The Disability Rebellion
Galvanised into action by the government's announcement of the cruel cuts to disability benefits, I channeled my anger and frustration into the creation of Disability Rebellion.
Disability Rebellion is a growing community that aims to resist the disability benefit cuts to benefits and challenges the rampant ableism in society.
For several months now, the government has been feeding hateful rhetoric about disabled people to the media and society, whipping up a vicious frenzy of hate that targets disabled people. Disabled people are being attacked in the media, online, on the streets and in government policies. It has been a relentless psychological warfare against disabled people.
Labour has been pushing out various toxic narratives about disabled people on benefits, claiming that mental illnesses and ADHD are overdiagnosed, that disabled people are trapped on benefits which is preventing them from working; that disability is a behavioural issue; that too many people are claiming disability benefits; and dog-whistling the narrative that disabled people are workshy scroungers. It has become a hostile environment for disabled people.
Manufacturing consent for cruelty
Why are they doing this? The answer is rather simple. The government is trying to manufacture consent for their cruel treatment of disabled people. What better way to do that than to turn the public against disabled people?
The treatment of disabled people has been bothering me for some time. Until recently, I had been about 90% bedridden for a decade with chronic migraines. I was suffering with violent migraines that would last several days for up to three weeks per month. I tried several medications and none of them worked. I was held prisoner by my migraines. This was on top of my other conditions : lupus, myositis, PTSD, PMDD, anxiety and depression. It was a lot to deal with and what little energy I had was devoted to survival.
It was especially painful because the Tories were in government for 14 years and I watched helplessly as they enforced austerity - of which disabled people and unemployed people were expected to shoulder the burden, while it barely touched the wealthy. I could not do much about it while I was trapped in a never-ending cycle of migraines and despair.
Eventually I found a treatment that worked and it had such a dramatic effect that I’m now only suffering from migraines for about five days each month. I was freed from my migraine prison and I was able to begin paying attention to what was happening around me.
Entering the wastleland
I emerged from my ten year migraine hell and found myself standing on a wasteland, that was once this country. All around me, destruction marks the land and people are crying out in despair. They wanted to be saved from 14 years of the Tories, only to find themselves being cruelly abused by their meant-to-be rescuers.
The impacts of the disability benefit cuts will be immense and devastating:
The Resolution Foundation “estimates that between 800,000 and 1.2 million people will miss out on PIP by 2029/30, including existing claimants who lose out when they are reassessed.
The Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) found that “changes to the personal independence payment (PIP) assessment and cutting the health top-up in UC will see ill and disabled people lose out on £7.5bn by 2029 – 30.”
Cutting PIP and the health element of Universal Credit will push many disabled people into deeper poverty.
Community Care wrote “Over three million families to lose out from disability and incapacity benefit changes.” They added that 370,000 disabled people will “lose entitlement to personal independence payment, while 430,000 who would have been eligible will not receive benefit, at an average cost of £4,500 a year, as government predicts deepening poverty.”
Cutting disability benefits will not help disabled people into work. Cutting PIP, which is to help disabled people with the extra costs per month incurred by disability, will instead make it even more difficult for disabled people to work. As an example, for those disabled people who can work, PIP assists with travel costs and cutting PIP will instead prevent them from working. There is a lack of evidence to back up the government’s claim that cutting disability benefits will incentivise disabled people to work.
Charles Gillies from the Multiple Sclerosis Society wrote that: Charles Gillies said: “People are wondering how they will continue to cover their basic living expenses and the extra costs of their disability – like visits from carers to help with things like washing, cooking and going to the toilet. The government has a moral obligation to scrap these cuts before the real damage is done.”
Cutting PIP will cause many unpaid carers to lose Carer’s Allowance, pushing disabled people and their families and carers into deeper poverty.
It is well known that there is a link between poverty and health inequality. Pushing disabled people into further poverty will mean they cannot fund essentials like food, a warm home, mobility aids, transport to medical appointments and more. This will worsen the physical and mental health of disabled people, which mean the NHS and social care - already under enough strain as it is - will have to pick up the pieces with sick, malnourished people who are already unwell or disabled, increasingly suffering the diseases of poverty. The strain and suffering caused by the cuts will also worsen the mental health of disabled people.
These are just some of the impacts that the cuts will have on disabled people.
The rebellion begins
The cruel government cuts to disability benefits felt like I had been dumped into an ice bath. After a decade of being trapped in the agonising, mind-numbing fugue of chronic migraine, I woke up to harsh reality; the anger and despair was immense. I could no longer sit there and watch as the government gutted disability benefits and continued the work started by the Tories.
This is when the Disability Rebellion was born. Together with a team of disabled people, we are creating a community where disabled people from all over the country can come together to oppose ableism and the cuts - in whichever way they can. The difficulty disabled people have is that we’re typically isolated in a largely inaccessible world - and so it can be difficult for us to be represented and to register our discontent using traditional methods. It can be difficult for many disabled activists to get to protests and so, disabled people from over the country are coming together in this online community to share ideas and work together in a supportive environment to find ways to effectively oppose ableism and the cuts to welfare.
We also want to educate the public about what it is like to be disabled and needing to rely on the welfare system to survive. All too often, disabled voices are being drowned out by a government and mainstream media hostile towards disabled people. We must fight this rising tide of hate.
This growing community is available on Twitter, Facebook, Bluesky and Discord. For information about joining, click on the link below:
https://linktr.ee/disabilityrebellion
Hopefully, I’ll see you there!