Disabled activists warn Labour MPs who vote for cuts: ‘The gloves will be off’

Labour MPs were given their final warning by disabled activists at a sweltering rally outside parliament on Monday that, if they vote for cuts to disability benefits, the “gloves will be off”.

Ellen Clifford, one of the key organisers of the rally and award-winning author of The War on Disabled People, warned MPs of the consequences if they voted for the cuts.

She told the #WelfareNotWarfare rally, which took place a day before MPs voted on the cuts in the universal credit and personal independence payment bill (see separate stories): “I know that disabled people will fight to the end. 

“We are not going to let this through without one hell of a fight. And if it does, we are not going to forgive any Labour MPs who either vote for it or abstain.”

Paula Peters, from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), said any Labour MPs who voted for the cuts would be forced from their seats.

She said: “Let’s tell these MPs: the gloves come off. We turn the anger into action and we’re not going to back off.”

John McArdle, co-founder of the Scottish grassroots group Black Triangle Campaign, warned Scottish Labour MPs – including his own MP, Ian Murray – that disabled people would “wipe the floor” with them at the next general election if they backed the cuts.

“Any of these MPs that vote for this bill… if you vote to push us into the most appalling poverty and despair, we will wipe the floor with you at the general election, we will boot you out of Scotland.”

Among the speakers was Joy Dove, who has fought for justice for eight years for her disabled daughter Jodey Whiting.

She took her own life in February 2017 after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wrongly removed her out-of-work disability benefits following five missed chances to save her.

Dove read out part of the ruling given by the coroner at a long-awaited second inquest last month, which concluded that her daughter’s benefits had been “wrongly” withdrawn.

And she warned that other disabled people could die if the cuts went ahead.

She had a message for the department: “DWP, you killed my daughter, and I don’t want it to happen to anybody else.”

Dr Natasha Hirst, disabled activist and former president of the National Union of Journalists, also spoke of the harm the cuts would cause.

She said the bill would take money from disabled people “who are already struggling to survive.

“We know this will harm them, we know this bill will kill people.

“MPs need to listen to their disabled constituents. Take the money from those who can afford to pay, not those who can’t.

“We will not forget how you vote.”

Welfare rights adviser Emma Cotton told the rally of the damage already caused by 15 years of austerity. 

She said: “I have seen the damage that austerity has done. I have been a witness to a near-total degradation of the UK social security system.”

Fazilet Hadi, from Disability Rights UK, was among those who mentioned the government’s pledge that it was now going to start co-producing policy with disabled people.

She said: “That is absolute rubbish. If they had wanted to co-produce with disabled people, they should have talked to us a year ago… they should have put these proposals in the green paper… they should have stopped rushing this bill through.”

She said earlier: “It is absolutely shameful what this government is doing to disabled people, and it will be shameful for Labour MPs if they vote with the government.

“Successive governments have made us poor, successive governments have put the NHS on its knees, successive governments have taken away social care, successive governments have made us a society where disabled people are becoming sicker and new disabled people are coming on stream because of homelessness, poverty, and lack of food.”

There were regular outbursts of anger among speakers, including from Mac, from Crips Against Cuts, who told the rally: “Tax the wealthy, instead of killing the crips.”

Several disabled speakers – including Clifford – also spoke of their pride in a disability community that continues to fight, despite 15 years of battling against austerity cuts.

The rally was led by DPAC, and supported by the Taking The PIP campaign and Crips Against Cuts, as well as mainstream campaign groups Stop the War Coalition, The People’s Assembly, The Trade Union Coordinating Group, and We Demand Change.

There were several speeches from members of the disabled people’s Taking the PIP anti-cuts campaign, including actors Cherylee Houston, Lisa Hammond and Cerrie Burnell.

Houston said: “How dare they try to reduce our futures, how dare they try to infer that we are of less value, a lesser part of society.

“We need to stand up and hold firm. They cannot strip away years of legacy within our community.

“I’m here alongside everyone else to say stop this bill, stop it now before more people die.”

Hammond said the concessions made by ministers were “nothing more than political spin.

“They are designed to buy off rebellion, not to protect our rights.”

Among others who warned of the consequences of the cuts was Angela Grant, president of the DWP group of the PCS union, who said: “Many of us, including me, depend on PIP to keep us in work.

“I would not be able to work if they came after PIP.”

She added: “They do not care, they are not listening, until we make them listen.

“We stand together because if we start letting them divide us, divide us in our communities, they will break us down one by one.”

Hamza spoke of the impact on fellow disabled asylum-seekers, and he told the rally: “We are here today to fight for our fundamental human rights.

“We fight to win, or we die fighting.”

The rally was temporarily disrupted by protesters from a rival rally who supported the right of Israel to continue its genocide in Palestine and to continue bombing Iran, and supported the son of Iran’s former Shah and want to see regime change in Iran.

They had edged closer and closer to the disabled people’s rally, and several of their supporters appeared intent on antagonising and intimidating disabled activists, with several reports of aggressive disablist abuse.

When disabled activists saw this begin to happen, they linked arms with allies to protect disabled people and their rally and continued to chant “welfare not warfare” until the pro-Israel protesters eventually melted away.

Although police officers had been seen dragging away at least two members of the pro-Israel rally, the Metropolitan police said afterwards that they were not aware of any arrests.

Several of the pro-Israel supporters refused to talk to Disability News Service, but one of them claimed they were opposed to Stop the War Coalition, which was supporting the anti-cuts rally, and he criticised the argument that cutting spending on bombs would allow increased spending on social security.

The disabled people’s rally also included songs from disabled activist and singer-songwriter Sophia Kleanthous, who minutes earlier had been part of the human barrier.

Her songs included a new anti-cuts anthem written for the rally: Cut Us Until We Bleed.

As she introduced the song, she told the rally: “We will not allow people to divide us.

“We will not support war, and we will not support these cuts.”

At the end of the song, activists displayed a huge new banner, which said: “You Cut We Bleed.”

A string of MPs spoke at the rally to express their solidarity with disabled people, including Labour’s Ian Lavery, Andy McDonald, Richard Burgon, Lorraine Beavers and Brian Leishman, former Labour leader – and now an Independent MP – Jeremy Corbyn, and fellow Independent MP Adnan Hussain.

Burgon told the rally: “You’re saying, and we support you, that enough is enough.

“Let’s be clear: this bill was brought to save money. This bill was brought to do that by making things worse for disabled people in this country.”

And he sent a message to fellow Labour MPs: “Certain votes in parliament define you, certain votes in parliament will be remembered not only for the rest of your political career, but probably for the rest of your life.

“It’s about time that my colleagues got an inch of the guts, an inch of the courage of disabled people outside here today, and did the right thing.

“Don’t talk to me about agonising over the vote – the people agonising are disabled people across the country who are worried about the future.

“Don’t talk to me about agonising on £93,000 a year, do the right thing for God’s sake.”

Credit for this article goes to John Pring with the Disability News Service