We are not a Burden: Disabled Activists’ Outcry Against Streeting’s Mental Health Policy

“The state should not be passing legislation to combat mental illness that will directly lead to suicide. This is not the way to face the crisis.”

By Mads Wainman

For decades, the disability community has overwhelmingly given support to the Labour Party, sometimes unwaveringly. However, this government has managed to isolate our community, removing key apparatus for support and perpetuating ableism throughout its policies. 

On the dawn of election day in July, there was a certain level of hope. With mental health included in the manifesto and Labour, at the time, having Foxcroft as a Shadow Minister for Disability, there’s no wonder that after 14 years of Tory austerity that the Labour Party offered hope. Upon becoming Health Secretary, Streeting has stated that he was ‘stunned’ by the repeated failings of the NHS which he had only recently discovered, which is a laughable sentiment to disabled people who have been the ones most impacted by these failings in the last 14 years. Still, it was somewhat of a relief to have a Health Secretary who saw these failings. The infrastructure for mental health support is non-existent and the crisis is developing at an alarming rate, and the acknowledgement that the government must take steps to tackle this was welcomed.

Despite that, the relief was short lived, with Streeting’s first few months in government seeing a repeated attack on disabled people. The announcement that Foxcroft would not become a government minister was met with outrage and disappointment, but this was just the beginning. There are so many policies that are going to damage the disabled community that I don’t have the space to name in this article, but the repeated introduction of ableist policies is a worrying trend, and the perception of those who are unable to work as ‘lazy’ is a myth that upholds many new aspects of Streeting’s agenda. 

The policies that are intended to ‘solve’ the mental health crisis are overwhelmingly from the perspective of the state and the economy, seeing those who are disabled due to mental illness as ‘attention seeking’ and a drain on the taxpayers money. This rhetoric is exceptionally damaging and reduces our lives, experiences and struggles to numbers and statistics, pounds and pence. Instead of cutting our services, they should tax big business and instead fund the state to a functional degree. Streeting has focused on getting unemployed mentally ill people back into work, despite the very minimal levels of support within the NHS and the workplace. The placement of employment advisors in hospitals for mentally ill patients is absolutely abhorrent. For someone to be so ill that they are hospitalised, regardless of this being mental or physical, they are in pain and must be met with compassion. This policy has been justified by the notion that a job will help maintain a routine and this will solve mental illness which is a total fabrication and is so far removed from the experiences of those living with a condition. 

The reality for the majority of people living in this country with a mental health condition is one that cannot be solved with a career, we need healthcare. We are pushing through the most difficult and unimaginable circumstances, and even if someone is unable to work, they deserve love, compassion and help. The state should not be passing legislation to combat mental illness that will directly lead to suicide. This is not the way to face the crisis. It is important to remind them that we are not a burden, we are people with lives and futures that deserve happiness, peace and recovery.

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• Mads Wainman is a history student at the University of Warwick and the Disabled Students’ Officer on the National Labour Students committee. You can follow her on Twitter/X.