Unite the Union Condemning the Cuts to Disability Benefits

At the Unite Policy Conference on Tuesday, Phil Blundell, who is Vice-Chair of the Unite North West Disabled Members Committee, moved the motion condemning the Labour Government's attack on disability benefits.

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Here is Phil's powerful speech to the Policy Conference:

Chair, comrades, fellow advocates

Today, this conference stands united in condemning the continued erosion of support for disabled people and those living with long-term health conditions. The very people who should be able to trust their government to uphold their dignity are being abandoned - again.

Phil Blundell, moving the motion Condemning the Cuts to Disability Benefits

This time, the pain is not only a lingering consequence of 14 years of austerity under the Conservative government. It is being compounded by the current Labour administration, whose policies are increasingly indistinguishable from the harm we thought we’d voted to end.

Under the current Secretary of State, Liz Kendall, we are seeing proposals that would institutionalise a two-tier welfare system one in which the able-bodied of today - are given the illusion of security while disabled people are quietly sold short. With means-testing being tightened and access to financial support eroded, this system is designed not to protect the vulnerable but to ensure that as little as possible falls on those best placed to contribute their fair share.

Let’s be honest about what this means:

• It’s a calculated strategy to divide the population into the “deserving” and the “discarded.”

• It’s a vision of society where disability is treated not with compassion, but with suspicion.

• And it’s being driven by a government so far removed from lived experience that it sees balance sheets before human needs.

Nothing About Us Without US!

Nothing about us without us. That’s not just a slogan - it’s a principle. One that demands the voices of disabled people be central to decision-making, not marginalised by bureaucracy or economic ideology.

We’re not just witnessing policy shifts - we’re staring down Austerity Mark II. And at least when the Tories came for us, they named us. What we face now is austerity by stealth. It’s being repackaged in softer tones, sold through consultation processes, and buried in language that hides the cruelty behind the cuts.

Nothing about us without us. Yet these policies are developed in rooms we are not welcome in. The consultation processes are often tokenistic, the lived experience disregarded.

And so to the Labour leadership: Keir Starmer, and your storm troopers in Westminster—take note. Heed our warning. When you come for the disabled and vulnerable, Unite the Union will call you out. We will not stand idly by. We have a voice - and we will use it.

We will say it loud and proud: Nothing about us without us.

Conference, we call on this movement to speak with one voice:

• Demand the immediate reversal of cuts to disability benefits.

• Reject the creation of any two-tier welfare system that pits citizens against each other.

• Push for a system built on dignity, inclusion, and lived experience - not just spreadsheets and political expedience.

Phil Blundell, Vice-Chair of the Unite North West Region Disabled Members Committee

Nothing about us without us. That means inclusion in every layer of policy-making - from legislation to implementation, from budget to oversight.

Let us remind the government, whichever colour it wears, that disabled people are not expendable. They are citizens with rights, value, and voices - and today, we speak those truths loud and clear.

Nothing about us without us.

Nothing about us without us.

Thank you.

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Unite Stands Up for Disabled People.pdf

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