The Resilience of the Disabled Lobby

The highly controversial Welfare Reform Bill was debated and voted on again this week. The Government may have won but the hard fight, resilience and absolute chutzpah shown by the disability community is something to be written about on how to mount a class protest, action and activism by galvanising critical mass.

 'A PR Win for the Government but An Actual Win for Disabled People' is how Sue March, a campaigner on silent disabilities, described the process in her blog. People with disabilities have been pilloried and made fun of (thanks to rotten Ricky Gervais recently), disability hate crime is on the increase and, personally, I am fed up of non-disabled people pulling certain faces that mock the disabled because they think it is funny. It is not!

Collectively this lobby has raised their profile and fought their corner. Why was this fight so important?

'People are looking to us to ameliorate the worst excesses of this welfare reform bill. Though it has some very sensible and progressive things at its core, in the shape of the universal credit, nevertheless it goes too far to most people's consciences in the way in which it takes vital support away from some of the most needy in our society,' said Lord Low of Dalston, Vice-President of the RNIB who read his speech from braille and who, himself, receives the disability living allowance.