"In 2016, a United Nations report found the UK government culpable for ‘grave and systematic violations’ of disabled people’s rights. Since then, driven by the Tory government’s obsessive drive to slash public spending whilst scapegoating the most disadvantaged in society, the situation for disabled people in Britain has continued to deteriorate. Punitive welfare regimes, the removal of essential support and services, and an ideological regime that seeks to deny disability has resulted in a situation described by the UN as a ‘human catastrophe’.
In this searing account, Ellen Clifford – an activist who has been at the heart of resistance against the war on disabled people – reveals precisely how and why this state of affairs has come about. From spineless political opposition to self-interested disability charities, rightwing ideological myopia to the media demonization of benefits claimants, a shocking picture emerges of how the government of the fifth-richest country in the world has been able to marginalize disabled people with near-impunity. Even so, and despite austerity biting ever deeper, the fightback has begun, with a vibrant movement of disabled activists and their supporters determined to hold the government to account – the slogan ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ has never been so apt. As this book so powerfully demonstrates, if Britain is to stand any chance of being a just and equitable society, their battle is one we should all be fighting." https://www.zedbooks.net/shop/book/the-war-on-disabled-people/
Thank you for sharing. It’s a solid piece of work but leaves out quite a lot of the story. BTW the Easy Read summary is a good precis, at this URL
One of the areas I’ve been campaigning on (I’m a disability staff network co-chair at a UK University) is Workplace Reasonable Adjustments Passports. It can be a real struggle having ‘accommodations’ made to your workplace or work routine (for example) and even more so if you’re "passing for normal’ with a hidden disability; neurodivergent for example.
In such a situation an employee has to make a cost-benefit analysis, and it’s hard enough “coming out” if you have a chronic illness or hidden disability, let alone having to do so every time there’s a change of line management. Which is where the idea of a ‘passport’ comes in.
One of the ironies of the whole covid thing has been how, suddenly, these kinds of accommodations are not such a big deal after all.
I’m part of a qualitative research project headed by Anica Zeyen and Oana Branzei (to be clear: I’m a participant, not a researcher myself) and they put it very well here:
The pandemic also teaches us how quickly the unreasonable and impossible for the disadvantaged can be turned to the reasonable and possible for the advantaged. Before COVID19, social distancing – existential for some people with chronic illness– applied to so few that many considered it rather unreasonable. Many workplace accommodations that disabled people had requested for many years - such as remote working – were suddenly possible, and effective, when the non-disabled community needed them.
Yeah hilarious…a case of “follow the money” of-course… I’m neuro-divergent with a (partially -those with eyes as well as ears!-), hidden disability but my real fundamental problem is lack of diagnosis of the condition that created (by causing behavioural changes), most of the others (except for a genetic disorder), that really is a, “follow the money” issue as I was clinically en-fluoridated… can you imagine trying to claim (or receive treatment), for thirty five years for a condition that the medical profession refuses to recognise? It’s been a living nightmare… I have few expectations of seeing a class-action be successful (to the point of adequate compensation), in my lifetime but I live in hope… (my first Karate teacher was a thalidomide victim), and I’m still alive…but only just (so much has deliberately been concealed by vested interests and my own shame -for them-, at being treated so badly), … https://www.arafel.co.uk/2014/08/children-have-died-after-swallowing.html & https://www.arafel.co.uk/2016/07/fluoride-after-40-or-more-years-my.html
