The Creation Of Thatcher’s Dark Legacy
There is a tendency to overlook the reason why successive UK governments continue with their relentless political attacks on disability benefit claimants, reports Mo Stewart, whose critically acclaimed book Cash Not Care: The Planned Demolition of the UK Welfare State was published by New Generation Publishing in 2016, and exposed the inevitable public health crisis to be created by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
As we all celebrate the publication of John Pring’s new book, The Department, and reel at the disturbing content of it, it should be remembered that this government-induced persecution of those in greatest need was all predicted a very long time ago. For the past 15 years, I have been writing for the chronically ill and disabled community to identify for them via published research the planned public health crisis created by UK social policy reforms. It was my ambition to alert them to the preventable harm adopted by successive social policy reforms which had one goal in mind, which is the eventual demolition of the welfare state, identified long ago as being ‘Thatcher’s dark legacy’.
The adoption of neoliberal politics by Thatcher was the beginning of the end for the welfare state as, by definition, neoliberal politics is the ideology that supports free market competition with an emphasis on minimal state intervention. Previously confidential Cabinet minutes can make disturbing reading, with the Thatcher administration identifying in 1982 the ultimate political ambition to remove the welfare state, to be eventually replaced by income replacement health insurance similar to the system in the US.
Thatcher was a fan of the US President Ronald Reagan, who was president for most of her time in office, and one researcher identified him as being “Thatcher’s political soulmate”. The adoption by Blair of American social and labour market policies was the continuation of Thatcher’s ideology and her devotion to the American social security system.
The difficulty with this political ambition was that the welfare state was embedded within the public psyche, so removing the psychological security provided by the welfare state would take a long time. The Thatcher Cabinet recommended the adoption of ‘disability denial’ for successive social policies and the introduction of ‘the politics of fear’ which, clearly, has worked very well. This is why the chronically ill and disabled community live in fear of DWP disability benefit assessments, which were designed to create preventable harm to remove the past psychological security once provided by the UK welfare state.
Every administration since Thatcher has continued to work towards this political ambition, so don’t look to Labour to stop this relentless state persecution of those in greatest need because the past social security safety net has been removed, and Starmer’s team have no intention of reinstating it.
Let’s not forget that the press and media are co-conspirators in this relentless political attack against the chronically ill and disabled community. People like Iain Duncan Smith takes full advantage with his column in the Telegraph, where he continues to refer to disabled people “languishing on benefits”, seven years after he ceased his role as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, as he continues to promote ‘Thatcher’s dark legacy’. This is the man who doesn’t agree that those in greatest need don’t need to work, even though access to the DWP Support Group is identified following a brutal DWP assessment as being for those permanently unable to work due to poor health.
However, on this Labour no longer attempt to suggest there is any significant difference between their social policies and those of the Conservative Party. It is disturbing to witness Labour’s apparent support for the Centre for Social Justice, which is the right-leaning and very influential think-tank created by Iain Duncan Smith in 2004, who openly boasts that the Centre’s research is often adopted by the government to create social policies.
Indeed, when making a (disturbing) major policy speech in January 2023, the former Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Jonathan Ashworth, felt the need to make his speech at the Centre for Social Justice with, it seems, no comprehension of the message which that would send, as reported by the Disability News Service. Thankfully, Ashworth is no longer an MP having lost his seat in the July election, but it seems he has been appointed as the Chief Executive of Labour Together, a significant think-tank, so don’t anticipate any political support for disability benefit claimants any time soon. His support for the Centre for Social Justice has been continued by the Labour front bench, with Liz Kendall and Stephen Timms hosted by the Centre at the recent Labour Party conference, with claims that Iain Duncan Smith is now ‘consulting’ with Labour regarding future social policies. If true, this is disturbing, but where is the political objection?
With social policies adopted using a fiscal priority while disregarding health and wellbeing, every successive neoliberal administration since Thatcher demonstrated that they were ideologically motivated to destroy the UK’s lifeline of support. The chronically ill and disabled community who are unable to work were identified by successive neoliberal administrations as being an unacceptable financial burden on the state in order to stigmatise disability benefit claimants, and to successfully discredit the concept of the welfare state.
Evidence of psycho-coercion began, as political rhetoric replaced facts with fiction when creating a ‘climate of hostility’. Over time, the chronically ill and disabled community would suffer preventable harm, severe mental distress and financial hardship due to political ideology, which identified the need to remove this state financial burden and to persecute disabled claimants who make demands on social security funding – the embodiment of ‘Thatcher’s dark legacy’.
There is a tendency to overlook the fact that it was the Blair’s New Labour administrations that recommended that disability benefits should be made as difficult as possible to access, betraying millions of working class Britons who had voted for them, and the UK moved further towards becoming an authoritarian state influenced by right-leaning neoliberal politics.
Social policy reforms were supported by the two main political parties and were guided by American corporate advisers Unum Insurance since 1992. They influenced future UK social policies as demonstrated at the Labour government’s 2001 conference to examine Malingering and Illness Deception, which recommended that a bio-psychosocial assessment model should be used to identify ‘malingering’ claimants of disability benefits, which encouraged the future creation of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) adopted by the DWP to limit access to disability benefit. Unum Insurance continue to escape all accountability for recommendations which were adopted by successive UK administrations, and were destined to create the preventable harm of chronically ill and disabled service-users when unable to work, who are routinely identified by DWP ministers as being ‘economically inactive’.
Adopted by the Coalition administration in 2010, austerity measures added to the growing number of social policy reforms, highlighted when the Brown New Labour administration introduced the Employment and Support Allowance as the new long-term disability benefit, which condemned those in greatest need to endure the WCA, and guaranteed that the past psychological security of the UK welfare state would be successfully demolished, creating a public health crisis in its wake.
To distract attention from the predictable negative impact of the planned austerity measures, the Coalition administration put every effort into discrediting disability benefit claimants, with their derogatory comments guaranteed to be reproduced by the media. Continuing and enhancing ‘Thatcher’s dark legacy’, the past psychological security of the welfare state was transformed and continued by every successive administration.
Now that the purchase of private health insurance is increasing, it won’t be too much longer before ‘Thatcher’s dark legacy’ becomes a reality in the UK. Thatcher would be very impressed.
Cash Not Care is published by New Generation Publishing. For more information about the book visit: www.independentliving.co.uk/guest-blog/cash-not-care-reviewed/
Mo Stewart is the research lead for the Preventable Harm Project Website: www.mostewartresearch.co.uk
Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lccr/2865509591. Creator: The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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