As a disabled person
I've been reluctant over the years to cry the mantra of ‘Nazis’ against
Conservative governments. Yes, this government, and its Coalition predecessor, have
introduced a draconian punitive benefits’ system, particularly the Work
Capability Assessment for ESA and the PIP assessment; and such policies are
detrimental to disabled people as well as others.
However, in my mind
the Nazi comparison shows a degree of political naïveté and to some extent
laziness on the part of some of my Comrades in the disability movement.
Comrades, let’s get
it correct. The Conservatives are not Nazis. No, they are the Nasty Party. They
are free market neoliberalists. As we know this economic model pushes
deregulation of industry, commerce and financial services as far as it can; and
some would argue beyond.
The model also demands
the elimination of ‘big government’, in that they seek to remove the running of
public services from central and even local government. Cuts in public
expenditure and the take-over of public services, in a deregulated state, by
the private sector is the classic way neoliberalism works.
Increasingly the
services that administer our benefits system are being privatised. Our job
centres are being closed as more and more of their services are tendered out to
the private sector. Medical assessments for ESA and PIP are being carried out
by companies whose only obligation is the creaming off of profits at the
expense of fair and transparent ‘medical’ assessments.
As many inside and
outside of the disability movement are aware the current benefits assessments
have, and are, responsible for thousands of premature deaths. These deaths are
through suicide where people are so ground down by a system that totally disregards
human feelings. Some premature deaths are through the neglect that often
attends the cutting and removal of benefits and services.
The Bedroom Tax and
now Universal Credit are ratcheting-up poverty; and with poverty we get the associated
evils of debt, hunger and homelessness.
When we add to this
forced self-employment, ‘zero hour’ contracts, under-employment, below
inflation pay rises and no pay rises, we begin to see exactly how neoliberalism
works to impoverish and kill people.
Finally, before we
cry ‘Nazi’ at the next vicious and draconian policy brought in by this Conservative
government, think on. Every time we stand and call Tories Nazis we distance
ourselves from our natural allies.
Instead let’s
explain to people the corrosive and destructive nature of neoliberalism. Let’s
not let this government, and its vicious attacks on our benefits and services,
off by palming them off as Nazis. By doing this we merely sow confusion. By
confusing Nazism with neoliberalism, we allow the march of neoliberalism to
proceed unchecked.
