Protestors in the grounds of Westminster Abbey in central London, during a demonstration calling for the preservation of the independent lining fund for disabled people. Dominic Lipinski/PA Images. All rights reserved.This election, there is much more to talk about than Brexit. As we hurtle towards a snap general election on the 8th of June, it has never been more important to consider the suffering that sustained austerity continues to inflict. Framed by the Tory government as a rational and necessary response to financial instability in the wake of the 2010 crisis, the politics of austerity have rippled through all aspects of daily life – none more so than the daily lives of disabled people.
Despite making up 8% of the population, disabled people in Britain continue to bear the brunt of 29% of all cuts, meaning they carry the single biggest burden of austerity and welfare reform. Since 2010, such measures as the introduction of Personal Independence Payments (PIP), the introduction of the Bedroom Tax, and the abolition of the Independent Living Fund exist alongside a larger machinery of welfare reform, which has seen crippling cuts to social care, mental health support and legal aid. Combined, these measures exacerbate the physical, financial, and mental vulnerability of those they target, rendering increasingly fragile the basic supports required to sustain life.
In the week of the Brexit referendum last June, the United Nations released a report criticising British austerity as constituting a breach of the UK’s human rights obligations. Recognising that cuts under the Tory government have had a “disproportionate adverse impact” on the most marginalised and disadvantaged in society, the report went largely unnoticed amid the chaos of the referendum’s aftermath. Brexit was a distraction then, and, in the lead up to the general election, it once again threatens to drown out conversation about other issues. It is easy to forget that obscured by speak of hard and soft Brexits, there is a clear choice about social policy.
