The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe

The UK government has been found guilty of violating the rights of disabled people, and the situation has worsened since 2016 due to punitive welfare regimes, the removal of support, and an ideological regime that seeks to deny disability. Ellen Clifford's book reveals how the government has marginalized disabled people with near-impunity, but the fightback has begun with a vibrant movement of activists and their supporters determined to hold the government to account.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 384 pages
Publication date: 05 May 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Winner of the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing Award 2021, a United Nations report in 2016 found the UK government culpable for 'grave and systematic violations of disabled peoples rights.' Since then, driven by the Tory government's obsessive drive to slash public spending while scapegoating the most disadvantaged in society, the situation for disabled people in Britain has continued to deteriorate. Punitive welfare regimes, the removal of essential support and services, and an ideological regime that seeks to deny disability have resulted in a situation described by the UN as a 'human catastrophe.' In this searing account, Ellen Clifford, an activist who has been at the heart of resistance against the war on disabled people, reveals precisely how and why this state of affairs has come about. From spineless political opposition to self-interested disability charities, right-wing ideological myopia to the media demonization of benefits claimants, a shocking picture emerges of how the government of the fifth-richest country in the world has been able to marginalize disabled people with near-impunity. Even so, and despite austerity biting ever deeper, the fightback has begun, with a vibrant movement of disabled activists and their supporters determined to hold the government to account – the slogan 'Nothing About Us Without Us has never been so apt.' As this book so powerfully demonstrates, if Britain is to stand any chance of being a just and equitable society, their battle is one we should all be fighting.

Weight: 490g
Dimension: 216 x 139 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350348165