I’ll be honest: I have voted Labour all my life. I grew up in a Northumbrian mining town and come from a family who worked in the pits. I’m old enough to remember the Thatcher years. I’m still in shock from the announcements about Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits cuts to disabled welfare in the Spring Statement.
I never thought that having a Labour government in power would equal a devastating attack on disabled people like me. People like me who have worked hard all their life, only to find themselves disabled with an incurable disease. It’s a disease that our NHS doesn’t even have a single bed in the entire country set aside for or any medical treatments available. That’s myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).
DWP benefits cuts: a deep-set discriminatory attitude to disabled people
I believe that this deprivation of financial support for disabled people is in no way related to ‘supporting people into work’. MP Darren Jones has compared us to children having their pocket money taken away. What an absolutely degrading comparison. He may have apologised, but the damage is done. Millions watched those comments, and will have been influenced into believing disabled people are lazy children.
It is telling that Jones thought that this was an acceptable comment to make on national television. It suggests that this attitude is accepted in Westminster. This is not about balancing the books. This goes deeper. This government’s actions display a deep-set, nasty, discriminatory attitude towards disabled people: an attitude that the world has seen before.
The government’s own assessments show that 250,000 disabled people, 50,000 of them children, will be pushed into poverty by these DWP benefits cuts. The Labour Party appears happy with these statistics and is continuing with its devastating plan. Why?
Why, knowing you are about to push 50,000 children into starvation, would you be unconcerned? I think the answers lie in your beliefs.
The Labour government doesn’t see disabled people as human beings
These are children of disabled people. Yes, disabled women have children too. We are, after all human beings. Although, you would be forgiven for thinking we aren’t, the way this government is attempting to convince the rest of society we aren’t worthy of basic human rights. Those 50,000 children come from families with a disabled parent. The overwhelming message being sent by our Labour government is that we are less.
The belief that disabled people are somehow ‘less’ than abled people is, sadly, extremely common. I have experienced this frequently as a disabled mother of a disabled child. It is almost an accepted norm in our society. As disgusting as that is, that is the reality.
The shocking thing is that, Labour appealed to disabled people to vote for them. Keir Starmer made a consistent point of saying that his government would listen to disabled people.
On national television, Starmer stood there saying we needed to let him regain the public’s trust in politicians. Disabled people voted for the Labour party based on these promises. Yet, now, when disabled people are saying ‘you are going to starve us and these DWP benefits cuts will kill us, please do not go forward’, we’re being ignored.
Perhaps if you truly can’t afford £5bn in DWP benefits support, scrap the new Thames crossing and save £8bn? The lives of disabled people clearly mean nothing to our government. A bridge, that may reduce their own commute time is more important to them, than my child having a meal on the table.
We’ve been here before… in Nazi Germany
Can you sink any lower?
An election campaign that tricked disabled people into voting for a party that is, knowingly, with the facts right in front of them, pushing quarter of a million of us towards starvation. DWP benefits cuts kill.
There are reams of evidence showing how disabled people have died in the most appalling conditions following inhumane treatment from the DWP. That evidence is about to increase in size. The horror of what is coming is unimaginable.
On a final note, and I’m not going to apologise in advance if you are offended by this stark comparison. Go and Google Aktion T4.
Starting in 1939 the German government killed between 275,000 and 300,000 disabled people because they were considered a financial burden to society. These killings were two years before the start of WWII. Why did they start with us, with disabled people? Because they knew it was an easy sell to the public.
This attitude that disabled people are less is an attitude perpetuated by fascist governments throughout history.
As the mother of a child with Down’s Syndrome, it is a physical pain I feel when I see photos from historical archives showing people with my daughter’s condition, who were deemed a financial burden to society, because they couldn’t work, and therefore either starved to death or murdered by another means.
I wouldn’t have made it either.
The chilling reality is though, that this perception of disabled people who can’t work as a ‘burden’ seems to be shared by our current UK government in 2025.
Disabled lives matter: stand with us against DWP benefits cuts
In this current climate, with our government pushing the narrative that disabled people don’t deserve DWP benefits if we can’t work, please question what information you are being fed by those in power. Please question what beliefs are driving our government to punish disabled people, for having the audacity to be alive, and require food and shelter.
Above all, please stand up for us, for those who cannot advocate for themselves. Learning disabled people, those with dementia, or any condition that creates a barrier to being able to speak out. We need you stand with us and say: “No. This is not right. Disabled lives matter”.
Featured image via the Canary
