The problem with writing a book about history as it still happens is that you’re always acutely aware that parts of your book will be out of date by the time it gets published. There were only five months in between me finishing writing Ramping Up Rights and it getting released, but in that time so much happened with the fight against benefits cuts that I could write a whole new book.
On the day the House of Commons voted for the assisted dying bill in November 2024, I was deep in writing about the conservative and then Labour governments of the 1990s and how they had strategically used the press to turn the public against disabled people so that they could make harsh benefit changes. Reading Peter Lilley’s “I’ve got a little list” speech from the 1992 Tory conference, as MPs voted on a bill that would make it legal to kill my community, really put into perspective how thorough a job successive governments and the media had done to convince the public that disabled people are burdens.
The bill went through, thanks in part to a lot of support from campaigns such as Dignity in Dying, which is worth millions of pounds and was able to take our pervasive propaganda ads on the tubes. Disabled ran campaigns, such as Not Dead Yet UK, couldn’t compete with that. Disabled people also fought for our right to be represented in the committee.
While the Assisted Dying Bill has felt very rushed through on the whole, the committee took the biscuit on the way it not only blasted through evidence but also attempted to exclude opposing voices, particularly from Disabled People. It was only thanks to backlash orchestrated by disabled people that voices such as Fazilet Hadi from Disability Rights UK were able to publicly, in front of the committee, voice their concerns on what the Bill would mean for disabled people who could be coerced or feel like a burden to the point they would end their own lives.
Jump to February and March 2025, and I finally handed the finished, final checked version of my book in – and then Liz Kendall announced the biggest cuts to disability benefits we’ve ever seen. The Labour-run DWP wanted to change eligibility for PIP so you only qualified if you got 4 points in a single activity, something many didn’t get. They also planned to move eligibility for disabled out-of-work benefits from Universal Credit to PIP, which is much harder to claim than UC.
Thankfully, disabled people were there to loudly oppose the cuts and effect change. Alongside groups like Disabled People Against Cuts who primarily focus on in-person protest, newer groups sprang up which combined both in-person and online. Crips Against Cuts originally started in Portsmouth and spread across the UK. The week after Kendall announced the cuts in March, Crips Against Cuts held protests right across the UK. Their actions continued with regular protests in cities including London, Newcastle, Manchester, Glasgow and Sheffield.
Crips Against Cuts also realised that many disabled people who wanted to be involved couldn’t safely attend an in-person protest, so they streamed their protests when possible. This is something The Canary kicked off doing in March, with an online protest via Twitter happening alongside the DPAC protest on the day of the Spring Statement, which I helped to coordinate. This protest in person saw disabled activists from groups such as DPAC, Greater Manchester Coalition, BRIL and Inclusion London march from Whitehall to parliament.
In Crips Against protests such as Leeds, they had asked protestors to bring a pair of shoes to represent those who couldn’t attend, and they also pinned up messages gathered from those unable to protest in person. Mine read “you should care about disabled people not because you could become us, but because we are PEOPLE”.
Another great way that Crips Against Cuts involved those who couldn’t attend in-person protests was by holding online protests with speakers and actions for those involved to take. In one such protest, members of Crips Against Cuts Remote took down the DWP server for an hour in an action known as “comment bombing” where everyone sent feedback at the exact same time.
Disability Rebellion is another group which made activism accessible for those who can’t protest in person. Alongside in-person actions, they held mass online protests across Twitter and Instagram and continue to do so today every time there is a big disabled led in person protest.
While these actions were great in galvanising disabled people, it was clear that the general public was still being fooled by the lies that the government and media were spreading about disabled benefits claimants. This is why in May 2025, I, along with other disabled people in the public eye, including Cherylee Houston, Lisa Hamilton and Natalie Amber, founded Taking The PIP.
Originally, it was just supposed to be an open letter signed by over 130 disabled people in the public eye, including Rosie Jones, Jack Thorne, Lee Ridley and many more, calling on the government to stop the cuts. However, the campaign gained huge popularity and was widely covered by the media, so we realised that we had a real opportunity to make the public understand what disabled people were facing. We created a whole campaign around the letter.
The aim of the campaign was to get MPs to oppose the cuts, so we created a tool which allowed people to quickly and easily email their MP and demand just that. Hundreds of people did so as well, constantly posting on social media, and supporting other actions which we signposted as a calendar on our site. A huge reason these campaigns were successful was that disabled people worked together; no one group was left to strike out alone. Even online hashtags such as #DisabilityRebellion #WelfareNotWarfare #TakingThePip and #CripsAgainstCuts were used in tandem to promote solidarity.
The day before the MPs debated and voted on the bill, there was a huge vigil on Speakers Corner attended by hundreds of disabled people from many different disabled people’s organisations. Alongside it, members of Crips Against Cuts threw red paint over themselves to symbolise the blood Starmer would have on his hands. The work of all of these groups coming together and mobilising people to put pressure on their MPs led to the Labour rebellion, which saw over 100 MPs go against the whip and pledge to vote against the cuts.
This rebellion meant PIP was completely removed from the Bill; however, Universal Credit cuts were unfortunately still sneaked through. The condition of PIP not being cut was that a full review had to be undertaken; disabled organisations are monitoring this situation and doing all they can to ensure it is co-produced.
What the collective actions taken this year to stop benefit cuts show is that, despite the government and media’s best attempts to tear disabled people down, we will never stop fighting for all of our rights.