“Even though they have abandoned their budget, the government will be coming back for more [austerity cuts]. We must remain vigilant, keep on taking direct actions," John McDonnell, shadow Chancellor, tells a group of disability campaigners in the lobby of Westminster Parliament. "We cannot allow disabled people to suffer in this way. Solidarity.”
We are in a long corridor, three doors from the House of Commons. McDonnell, number two in the official U.K. opposition, is in a crowd encircled by dozens of police. A similar number of activists are holding banners and chanting, “No more deaths from benefit cuts!”
The protest is against the U.K. government’s latest assault on the disabled – which features plans to cut £30 per week from Personal Independence Payments. But the protesters are not only trying to hold back the tide of inevitable cuts.
They are also demanding Chancellor George Osborne’s resignation.
Since the protest last week, McDonnell, writing in The Independent, asserted: “Not only have the chancellor’s plans been revealed to have no basis in economics but they are devoid of basic morality. He is not fit to hold the office.”
Once the protest leaves Parliament, Paula Peters, a member of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) tells me: “[Green Party MP] Caroline Lucas came over to me and said, 'You can hear every shout inside the [parliamentary] chamber. It is fantastic, so many opposition MPs are smiling to hear the truth. The Government front bench are looking white and rattled. They’re panicking.'”
Lucas, like McDonnell, came to show her solidarity with the protest that coincided with Prime Minister’s Questions, and which received extensive media and social media coverage. In the view of many, the Conservative government has never looked so flimsy as it does now, facing three serious crisis.
Tory Crisis 1: Infighting
On Mar. 18, the government’s Work and Pension Secretary Iain Duncan Smith resigned. He said the latest budget went too far by cutting support for disabled people while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest. Smith went further, suggesting austerity was being waged for political rather than economic reasons.
This is hardly news. It is clear austerity is making the rich richer and destroying the safety net. But it was explosive that Smith said what he did – not least since he has been taking a leading role in pushing policies that target the poorest and disabled.
After the resignation, Prime Minister David Cameron made a U-turn on the budget. Now, pressure to #CutOsborne is also mounting.
One underlying reason for Tory infighting is the divisive E.U. referendum on the horizon in June. Knives are also out as senior politicians posture a takeover of Cameron's role as prime minister. Cameron has said he will step down from this Parliament – but he could be ousted even sooner.
The timing of Ian Duncan Smith’s resignation – and the reported fear in senior government ranks during the protests – revealed the extent to which disabled activists have risen to the fore of challenging the UK austerity agenda.
Tory Crisis 2: Austerity is Unravelling
“Initially the government were happy to put these cuts through,” Roy Bard from the Mental Health Resistance Network explains after the protest. “But then disabled campaigners started a name-and-shame campaign [on social media] that targeted Tory MPs that voted for the cuts.”
Memes have since gone viral, pointing out not only which politicians voted for the disabled people's cuts – but showing how those same politicians have lined their own pockets. Bard continues: “That is when 20 MPs threatened to rebel over the PIP cuts, because the cuts to [the] disabled had been exposed. Smith tried to say compassion made him resign, but he had already voted before for the exact same measures to go through.”
The resignation forced the mainstream media to look at, and actually discuss, what disabled and anti-austerity activists have been saying for years: austerity is killing people. Bard tells me how important it is that members of Disabled People Against Cuts were recently invited onto all the major TV stations to explain how the government is harming them.
The open dialogue has broken the supportive relationship between the government and the corporate media, which had been the norm since Conservatives came to power in 2010 – a period in which the Tories reshaped public opinion, demonizing the weakest, poorest and most vulnerable in society as "shirkers," "skivers" and "other." As critical economist John Weeks sets out clearly, they are applying an "economics for the 1%."
Austerity policies, after all, relied on the notion that "there is no alternative." The strongest resistance to this narrative – in England, at least – has come from grassroots activism and community organizing. Three early examples, from 2010 and 2011, included UK Uncut, which added corporate tax evasion to public debate; DPAC, which made disabled rights visible to the public; and Occupy London, which catalyzed the conversation about inequality and corporate power.
Looking back at the fight to get disabled people’s rights on the agenda, Bard shows me a list of over 50 highlights from the campaign. This starts with the formation of Disabled People Against Cuts when disabled people headed a march against cuts outside the Tory conference. The highlights also include road blockades, legal actions, official inquires and occupations. It is worth noting how the new anti-austerity leadership of the Labour party has supported these direct actions from the start.
Fast forward to today, and the anti-austerity and anti-government movements can no longer be ignored.
Tory Crisis 3: Public Anger and Resistance
After leaving Parliament on the day of the DPAC protest, I pass the largest farming demonstration I have ever seen outside Downing Street. Later that day, teachers are protesting at Parliament and junior doctors announce they are escalating their strike action to a 48-hour walkout, including Accident and Emergency.
It is unusual for three professions of this sort to be taking action against the government – not to mention that it's happening all at once. There is also escalating resistance to the Housing Bill and fracking, among other mobilizing issues.
Paula Peters reflects on the rise of social movements against the government.
“We must keep the pressure up to get our human rights restored and create an inclusive society," she says. "The government are shaking; the public is realizing their austerity lies, [Smith] has resigned, Osborne is under pressure, his budgets in tatters. This might be the spring of discontent. I think we can get rid of the Tories this summer.”
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DH Fabian replied on
And in the US
Interesting, and we essentially did the same thing here in the US. After ending actual welfare, Clinton began targeting the disabled. This was accompanied with a spate of claims about "widespread fraud" among recipients of disability aid -- something that is nearly impossible under the very strict program eligibility requirements. In fact, by 2000, the disabled had become the fastest-growing group of homeless Americans.
President Obama was able to get disability benefits restored, but Congress resumed the routine benefit freezes. The elderly poor and the disabled on Social Security saw their monthly food stamp benefits cut from roughly $115 down to $10 in 2015. In short, they have quietly been getting pushed deeper into poverty for some years now. There has been very little media or public interest in this issue.