disabled journalists and voices have always been rare, and are increasingly vanishingly so, the column she carved out there was a beacon in the abyss of the ableist abuse papers regularly pass off as journalism.

    More accolades where those came from, naturally

    Did we mention she has written a to-be bestseller? Well Rachel has – a few times (we checked the Canary’s back-catalogue – in at least three articles) – and damn rightly so! Get your pre-orders in, pencil the day out in your diary, on 3 July 2025 her new doubtlessly daring and unsparing book Ramping Up Rights: An Unfinished History of British Disability Activism will hit the shelves. Join her, as she takes readers right up the history of disability activism in the United Kingdom. Of course, this couldn’t be more needed as activists gear up to take on the latest assault to our rights.

    We could go on with the accolades. So, we will.

    For one, Ramping Up Rights isn’t even her first book. Her youth fiction book Ruby Hastings Writes Her Own Story tells dyspraxic and neurodivergent children to be unapologetically proud of who they are. And in fact, that’s another thing Rachel does without fear or favour. As a neurodivergent writer, she has fought against the growing tide of politician and media punch downs on neurodivergent communities. Right now, as Labour picks up where the Tories left off maligning neurodivergent benefit claimants, that could not be more important.

    Of course, it’s not just her writing where she does all this either. Charlton-Dailey often takes on a dizzying array of the most insufferable bigots known to humankind, live on air. She – and all of us – shouldn’t have to keep debating our rights to even exist. And especially so with privileged and vested talking heads from dark money think tanks. But that’s where we’re at. And no one does it better than the brilliant Charlton-Dailey, audibly guffawing at the brass-neck of Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) goons who know nothing about chronically ill and disabled people’s lived realities.

    A vote for Rachel Charlton-Dailey is a vote to recognise all that she does for us

    In every case, she has been at the forefront advocating for chronically ill and disabled people. She does it with compassion, empathy, and courage – all from lived experience and love for her community.

    The National Diversity Award category describes the positive role model as an individual:

    within the community who shows selflessness, drives change and works tirelessly to inspire others.

    That’s all stuff that Rachel Charlton-Dailey does in spades. In the Canary’s fine and humble opinion, there could be no better role model for chronically ill and disabled folks everywhere.

    So now it’s everyone’s chance to tell the extraordinary Rachel Charlton-Dailey that we see her for all the crucial work that she does every day. Get voting and make sure that by September, not only does she have rave reviews for her chart-topping bestseller, but some much-earned recognition in a shiny new award as well. She deserves it.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • ‘Anti-Disability Rhetoric and Policy Lies at the Heart of the Second Trump Administration’: CounterSpin interview with David Perry on MAGA and disability

     

    Janine Jackson interviewed historian David Perry about MAGA and disability for the March 14, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

     

    MSNBC: The Trump administration is ready to abandon kids like my son

    MSNBC (3/3/25)

    Janine Jackson: A fair amount is being written about Linda McMahon’s lack of qualifications to be secretary of education, except the one that matters: an evident willingness to destroy the department she’s charged with leading. Our guest’s piece for MSNBC.com was one of few, so far, to address the impact of the Trump White House, including McMahon’s appointment, on the rights and lives of people with disabilities.

    David Perry is a journalist and a historian; he joins us now by phone from Minnesota. Welcome back to CounterSpin, David Perry.

    David Perry: It’s so nice to talk to you again.

    JJ: McMahon at the DoE is not the only piece of this story, of course, but we might start with that. There’s some confusion, I think, around what the Department of Education does. They don’t really write curricula, but they do have a role in the school experiences of students with disabilities, don’t they?

    DP: Yeah. It’s one of the places where the federal level really matters. It matters across the board. It matters that we have a functioning Department of Education that cares about education. But there are specific things it does, when it comes to students with disabilities—like, actually, both of my kids in different ways—particularly around something called a 504 plan. And we don’t need to get into the weeds there, but there’s two different kinds of ways that students with disabilities get services, and one are things we can call special ed, where kids are pulled out or get really modified curricula, but most people just get small accommodations; that really makes a difference.

    Conversation: 60 years of progress in expanding rights is being rolled back by Trump − a pattern that’s all too familiar in US history

    Conversation (2/13/25)

    If there’s a problem, it is the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education, that you appeal to. If there are materials that aren’t accessible—say, for example, you’re blind, and you can’t get materials over audio—you can file an OCR complaint to the Office of Civil Rights and expect to get some kind of response. And certainly under the Obama administration, and even under the first Trump administration, under Betsy DeVos—I’m not a fan of Betsy DeVos, but that office remained functional—and then more recently, all of that was happening. These civil rights offices are not surviving what Trump is doing these first six weeks, and I don’t expect the Ed Department’s to either.

    JJ: In your piece for MSNBC, you situate McMahon’s appointment among a number of top-down threats to people with disabilities, and some of it’s old, things people have been pushing for for a while, off and on, but some of it feels kind of new, and some of it is policy, and some of it is, I guess, cultural. What are you seeing?

    DP: Yeah, I wrote this piece in MSNBC, and I’ve been thinking about it in some ways since last summer, when I saw this coming. But here’s the version that came out.

