24/07/2024
Andy Greene, a disability activist, writes in the anarchist quarterly newspaper Freedom that the endgame of the Conservative government includes brutal attacks on disabled people and people not well enough to work. Andy writes "Doubling down on expanding the hostile environment tactic, the government and the DWP has created for claimants, reforms include removing the ability of GP’s to confirm people’s inability to work, taking away disability benefits from people in mental distress, taking away benefits from anyone claiming for more than 12 months and ending cash payments for Personal Independence Payments (PIP). This will be replaced by a ‘voucher’ system with ‘accredited providers’. This thinly veiled ‘red meat’ Sunak so casually dispensed has left claimants in shock and analysts bewildered. Given the past history of how this government hands out contracts to accredited providers, their friends down the boozer can start ordering their super yacht catalogues now — while the rest of us can continue with our suicide watch over friends and family, affected by previous austerity programmes under the guise of welfare reforms which have cost the lives of over a hundred and twenty thousand people. The government has a struggle on its hands (along with the blood) if it expects to enact these changes before it’s ran out of power. That doesn’t mean it can’t. Or that a potential incoming Labour government wouldn’t pick up this particularly poisonous chalice. So far, Labour have been trying hard not to take a public stand on these reforms – but their commitment to continuing with other Tory welfare policies doesn’t bode well for claimants. Sustained pressure from claimants, their organisations and allies will be critical in seeing off these obvious ‘vote catchers’. But people had enough of low wages (which even by the end of 2024 won’t be back to pre-pandemic levels). They’ve had enough of being overloaded at work, where the number one reason for quitting is stress related burnout. Automation, fire & rehire, zero hour contracts and the rise of AI have all seen the bosses hand strengthened when it comes to wages and conditions. Right now over half the children living in poverty in the UK live in in-work households." LGBTQIA+ disability organisations have joined with other disability groups and economic activists to call for resistance to the government's proposals.
