Below we reproduce a speech made by Rebecca Yeo at the Day of Action organised by Disabled People Against the Cuts On July 18^th in London.

As the new government takes office, activists in both sectorsdemand an end to the hostile and disabling restrictions imposed on people seeking support from the welfare system and the immigration system.

We condemn how previous governments have targeted hostility and blame at disabled people and at migrants, including disabled people in the immigration system.

We condemn how previous governments have deliberately tried to divide us, to reduce resistance and to prevent people from seeking sanctuary and accessing essential services.

And we will resist any continuation of these policies.

In case anyone thinks what the previous government did is now irrelevant, Starmer has been at pains to stress that he’ll maintain many Tory policies. 

He called Sunak liberal on immigration. Rather than pledging to build safe migration routes or ensuring that people get the support needed in the immigration system, he commits to build stronger border controls to prevent people entering the UK to seek sanctuary.

And together with Rachel Reeves, he stresses that the Labour Party is the party of working people. It is clearly not the party of people in the asylum system who are forbidden from doing paid work. Nor is it the party of the many disabled people who are unable to do paid work.

It is so easy to despair. There are too many struggles. We are tired. We can’t take on all the examples of injustice.

But the restrictions imposed on disabled people and migrants, including disabled migrants, are not separate issues.

We have seen time and time again how restrictions imposed on people in the immigration system are gradually extended to the wider population, particularly of disabled people.

It was in 1999 under New Labour that people seeking asylum lost the right to access the welfare state.

Disabled people seeking asylum lost the right to any support that recognises the extra costs caused by disability.

We were told that people seeking asylum were a burden on the wider population.

And since then, similar restrictions have been brought to an ever wider population.

Last week Tony Blair reared his head again, this time advising the new government. According to him, people who are unable to work because of sickness or disability are now the burden – the ones to blame for the country’s problems.

We must come together. Lessons from one sector can help build stronger resistance and solidarity.

Last week the UK prisons watchdog described conditions in an immigration detention centre as the worst that he has ever seen.  Almost half of detainees spoke of suicidal intentions.

And Doctors of the World report that over 74% of people seeking asylum, housed at the Wethersfield camp, experience severe mental distress.

This isn’t the result of an unpredictable epidemic. This is the result of deliberategovernment policies

Disabled people have argued for decades that it is disabling to be denied services and support.

We demand immediate action to end disabling restrictions imposed on anybody whatever their migration status.

Conditions in the immigration system also highlight wider lessons.

Neither disability nor migration justice will be achieved through inclusion in business as usual.

We don’t need inclusive detention centres, we need to be rid of detention centres.

Apparently, the Israeli army has high rates of disability inclusion. There is nothing positive about inclusion in a genocidal agenda. If a system is unjust, it is not transformed by including disabled people.

We can only win in our struggles for justice, if we build solidarity, if we learn from each other and recognise our interconnected struggles.

We must not tolerate anybody being deliberately denied the right to meet human needs.

Human value is not dependent on economic productivity. No human is a burden – No human life is dispensable. Not now, not ever, not anywhere.

Together, we will build a world of solidarity not borders.

Rebecca Yeo is an activist with the Disability and Migration Network, which brings together disabled people’s organisations and migrant justice organisations. For further information about the Disability and Migration Network, see here. Rebecca Yeo is the author of the recently published free e-book Disabling Migration Controls: Shared Learning, Solidarity, and Collective Resistance (Routledge, 2024).