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: