A new grassroots campaign group is planning to take action against the Labour Party-led Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) brutal plans to cut chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits.
In the space of little more than a week, disabled-led Crips Against Cuts has mobilised to challenge all this. Now, under its banner, activists across the country have organised 14 demonstrations against the government’s sweep of dangerous cuts.
And, as a Crips Against Cuts activist told the Canary, this is only the beginning of its plans to fight back.
Crips Against Cuts: the new kid on the block for resistance against the DWP
Crips Against Cuts is a new decentralised network of disabled activists and allies. The group sprung up in a little less than a week in response to the news the Labour Party government is sizing up deep cuts to welfare, targeting chronically ill and disabled claimants.
What started small as a group of Crip activists, largely based in Bristol, soon took off. Around the country, activists set up multiple Crips Against Cuts groups. You can join up with these and get involved via their national WhatsApp:
FIND YOUR LOCAL GROUP✊❤️
— Crips Against Cuts♿️🌻 (@crips-against-cuts.bsky.social) 2025-03-19T23:20:38.502Z
On Saturday 22 March, the groups will be holding a number of protests nationwide. Local Crips Against Cuts activists are hosting these in tandem in the following locations:
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
— Just Em x (@agirlcalleddave.bsky.social) 2025-03-20T09:57:07.496Z
To find your nearest protest, you can head to Crips Against Cuts Instagram at www.instagram.com/crips_against_cuts and its linktr.ee.
Time to ‘cut the discrimination, not our lifeline benefits’
Beth O’Brien, from Crips Against Cuts London said:
This is nothing short of an assault on the dignity and rights of Disabled people in the UK. Human life has dignity regardless of work or productivity. Removing entitlements which helps pay for basic care and necessary support creates far bigger barriers to work and independent living.
Charities have warned the new 4-point rule will leave 700,000 people struggling to survive in poverty. Without PIP, you cannot claim other disability benefits. GPs lose their vital role assessing and signing people off work, instead referring them to a “back to work program”- not what you need alongside a new cancer or dementia diagnosis.
Instead of punishing disabled people, this Labour government must invest in sickness prevention, research and treatment, and address widespread inaccessibility, prejudice and abuse. 1 in 4 working age adults have some form of disability, and most of us will experience disability in our lifetime. It’s time to cut the discrimination, not our lifeline benefits and access to society.
Black and brown allies at the heart of it
The Canary spoke to Crips Against Cuts activist Mac, from Bristol. Mac and her friend Abbie founded the group, but she was keen to emphasise that “all they really did was get it started”.
Crucially, she highlighted how:
It has all been led by cripples, and so, every decision has been made by a community of about 250 Crips that have got involved in the last week.
She also wanted to underscore that none of it “would be possible” without the help of a dedicated collective of allies, who she said:
are predominantly Black and brown women, and I think it’s really important that we recognise that they’re the only real group coming in as allyship.
Mac explained how Black and brown women allies had been the driving force behind the group’s organisation in recent days.
So just what have the groups planned for the day?
Largely, the 90-minute to two hour demos will start with a line-up of set speakers. In Bristol, Mac said this largely includes long-term community leaders and local politicians against the cuts. Bristol Central MP and Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer will open the protest. Mac also explained how some DWP employees have come forward to speak out against their department’s cuts at the Bristol demo.
However, the bulk of the protests Crips Against Cuts have set aside to give local disabled people a supported space to speak out:
Everybody in the crowd, whether a cripple, carer, or an ally, feels as important and as amplified as the people who are booked speakers. And so we’re going to have the majority of the two hours put aside for anybody who would like to speak, or has been inspired to speak at the demo.
This ‘isn’t going to be the end of it’
Mac expressed that the groups want to make sure disabled people across the country feel heard over the Labour-led DWP’s disgraceful plans. Noting how this isn’t “going to be the end of it”, she said how she and other activists hoped that:
the more inclusive we are, and the more empowering the rally is for other disabled people in the city, the more likely we are to get the government to not only U-turn on this, but actually improve things for disabled people and poor people.
Importantly, Crips Against Cuts want these protests and their national groups to be a focal point for support for chronically ill and disabled people as well.
At the Bristol protest for instance, Mac told the Canary that there will be a:
safe space, where we do have a couple of qualified first-aiders.
On top of this, the group has coordinated for there to be a:
small sectioned-off area for anyone who feels emotional or overwhelmed or feels like they need additional space.
Despite the short notice, the group has additionally managed to get a small number of local mental health professionals – all independent therapists – to offer free therapy sessions on the day. Crips Against Cuts also hopes to have the presence of mental health charities, who it has invited to support the protest.
After the event, the Bristol team intend to host some regular mental wellbeing and community socials.
Crips Against Cuts ‘furious’ at Labour
Drawing together a broad community of disabled people and allies across the country, Mac also reflected on the ferocity of feeling for what many feel is an unforgivable betrayal by Labour. She told us that:
Something that has become really apparent in all of the groups across the country and in the support groups on WhatsApp, is that people are furious that they voted for Labour to get rid of the Tories, and instead Labour are just pushing further to the right than they would ever allow the Tories to do.
She told the Canary how many in the group now want to see Starmer and his cabinet face a vote of no confidence.
Ultimately, Mac said that through Crips Against Cuts, her, and other disabled activists want to empower as many people as possible to resist Labour’s cruel plans:
Every single human being is an activist. If you are a human living in a democracy, part of your role is activism. A lot of people feel like they need permission to try and create change, and they don’t.
Featured image supplied
