Greens show contrast with other major parties on disability cuts and refusal to stir up hostility to claimants

The Green Party is set to continue to contrast its policy approach on disability with other political parties by supporting disabled people who rely on benefits and have already experienced years of austerity cuts.

The newly-elected leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Zach Polanski, told members at their annual conference in Bournemouth (pictured) that the party would fight for the many disabled people “who have found themselves at the sharp end of brutal government cuts”.

His speech was focused on reducing the cost-of-living and addressing “rip-off Britain”, demanding more from “the very wealthiest”, tackling climate breakdown, attacking the “alarm bells of authoritarianism” within the Labour government, supporting the NHS and community cohesion, protecting “rights” and “liberties” through a “politics of hope”, and supporting migrants.

But there was almost no mention of how the party would fulfil these pledges, other than a repeated emphasis on wealth taxes, although its general election manifesto last year pledged a five per cent increase in the level of disability benefits, free personal care for adults, and more money to support disabled children in mainstream schools.

The difference in emphasis from the Liberal Democrat conference – where party leader Ed Davey spoke in an interview of targeting disability benefit fraud – and particularly the Labour, Reform and Conservative party conferences (see separate story), was clear.

There were no attacks on disabled people claiming benefits in Polanksi’s speech, and no calls for cuts to spending on supporting disabled people, or complaints about the “over-diagnosis” of mental distress or neurodivergence.

Instead, he said his party would fight for hard-pressed families, renters who live in “shoddy accommodation” and are wary of further rent increases, and “thousands and thousands of disabled people in the UK who have found themselves at the sharp end of brutal government cuts”.

In his speech, Polanski mentioned meeting a disabled man and his carer while knocking on doors with another Green politician, and how they spoke about “how hard everything is and how it just didn’t feel like a single person was representing them”.

Despite his words, there was still no clear picture of what Polanski and the Green Party would do to change that, other than “focusing day-in, day-out on the cost of living”.

One of the party’s co-deputy leaders, Rachel Millward, had told the conference of her experience of physical impairment and associated “horrendous” pain in her 20s, when she had a blue parking badge and an adapted vehicle.

But she said: “Far worse than that was the pain of separation from my community and from nature.

“Conference, please let us always make it a priority to find ways to give people with disabilities much better access to both.”

The contrast with the four main UK-wide parties continued this week, when the Green Party’s other co-deputy leader, Mothin Ali, attacked the “divisiveness and hatred” of the Conservative party and its announcements at its conference in Manchester this week (see separate story).

He said: “The package so far – turbo-charged welfare cuts, draconian anti-migration measures, and axing life-saving foreign aid – would leave few but the wealthiest unscathed.

“These measures are a cruel attack on the sick and disabled, migrants and asylum-seekers, and some of the poorest communities in the world.”

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