The recent battle between ‘disabled people’ and the government has been portrayed by the majority of the media as a battle of fairness and the rights of disabled people. I would like to argue that in reality that the attempts to stop the reform of DLA is a dark cloud that could potentially halt and maybe reverse the liberation of many disabled people as fully included active citizens.


If the government is forced to continue to spend monies on people with impairments who are not disabled, and are prohibited from cracking down on benefit fraud because of an over-sensitive political environment, then it will have to look at finding the savings it needs to make in other ways.


This will mean it is focus on cuts, maybe hidden cuts, more likely to affect people with significant impairments, who do not currently have a genuine voice as they are excluded from current disability movement. This means while those who shouted will have got what they wanted, cold hard cash, it will be real disabled people that could suffer.


Another concern is that if the ‘rights without responsibilities’ benefits culture is allowed to win, it is going to increase frustration by taxpayers, with could add fuel to the eugenics movement, who can argue disabled people are unaffordable. This is again more likely to be affect people with significant impairments especially as the new disability movements reinforces the prejudices behind this.


So this is why I am so concerned at the implications of the so-called victories of this new disability movement, that ironically excludes disabled people.