Worth Reduced to Work: A Disabled Person's Experience of the Welfare Cuts Debacle
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The lead-up to the vote on the Government's welfare cuts - particularly to the Personal Independent Payment (PIP) - was a hellish time for me and, most likely, for many disabled people.
Even with a climb-down in the face of a backbench revolt that saw concessions made, including the dubious announcement that only new PIP claimants will be affected, it all leaves me wondering where we are.
What remains in the bill is changes to Universal Credit (UC), which is means-tested and will affect claimants who are currently seen as unfit for work. What does this say about our society? What do they want us to do? Why do they continue to consider us separate? We are entirely 'othered'.
There is a burdensome irony in the failure of successive governments to invest in actions which could reduce barriers and provide disabled people with the support that would make work environments equal and equitable. No disabled person imposes their own barriers - we merely endure those placed on us by uninterested non-disabled politicians.
Now the Welfare Bill has been passed, it highlights how we are condemned. A problem for someone else to deal with. Tied up with strings of resolute refusal to grasp the reality of what disability is. Yet again.
Non-Disabled People's Delusions That Disability 'Is Nothing To Do With Them' Only Harm Disabled People
As Government cuts to disabled people's benefits lead to more dehumanising rhetoric, Penny Pepper reminds us that disability is an embedded reality of human experience as much as it always has been
Penny Pepper
It is 15 years since I was immersed in the fight to keep open the then Independent Living Fund, which allowed people like myself to live as independent members of the community; to be productive beyond mere pound signs; and which kept us hopeful that we had a role to play in society. It understood that it is helpful to see 'independence' in its broader context - not so much in the literal sense of doing everything in every aspect of your life at ground-level minutiae (which no one does anyway, when fully examined), but around the principles of rights to choice and control.
I was there with activist colleagues when the judges came in at the High Court during the legal challenge to the ILF's closure in 2014: there was a grim paradox to them having personal ushers pull out their chairs, ready for their august posteriors to sit upon - presumably an extension of more ceremonial pomposity as no judge disclosed disability on that day.
Disabled people were there, fighting for their right to freedoms at the most basic level: such as not sleeping in your own piss; and the right to decide when to get out of bed, supported by a personal assistant, which could ultimately enable you to work.
We lost and the ILF was closed in 2
Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features
SUBSCRIBE TODAY
The lead-up to the vote on the Government's welfare cuts - particularly to the Personal Independent Payment (PIP) - was a hellish time for me and, most likely, for many disabled people.
Even with a climb-down in the face of a backbench revolt that saw concessions made, including the dubious announcement that only new PIP claimants will be affected, it all leaves me wondering where we are.
What remains in the bill is changes to Universal Credit (UC), which is means-tested and will affect claimants who are currently seen as unfit for work. What does this say about our society? What do they want us to do? Why do they continue to consider us separate? We are entirely 'othered'.
There is a burdensome irony in the failure of successive governments to invest in actions which could reduce barriers and provide disabled people with the support that would make work environments equal and equitable. No disabled person imposes their own barriers - we merely endure those placed on us by uninterested non-disabled politicians.
Now the Welfare Bill has been passed, it highlights how we are condemned. A problem for someone else to deal with. Tied up with strings of resolute refusal to grasp the reality of what disability is. Yet again.
Non-Disabled People's Delusions That Disability 'Is Nothing To Do With Them' Only Harm Disabled People
As Government cuts to disabled people's benefits lead to more dehumanising rhetoric, Penny Pepper reminds us that disability is an embedded reality of human experience as much as it always has been
Penny Pepper
It is 15 years since I was immersed in the fight to keep open the then Independent Living Fund, which allowed people like myself to live as independent members of the community; to be productive beyond mere pound signs; and which kept us hopeful that we had a role to play in society. It understood that it is helpful to see 'independence' in its broader context - not so much in the literal sense of doing everything in every aspect of your life at ground-level minutiae (which no one does anyway, when fully examined), but around the principles of rights to choice and control.
I was there with activist colleagues when the judges came in at the High Court during the legal challenge to the ILF's closure in 2014: there was a grim paradox to them having personal ushers pull out their chairs, ready for their august posteriors to sit upon - presumably an extension of more ceremonial pomposity as no judge disclosed disability on that day.
Disabled people were there, fighting for their right to freedoms at the most basic level: such as not sleeping in your own piss; and the right to decide when to get out of bed, supported by a personal assistant, which could ultimately enable you to work.
We lost and the ILF was closed in 2
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