Voices of the hardest hit

Ian Macrae

Disabled people from among the thousands who took part in The Hardest Hit demonstration have been telling Disability Now why they marched.

Jaspal Dhani, Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Disabled People’s Council (UKDPC) said that cuts being made under government welfare reform proposals would have far reaching effects.

“I know that if Disability Living Allowance (DLA) was cut tomorrow, I’d not be able to afford to travel. Losing DLA would mean I’d lose my car. Losing my car would mean I’d lose my job and that would mean that my family would be put at risk.

“The situation is becoming so dire that disabled people’s lives are being put at risk.”

He went on to speak of the possibility of further actions in future.

“If this doesn’t have some kind of impact then we’ll return to the streets with bigger and better marches. We’ll encourage people to take action locally too.”

Estimates put the number of marchers at around five thousand.

One of the speakers at a rally before the march was Chair of Inclusion London Kirsten Hearn. Reflecting afterwards on the significance of the march, she told Disability Now: “It is the largest gathering of deaf and disabled people together in many years. We are angry and we showed it!”

Of her own motivation for marching she said: “I wanted to be with my deaf and disabled sisters and brothers engaged together in an act of solidarity that shows disabled people as strong and resisting rather than passively submissive. I wanted to counter that negative stereotype of the beleaguered benighted afflicted crips!”

Asked whether the march would have any impact on the Government she said: “What will make a difference is the conversations that deaf and disabled people had with their MPs. At least when MPs vote on cuts they will have met and connected in some way with someone who is going to be directly affected. Anything that brakes the stranglehold of the stereotype of disabled benefit scrounger can only help.”

Disabled Labour MP and Chair of the Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions, Dame Anne Begg also spoke at the rally and attended the march. She too said that she believed that the mass lobby of MPs by disabled people would be likely to have lasting value.

“I suspect that the most effective part of the day was the lobbying of individual MPs by the people who attended."

MPs do listen to their constituents and so that face-to-face meeting is very important and will go much further in persuading government MPs that what the Government is proposing is wrong. It is much harder for an MP to dismiss the views of a constituent when they are telling them about their real life experience."