Hundreds protest against Labour’s savage Spring Statement cuts

Disabled People Against Cuts (Dpac) protest against the Spring Statement (Photo: Guy Smallman)

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Westminster in central London on Wednesday in opposition to the government’s class war on us all.

Disabled people and their supporters raged against the vicious cuts to welfare benefits as chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered the government’s spring statement.

Mark Dunk from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) told the crowd, “Keir Starmer said he has the balls to make benefit cuts, we’ve got some balls for him. If they keep cutting, we’ll keep fighting.” Chants of “balls to the budget” rang out across Whitehall.

Protesters blocked traffic as they marched to parliament to join another protest called by Homes for All to demand action to tackle the housing crisis.

The government is cutting welfare and public sector jobs while planning to increase funding for war and weapons.

Protester Jen, who is autistic and has an autistic son, said, “Every government comes for disabled people. I can’t get my head around how they can take from the disabled and give money for warfare. Disabled people can’t give any more.”

She told Socialist Worker, “The cuts will penalise kids as they go through school. There’s already not enough Send (special educational needs or disability) provision for disabled children. So many kids are falling through the gaps. You’ve got to invest in kids and the disabled.”

Kira told Socialist Worker, “The government is targeting the poorest—literally the most vulnerable groups out there—and leaving the rich alone.

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“Half of the arms spending is going to Israel to slaughter innocent people, while they are cutting spending for disabled people trying to get about and live their lives.

“I have only just been able to get housing and I have to carry my wheelchair up the stairs. That’s what the council provided me. It was either that or live in a hotel. It’s all the same struggle—disability, housing and war.”

John was there with a banner from Lewisham Stop the War Coalition. He told Socialist Worker the cuts are a “political choice”, adding, “Real security comes from housing, education, the NHS—these are the things that keep us secure.

John said Starmer has his priorities wrong, but that he wasn’t surprised by Labour’s choices. “He is prolonging the war in Ukraine when we need a peaceful resolution. Anyone who commits money to the war in Ukraine, you would expect them to make these budget decisions.”

Sarah Kilpatrick from the NEU union told the rally, “In 2010 I was my father’s carer. I remember sitting with him watching Parliament TV as Iain Duncan Smith was talking. He looked at me and said, ‘It’s gonna get really bad now darling’. He was dead three years later.

“He was utterly failed by a system that does not care. There is no way that my Dad would have thought that the Labour Party would bring us here.

“And yet here we are outside Downing Street while they debate what our lives are worth. I’m disgusted with the Labour Party.”

Actor Lisa Hammond said, “I am sad and angry and frightened for my community with these cuts. It will drive us further into poverty, ill health and despair.”

She slammed the government’s rhetoric of helping get people into work. “Believing in us and incentivising us to get into work by cutting essential lifeline benefits will not magic up a new reality. It will not remove the barriers of the public transport system or reduce waiting times or create secure, accessible, flexible working opportunities for disabled people.”

Housing activist Molly Doyle said, “I’ve seen how the crisis in housing impacts with particular harshness on disabled people and their families. Time and again private developers pull back their initial commitments on the number of accessible housing units they are going to provide.

“It’s unbearable to think of the hundreds, possibly thousands of disabled people trapped in their inaccessible homes.”

She added, “Let us not forget the disproportionate numbers of disabled and vulnerable people who lost their lives in the Grenfell fire.

“I also bring a message of warning to this movement. Sadly, far too often I have heard that refugees and migrants are to blame for the housing crisis. Successive governments and Reform UK have happily fed this lie to smokescreen and divert from their attacks on ordinary people.

“I understand that people want something different but Reform UK cannot be this.”

The protesters were joined by a small number of MPs including independents Jeremy Corbyn and Adnan Hussain, John McDonnell and Brian Leishman from Labour and the Green Party’s Carla Denyer.

Ellen Morrison-Smith from Dpac told the crowd, “This is not about reform. Let’s be absolutely clear. This is about cuts that cost lives. We didn’t vote for this. We are angry, we are organised and we are not going away.”