'Welfare not warfare': Disabled people hold Downing Street protest over Spring Statement benefit cuts

Disabled people have urged the government to fund “welfare not warfare,” after the chancellor confirmed plans for benefits cuts alongside an uptick in defence spending at the Spring Statement.

Deaf and disabled people and their supporters took to Downing Street today ahead of the fiscal event to protest chancellor Rachel Reeves’ decision to double down on £4.8 billion of welfare cuts.

The suite of benefits reforms included tightening the eligibility criteria for the personal independence payment (PIP) and reducing the health element of universal credit.

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Reeves said the policies are intended to push disabled and unwell people into work and off benefits.

“More than 1,000 people qualify for personal independence payments every single day and one in eight young people are not in employment, education or training,” she told parliament.

“If we do nothing, that means we are writing off an entire generation. That cannot be right. It is a waste of their potential and it is a waste of their futures.”

At Wednesday’s (26 March) protest, advocates questioned this logic – instead warning that the “cruel” cuts will harm the most vulnerable.

 “Labour should be ashamed of their proposed cuts,” said Linda Burnip, co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC). “They will push disabled people into even greater poverty and destitution.

“Disabled people will not allow themselves to be made scapegoats for Robber Reeves’ cuts while millionaires remain untouched.”

MP John McDonnell – the former Labour shadow chancellor who was suspended from the party after voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap – also spoke at the protest.

“Disabled people are facing the biggest cuts to their benefits in a decade, causing immense harm,” he said. “Full support to DPAC which is standing up against this attack.”

Most of the cuts were announced last week; Big Issue has a full run down on the changes here. Reeves announced a fresh freeze on Wednesday with the universal credit health element set to be “cut by 50% and then frozen for new claimants”.

Banners at the protest read “Cuts kill”, “Cut war not welfare”, and “Welfare not warfare”. One woman was pictured holding a sign that said: “You are killing my mum to bomb someone’s son.”

Reeves has pledged to increase announce an extra £2.2bn in defence spending from April, citing a “changing world.”

“We have to move quickly in a changing word. And that starts with investment,” she said. “So I can today confirm that I will provide an additional £2.2bn for the Ministry of Defence next year – a further downpayment on our plans to deliver 2.5% of GDP.”

Reeves said the extra funding will mean the UK spends 2.36% of GDP on defence from next month, before this increases to 2.5% by 2027. The move is “essential for our national security”, she added.

But DPAC has called for “welfare not warfare”. Chris Nineham, from Stop the War Coalition said: “This budget means a drive to war abroad and a war against the most disadvantaged by society at home. It has to be challenged openly, energetically and on all fronts.”

The global insecurity wrought by Donald Trump’s election does call for increased military spending, said Big Issue founder John Bird – but society’s most vulnerable ought to be protected.

“Because of Putin and Trump, government is having to raid the poverty pot,” he wrote last week.

“The raiding of the social security pot will make victims of people who do not deserve such treatment while ‘encouraging’ those that seek an exit from dependence. Our job in this climate must be to protect those that could suffer, because such an exercise by a government driven on by an urgent need to cut costs will be clumsy.”

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