    AP: A list of the Social Security offices across the US expected to close this year

    AP (3/19/25)

    There has been, with incredible amounts of work since the ’50s and ’60s and all the way through to today, the creation of a bipartisan, basic consensus that people with disabilities deserve to be able to work, deserve education, deserve housing that is accessible, deserve healthcare through things like Medicaid.

    It has never been a great consensus. It has never been sufficient. The divisions between Democrats and Republicans, or even among Democrats and among Republicans, are vast and important and worth fighting for.

    But I do think we achieved that kind of basic consensus, and I do not believe that the current Trump administration supports that consensus, and I have a lot of evidence to talk about it. And we’re going to see more, with the shuttering of Social Security offices, and the things that are coming from Medicaid. And, again, these basic issues around education.

    And I think it’s really important for liberals, people like me, to not just say, “Oh, Republicans were always bad on this.” Again, we really disagreed on things, but the example I used is when Fred Trump Jr.—or the third, I can’t always remember their name—the president’s nephew, he has a son who has cerebral palsy and significant needs, went to the first Trump administration for help. He found a lot of people who were ready to help him, who were ready to do important work around access and around medical support.

    Guardian: Trump told nephew to let his disabled son die, then move to Florida, book says

    Guardian (7/24/24)

    None of those people are working in the second Trump White House except for Trump, whose famous or infamous response to his nephew is, “Well, wouldn’t it be better if your kid was just dead? It’s too much work. It’s too expensive.” And that’s the attitude we’re seeing now.

    And that’s not even getting into what Elon Musk says about disabled people, or RFK, what he’s doing. I mean, we could talk for an hour just about the ways in which anti-disability rhetoric and policy lies at the heart of the second Trump administration.

    JJ: It’s so appalling, and so many different appalling things are happening, and yet one can still be surprised to hear people, including Elon Musk, throwing around the r-word. Again, I don’t quite get what is so enjoyable about punching down, but people with disabilities, it seems, are always going to be at the sharp end of that.

    DP: It is amazing to me. I’m a historian; I’m pretty cynical about things like progress. I know that things can be cyclical, that things we expect we achieve, we discover that ten, 20 years later, we did not achieve them. We’re seeing that right now with issues of integration, with the attempt to resegregate America racially.

    HuffPost: Elon Musk Has Brought 'The R-Word' Back — And It's Part Of A Disturbing New Trend

    HuffPost (3/14/25)

    But I really felt we had gotten somewhere on the r-word, and really basic issues of respect. And all it takes is one billionaire constantly using that as his favorite insult, and now it’s back. It’s back everywhere. I see it all the time on social media. I’m sure it’s being said by kids at school to other kids. That’s something that never happened to my elder son—he’s 18, he’s about to graduate high school—that I’m aware of. I never heard that, but I bet kids following his footsteps are going to be called by the r-word. And I just thought we had beaten that one, and we clearly didn’t.

    And I shouldn’t be surprised, as you say, right? I mean, that these things happen. We lose progress. But I’ll tell you that, in my heart, I thought we had beaten at least that slur, and we clearly haven’t.

    JJ: I am surprised at my continued capacity to be surprised.

    DP: Yeah.

    JJ: When we spoke with you some years back, you had just co-written a white paper on extreme use of force by police, and the particular connection to people with disabilities. And part of what we were lamenting then was news media’s tendency to artificially compartmentalize disability issues.

    So there were stories that focus on disabled people or on disability, and they can be good or bad or indifferent. They often have a “very special episode” feeling to them. But then, the point was, when the story is wildfires, there’s no thought about what might be the particular impact on people with disabilities. So it’s like spotlight or absence, but not ongoing, integrated consideration.

    David Perry

    David Perry: “When you start to dig into the most harmful things the Trump administration is doing, I find disability there, again and again and again.”

    DP: The thing about disability, as opposed to other categories of difference—by which I mean race, gender, sexuality—is the ways in which people can move in and out of disability, the ways in which disability, while it is associated with issues like poverty, it does transcend it. It’s everywhere. Every family, everyone who lives long enough, if we’re lucky to live long enough, we will experience disability in our own bodies and minds. It is a different kind of difference, is one of the things that I like to say, lots of people like to say.

    And so there is no issue in which disability is not part of it, including, as you say, the weather. And one of the things that was cut from my MSNBC story was when the wildfires were raging through California, conservative influencers—and these are not just people who tweet, but people who get to talk to Trump, right? People who get to talk to Musk, like Chris Rufo—started making fun of ASL, American Sign Language interpretation, when it came to wildfire announcements. Like, who are these people gesticulating? Well, there are deaf people who need to know how to evacuate, right? This is not a joke. This is not wokeness, right? This is trying to save lives, and I really do see it all of a piece that when the planes crashed, that first plane crashed right after Trump took office, the first thing Trump did was blame hiring people with disabilities for the FAA.

