My life in austerity Britain

Speaking from her own personal experience disability rights activist and actor Liz Carr (pictured left) told Sunday’s (September 25) Real Britain fringe about what it’s real like to have disabilities in today’s austerity Britain. She said:

For many people in austerity Britain being disabled means being hated. It means being stigmatised, it means being demonised as a drain on the state. It means being labelled as fraudsters and work shy.

It’s about being segregated and excluded and oppressed and discriminated against. It’s about being forgotten and derided and abused and sanctioned and attacked and killed. And cut and rationed. And starved and homeless and hungry and fearful and terrified.

And alone and isolated and abandoned. And denied resources. And silenced and rendered invisible. And having to jump through hoops to prove your worth. Devalued and subject to vicious attacks by both individuals and the state.

It’s about being inhuman, about being seen as useless and as the undeserving poor. That’s the reality of disabled people in today’s world.

That’s not just disabled people, it happens to every other oppressed group struggling to survive in austerity Britain.