by Linda Burnip
Shortly before the June budget statement from George Osborne in 2010 myself and others attended a training course on the UNCRPD and how it could be used to advance disabled people’s human rights run by Rachel Hurst from Disability Awareness in Action.
It was a pleasant weekend in a posh hotel with lots of free food but then came the budget announcement and it seemed that more needed to be done to protect disabled people’s human rights then sitting comfortably in a hotel. Disabled People’s Protest was born and we decided that disabled people should lead the march against the Tories at their conference in Birmingham in 2010. The police tried to stop us of course as we are all so vulnerable and they feared for our safety but we mustered complaints from around the world against this and they were forced to allow us to do that.
There were about 150+ disabled people who marched or wheeled at the front of a 7,000 strong protest in the pouring rain plus more taking part in a static protest in Chamberlain Square. Our slogan was Cuts Kill and of course we were accused by some of scaremongering but sadly we have since been proven right. Cuts are continuing to kill disabled people almost on a daily basis, malnutrition is rife in the 7th richest country in the world and diseases related to poverty are returning such as scurvy and rickets. This is an obscene public health emergency yet sanctions and the use of food banks continue to increase and poverty and deprivation worsen.
Over the last 4 years it seems like more and more attacks against disabled people have kept happening, our rights have been systematically stripped away and every aspect of our lives are under threat as the Tory killing machine continues to unfurl more and deeper cuts.
But we have achieved much and most of all we’ve shown that disabled people can fight back and will fight back, we are not the easy push over that Iain Duncan Smith and his party henchmen thought we would be. The much hated ATOS is on its way out and not even the nastiest of alternative corporations seems willing to even bid for the WCA contract to replace them. We’ve successfully made ATOS and Capita such toxic brands that they cannot recruit staff.
We’ve taken and supported court cases both to challenge the WCA and to save the ILF putting legal barriers in the way of this unelected government. We’ve had many street protests and carried out numerous direct actions and lobbied parliament and continued to speak at meetings and educate people about access needs and the consequences of cuts.
This year we’re celebrating our 4th birthday back where we started at the Tory Party conference in Birmingham and the Tories may well get an unexpected surprise at conference this time too
As well as that we’re launching our non-party political (due to the transparency of lobbying bill another aspect of the Tories trying to stifle dissent against themselves as they know there is so much) campaign Who2 Vote4 so you’ll be seeing this logo around a lot from now on.
We will be seeking to influence policies which affect disabled people and to get political parties to commit themselves to reversing the cuts we’ve all faced in the past 4 years.
We want you to let us know what is important to you as well. Please post on the blog or email us at mail@dpac.uk.net to tell us what you think we should be asking of our politicians.
More news about our planned activities in the run up to the General Election coming soon.