    I think at the heart of their failures around Covid response is a real fear and dislike for disability and disease, and kind of a eugenic mentality. Just again and again, when you start to look—and I never want to say that disability is the only issue, or the most important issue; one of my kids is disabled, but also trans, right? I’m very aware of other ways in which other people are being attacked for different kinds of identities. But when you start to dig into the most harmful things the Trump administration is doing, I find disability there, again and again and again.

    JJ: You’re speaking also to this absence of intersectionality in media, and we talked about this last time, too, because, “Oh, police brutality is a Black problem. It’s not a disabled problem.” People can’t be Black and have a disability, right? Media just can’t grok that, because those are two different sections in the paper, so it’s like they can’t combine them.

    Indy Star: 'Utterly Terrifying': Disability Activists Fear Rollback of DEI Under Trump, Braun

    Indianapolis Star (3/6/25)

    And I want to say, I have seen some coverage, not a tremendous amount, but some coverage, of likely and already occurring impacts of things like budget cuts and agency dysfunction on people with disabilities. A lot of that coverage was local: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Garden City Telegram in Kansas, the Indianapolis Star: local folks, local reporters—who are, I guess, just listening to folks saying, “This is going to close this program. This is going to impact us in this way”—seem to be doing the story as kind of a local government function story.

    DP: Nine years has been a long time, and I would say that the disability community has organized around both media outreach, around getting disabled reporters into the media. There are things I just don’t write anymore, because there are too many better people working on them, who are—I mean, I’m also disabled. I’m dyslexic and have mental illness. But my primary relationship to writing about disability hasn’t always come from that.

    Things have gotten better in the media about talking about disability. It’s still something that gets missed. It still gets compartmentalized and sidelined. There’s a number of national outlets, like Mother Jones or the Indypendent or 19th News, that have people who’ve come out of the disability community and are full-time journalists. But also I think local organizations have gotten very good at working with local media to tell better stories. And there’s social media organization, starting really with Crip the Vote, was the phrase on Twitter a long time ago, with Alice Wong out of the Bay Area….

    JJ: And Andrew Pulrang.

    DP: Yeah, that’s right. I just want to say, things have gotten better, and they’ve gotten better, in part, because the disability community and these wonderful leaders have pushed very hard. And it is particularly trying to show these connections across areas, so that when we talk about Medicaid, we also talk about Social Security, and we also talk about the Department of Education, and we see—that’s what I’m trying to do in this piece, is I’m trying to say, “Look, there’s a consistent problem here that manifests with these different policies.”

    Man of Steele: The Jerry Springer Effect & Chris Rufo

    Man of Steele (1/15/25)

    JJ: There is a line in your MSNBC piece, and maybe it was cut back from more, because you do say in response to Trump’s wild, weird claims after the plane crash, that “with mental illness, their lives are shortened because of the stress they have.” And you say, “Well, no, their lives are shortened when they don’t have healthcare, when they can’t get jobs, when they can’t get housing.”

    And it does have the line, “because when a wildfire rages, no one communicates the threat in a way they can understand.” But that sentence alone does not convey the energy with which right wingers attacked the very idea of communicating to, in this case, deaf people or hard-of-hearing people in a wildfire. So just to say those things don’t exist, I see why that one sentence doesn’t convey quite the pushback on that.

    DP: I mean, I could have written an entire essay, and I think other people did when it happened, on Chris Rufo’s specific attack on ASL, and the way they got picked up by Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk and these other really influential people online, attacking ASL, right, ASL! It should be the least controversial kind of adaptation, right? We’ve had it for a long time. Everyone understands what ASL is, and yet, here we go.

    JJ: It’s like pushing the limits to see what we will tolerate.

    CBS Mornings: Federal agencies face pressure to cut jobs as employees weigh buyout offers

    CBS Mornings (3/3/25)

    Finally, I will have a positive note, which was just a little snippet on CBS Mornings on March 3, where they were talking about cuts to DoE, and they had just a fraction of a moment with a woman whose kid has autism, and she was asked what a downsized DoE could mean if federal oversight, as we’re talking about, goes to another agency, which is of course what they’re saying. They’re not just going to shutter DoE, they’re going to shuffle these things off somewhere else. And she said, “My fear is that other schools, instead of helping a child with a disability get the services that they need in the school, they’re going to fix their football field, and it’s going to be OK, because nobody is regulating special education.”

    DP: That’s really, really good. Yeah.

    JJ: That’s a real good nugget that pulls together the fact of something that might be portrayed as abstract—budget-cutting, efficiency—the way that that actually falls down and affects people’s lives.

    DP: We didn’t talk about it, but my framing for this piece was my son, who was 18, saying my name for the first time, which was an amazing moment, and we’ve had lots of these moments, but what I want to say is, they don’t just happen. They’re not just things that magically happen. It takes work and it takes funding and it takes policy and it takes good government and it takes schools, it takes all these different things, and I just don’t see that work being done. And I see where it is being done, the support being stripped away, and it’s terrible to watch.

    JJ: We’ve been speaking with David Perry. His piece, “The Trump Administration Is Ready to Abandon Kids Like My Son,” is up at MSNBC.com. Thank you so much, David Perry, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

    DP: It’s always a pleasure to talk to you.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.