Many disabled people are horrified at the proposed changes to benefits but, for some, street protests are unrealistic. How are they getting their voices heard?
Kaliya Franklin sometimes wishes that she were campaigning to save the forests. "It's easy to campaign on trees because all we have to do is look at them and we can all agree that they are something really valuable for our future," she says.
Instead, she is fighting government cuts to disability benefits, an area that doesn't have the same universal appeal. Franklin and her colleague Rhydian F�n James, through the website The Broken of Britain, are mounting an angry online battle to prevent proposed cuts to disability living allowance (DLA) and reforms to a range of other sickness and disability-related benefits.
She recognises that this is an issue that will never unite the UK with the same swift, cross-party outrage that the short-lived forests policy triggered. "Because of the complexity of the system, it's a much harder battle before you can get people to agree that actually this is something they want to fight to keep," Franklin says in an interview at the organisation's headquarters ? a beanbag and a computer in the sitting room of her flat in Hoylake, the Wirral.
Over the past nine months, their site has attracted a rapidly growing following. Franklin and F�n James use videos posted on YouTube, blogs and Twitter to explain the consequences of the reforms being pushed through by the coalition, often highlighting serious concerns weeks before the big disability charities move into action. Their Twitter following, while still small, takes opinions swiftly to the desks of MPs and media organisations with an immediacy that would have been impossible a few years ago.
Franklin regards the powerful tuition fee protest marches that took place last autumn with a similar wistfulness. Although other disability groups are organising a march outside the Houses of Parliament on May 11, which Franklin and F�n James will not be able to attend, organisers will struggle to mount a protest on the scale of the student marches, she predicts, partly because of the practical logistics, and partly because the cost of travelling to London will be beyond the budget of many people on benefits.
Fear factor
"If you have �300 to spare, you are much more likely to be saving up for a piece of specialist equipment," Franklin says. "Some disabled people can, and do, attend protests, of course. But a great many are too ill or too disabled to do that," F�n James adds, in an emailed conversation. "There are the practical issues ? affording the transport, arranging care workers, toilets, advance planning. There is also, for many, a fear factor ? what if [someone from the] Department for Work and Pensions sees you at a protest?" Many fear that if they are seen attending a protest, then that will contribute to a perception among jobcentre officials that being able to march shows they are similarly fit for work.
He and Franklin have turned instead to the internet to provide an alternative forum for protest. "Because Twitter is so concise, like text messages, it means that if you are not able to concentrate for a long period of time, you can still participate in a forum, contact other disabled people and the media. It is a massive leveller that enables disabled people to participate in the same way as everyone else," Franklin says.
The Broken of Britain was founded after the chancellor announced in last June's emergency budget that 20% would be cut from the DLA caseload and expenditure. The name nods towards David Cameron's vision of a "broken Britain". Franklin, who founded the organisation, spent just a few pounds on domain name registration. Before the arrival of broadband, it would have been very difficult to mount such a noisy campaign from her own flat, she says.
"We can't do protest marches and were rather fed up that we weren't getting heard," F�n James says. He accepts that there are limitations to online campaigning, adding: "There are over 3 million DLA claimants ? think of the impact a march of even 1 million would create. But the Broken of Britain isn't there to take over from protest marches and direct action by disabled people ? only to complement it and suggest that there is another way to protest as well."
Franklin's personal website, Benefit Scrounging Scum, has been running since 2007. Franklin and F�n James have never met in person, but made contact after reading each other's blogs. Franklin's ability to travel extensively is constrained by her disability (she has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a disorder that means, among other things, her joints are prone to sudden dislocation). F�n James is based in north Wales; he has Friedreich's ataxia, a disease that causes progressive damage to the nervous system, and has used a wheelchair since he was 16. Since a physical meeting is not practical, the two are in regular contact through Skype.
Online campaigning is a powerful medium and the two are excited about the new possibilities it offers. The Broken of Britain site allows people to meet up "with no accessibility issues, for free, contributing at their own pace," F�n James says. "We make extensive use of blogging and social networking to rally support. Ten years ago, a campaign like this would have required such a lot of organisation as to be unrealistic for many ill and disabled people."
In the short term, the group is helping to rally opposition to what it sees as "anti-disability" provisions within the welfare reform bill, such as the 12-month time limit for some employment and support allowance claimants, which will mean that an ESA claimant with a working spouse or partner would lose entitlement to the benefit after a year.
"All major [political] parties feel the pressure to bow to tabloid pressure on 'scroungers'. We see our long-term aim as being the voice of disabled people, fighting these political myths through pressure, lobbying and research," F�n James says. Franklin explains that they object to the direction of reform, rather than the notion of reform generally. "None of us are opposed to welfare reform. What we are saying is that if you are to reform the system, we don't think blaming the claimant is a sensible idea," she says. "At the same time we are trying to change the perception of disability among the public in general. It is not all wheelchairs and white sticks. Everybody is a life-changing event away from being chronically sick or disabled. These are everybody's benefits for the future."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/23/disability-protests-benefit-cuts-remote-offensive
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