A force to be reckoned with

When Tory peer Lord Freud suggested in October that disabled people were not worth the minimum wage, the media, the political establishment and the public were all rightly shocked.

Lord Freud’s comments at a fringe meeting were eventually dismissed as “sloppy language”, to use the words of one Tory MP after the incident, and the peer kept his post without much fuss.

But if the coalition government’s policies regarding disabled people are anything to go by, Lord Freud’s comments aren’t just the off-handed remarks of a rogue Tory politician. Rather, they are reflective of a deeply ingrained political philosophy that counts the disabled as second-class citizens.

Since 2010, the disabled have faced attack after attack. The Independent Living Fund, which was set up to support the most severely disabled people, in effect helping them live independently, was scrapped by the government earlier this year.

The charity Contact a Family found that over 80 per cent of families with a disabled child were not able to afford the most basic necessities – 31 per cent have gone without food and another 33 per cent have gone without heating.

And since the implementation of Personal Independence Payments, which will phase out the Disability Living Allowance, hundreds of thousands have experienced severe delays in their benefits entitlements. After making a disaster of its work capability assessments, which deemed many very ill and disabled people “fit to work,” outsourcing company Atos unceremoniously pulled out of its government contract in March.

Indeed, it’s never been more difficult to be disabled in this country.

But an opportunity to dramatically change the fortunes of the disabled is within reach – and it’s in their own hands.

Operation Disabled Vote, a campaign launched last week by the Daily Mirror and VoteBooster, argues that disabled people have the power to decide the result of the upcoming general election.

The number of working-age voters with a disability totals about 6 million people, while their carers amount to an additional 6.5m voters. And there are collectively 11m people with a “limiting long-term illness, impairment or disability,” according to the Department of Work and Pensions.

In an election that promises to be one of the closest in history, groups of voters banding together have the potential to have their voices heard in an unprecedented way.

And for those who think voting doesn’t have an impact, consider pensioners – the group of people most likely to vote. In an era in which austerity measures have affected nearly every demographic group, pensioners have been almost entirely exempt from the coalition government’s vicious cuts.

“For too long, the disabled have not only been politically ignored, but they’ve been actively attacked,” said Unite national officer for equalities Siobhan Endean, who attended the Operation Disabled Vote launch last week. “The government’s own figures have shown that two-thirds of those affected by the bedroom tax were disabled. Disgracefully, many have died after being erroneously found ‘fit to work’—a ploy by the Coalition government to strip the disabled of their entitlements.”

Endean argued that the struggle disabled people face is the same struggle of disempowered people everywhere.

“The right to a dignified life without fear of poverty, homelessness and social injustice is a fight for us all to engage in,” she said. “This is a collective struggle.”

“Operation Disabled Vote shows that, if those with disabilities join together with other politically marginalised groups – the working poor, minority groups, and young people – their collective vote will make a difference,” Endean added. “It’s through voting that politicians sit up and listen, and come the general election this May, the disabled vote, 11m people strong, will be a force to be reckoned with.”

Still, especially among those with a disability, voting and voter registration can be particularly difficult – an obstacle discussed in Parliament last week.

In a report on voter engagement in the UK, the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform committee singled out the problems disabled people face while attempting to exercise their right to vote—from those struggling with a learning disability not being able to fill out a complicated registration form, to lack of wheelchair access at polling stations, to voting information not being readily available in sign language or braille.

Operation Disabled Vote, however, aims to make the voter registration process as easy as possible. To find out more about the campaign, visit its website here.