Disabled People Against Cuts demo in March 2025 (Pic: Guy Smallman)
Reform UK wants to cut Personal Independent Payments (Pip) for nearly 3 million people.
Pip is a benefit designed to help disabled people with the extra costs of living associated with their conditions. Millions of working class people rely on it.
Lily uses her Pip to get to her job, which is far away but more accessible than other workplaces. “I am independent because of my Pip,” she told Socialist Worker.
But the far right party has called Pip “suicidal empathy” and plans to gut Pip for working-age people.
Under their plans, only people with the most “severe” disabilities would get cash benefits. Reform says the rest will get “employment support” and therapy.
The far right party also wants to kick migrants off benefits including Universal Credit, Pip and child benefits.
They say that Pip keeps people from work—that isn’t true. It helps disabled people work.
Lily said, “If I didn’t have Pip and I was having to work somewhere closer but without the same accessibility, I wouldn’t be able to work the number of hours that I do.”
Pip also helps her get accessibility tools such as ear defenders.
Reform says that Pip costs too much, but Lily says, “It is not a lot of money”. And Pip isn’t as easy to get on as politicians make out, Lily told Socialist Worker the process of applying for the benefits was “humiliating”.
“It took me an entire afternoon and I ended up crying. You get to the point where you feel like you’re begging the government for money. It’s really dehumanising.”
“It takes a lot of effort to even be considered. They don’t see your lowest moments. They don’t know you. They are only looking at a form that you hand in.”
Cutting Pip for working age people will result in disabled people being unable to get to work. This will mean more money being spent on unemployment benefits—and more pressure on mental health services.
Lily said “If I didn’t have the freedom and the independence from my Pip, I think my mental health would decline.
“It would have more negative outcomes on services than it would positive because of the money saved.”
Lily hit out at Reform UK for targeting workers and not the rich. “We are considered scroungers when the top 50 richest families in Britain hold more wealth than the poorest half of the population,” she said.
“We know that Britain is not a poor country. We have a lot of money. We are a very rich country. While there are people in parliament who are having their free lunches, there are people who are literally having to scrape together pennies to be able to access life.”
Reform UK voters will be affected by this too.
Last year a report by anti-poverty charity Trussell Trust showed that many constituencies that could go to the far right party at the next election have a high rate of people claiming disability benefits.
About 18 percent of adults in Nigel Farage’s own constituency, Clacton, are claiming Pip, much higher than the rate for Britain as a whole.
Farage won’t go after the rich—they’re the ones paying him.
Lily pointed out that disability is an issue that affects everybody. It is one of the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.
“It’s one of the few that anybody could become a part of at any time,” she said.
“When you get elderly, you become disabled. When you’re no longer able to walk up your own stairs, when you lose your hearing, when you start to lose your vision, you become disabled.”
We have to resist Reform UK’s racist and ableist scapegoating.
Migrants and disabled people aren’t the problem, it’s rich people like Reform’s advisor “Posh George” Cottrell who the government should go after—not workers.
Dominion Society is building links with Restore Britain
Demos will be held across Britain
