The year has barely started but already disabled people are on our guard for more attacks. And we’ve got good right to be, too. In the last few months since the Labour Party came into power we’ve seen hatred for disabled people steadily rise.
While it was definitely fueled by the last iteration of the dying Tory government as their swan song, the least Labour could do was pour water over the disability hatred bin fire. Instead, during their short reign Starmer, Reeves, and Kendall have all fanned the flames.
Where the government have stoked the fire, the corporate media and Twitter outrage merchants have poured petrol on it – so that every single thing disabled people do is pulled apart and reframed as scrouging from those hard-working taxpayers.
Disabled people didn’t even get a break from the disgusting bile spewed at us over Christmas, with professional parasitic outrage-farming couple Richard Lice and Isabel Oakshitt deciding to spend their Christmas holibobs talking shite about Motability.
Whilst the venom them and their ilk were spewing for clicks can be easily debunked (and was, by me), many who they have convinced are their demographic won’t look at the facts in front of them when they want someone to blame.
Of course, the ruling class are always the ones who shout the loudest, but end up taking the least blame.
Funny that.
Disabled people: fighting for decades – and for decades more?
This of course is nothing new. We see this ramping up of the disability benefit thieves narrative every time the government are getting ready to take away our support – and especially before welfare shakeups. Many thought Labour – hoped Labour – would be different to the cruel Tories.
But after all it was Blair’s government in 1997 who realised that in order to get the public on board with welfare reforms they had to first turn everyone against disabled people (especially activists) who they’d mostly supported in their fight for more rights.
This current push to make disabled people the enemy might seem out of the blue for many, but you have to consider the fact that Labour have promised that their plans for disabled people will start to be unveiled in march.
There’s whatever the fuck they’re planning with benefits, as they’re still not telling us whether they’ll scrap the DWP WCA reforms or whether they plan to go ahead with the batshit idea of making PIP vouchers.
There’s also the totally fresh ideas to Get Britain Working – not to be confused with the Conservatives Back to Work plan from last summer which is completely different.
The demonisation has picked up a pace
Last week I was asked by Shelagh Fogarty on LBC what I thought was the most urgent thing that needed to happen in order to make life better for disabled people. My reply was:
More than anything we need an attitudinal change, we need to change the way that we treat disabled people and the way that we think about disabled people. And that’s not gonna change until the government and the media stop making us the enemy.
Because whilst there’s always been biases in society, many wouldn’t, not only so horribly towards disabled people but also terrified of becoming us, if being disabled and needing benefits wasn’t painted as the worst possible thing a person can be.
It was suggested the other day by right-wing arsehole Giles Fraser that assisted dying happened because families stopped caring for their disabled relatives and the burden fell to taxpayers for care.
That simply isn’t true.
In my opinion we ended up with assisted dying because disabled people were convinced, through the government and media, that we were burdens to our families.
Disabled people will continue to refuse to be silenced in 2025
You may’ve noticed I’ve been quiet round here these last few weeks and that’s cos I’ve been plowing away writing my book Ramping Up Rights: And Unfinished History of British Disability Activism. However it’s been hard to write about the battles disabled people fought and won to gain our rights when the current establishment are doing everything they can to strip us of them again.
Whilst writing this book I was also able to see a clear line spanning the last 30-plus years which saw the many ways that successive governments were able to use the media manipulate the British publish into believing that disabled people who needed benefits to live were the enemy.
But what I’ve also seen is just how resilient disabled people are, just how much we refuse to just roll over and die – as much as it would make the government’s job easier if we did.
That refusal to be ignored, silenced, or disregarded.
That determination that we will not let them take away our rights, no matter how much they try.
And though we have lost many battles with cruel governments, our fight is what has stopped them from obliterating us all.
We need to harness that fight into 2025, those of us that can call out the vile behaviour of the government and media, and come together to fight not just benefit cuts but the stripping away of our humanity.
Featured image via the Canary
