Conservative candidate tells disabled voters: the social model of disability is ‘wokeness gone mad’

A Conservative election candidate was booed by an astonished audience of disabled activists yesterday when he dismissed the social model of disability as “discredited” and “wokeness gone mad”.

Charles Fifield, a disabled former councillor and chartered surveyor, was speaking to the first national disability hustings event, in Manchester, just two days before tomorrow’s general election.

The hustings, organised by DPO Forum England and hosted by Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People at People’s History Museum, featured three disabled parliamentary candidates and a disabled peer.

As well as Fifield, Vicky Foxcroft, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people; Baroness [Sal] Brinton, former president of the Liberal Democrats; and the Green Party’s disability spokesperson Mags Lewis, who is standing in Leicester East, all answered questions from disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) and disabled voters.

Fifield, standing tomorrow in Mid Cheshire, had mostly kept close to his party’s general election manifesto during the hustings, while attempting to suggest that the government’s much-criticised Disability Action Plan – dismissed by DPOs as “weak”, “grudging” and even “pitiful” – was a sound basis for addressing widespread breaches of disabled people’s rights.

But minutes before the end of the hustings, candidates were asked whether they committed to the social model of disability, which argues that it is the barriers in society – rather than people’s impairments – that cause the disability and oppression disabled people face.

The other three panellists offered their support to the social model, but Fifield told the audience in Manchester, and about 100 people watching and listening online: “No, I don’t agree with the social model of disability.

“I think it is as discredited as critical race theory*.

“It creates a gap that can never be reduced and eliminated because we have lots of different disabilities and what works for one doesn’t work for another.

“I think it is wokeness gone mad.”

Foxcroft, who is standing tomorrow in Lewisham North, told the audience she was “a bit in shock” after hearing Fifield’s response, and she said: “It’s definitely not woke to support the social model of disability, and the Labour Party is absolutely committed to that.”

One of those watching online said they were “disgusted” by Fifield’s responses, including his comments about the social model, while another said that calling the social model “woke” was “disgraceful”.

A third person who had been watching online said: “I am ASTOUNDED by the Conservative’s words,” while another added: “Yes, astounded.”

Disability News Service asked the Conservative party whether it supported Fifield’s views on the social model, but it had failed to respond by 11am today (Wednesday).

For most of the hustings, the panellists had mirrored their party’s election manifestos.

They were asked questions on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; disability poverty; the social care funding crisis; deinstitutionalisation and segregation of disabled people; accessible housing; inclusive education; enforcing the Equality Act; and co-production.

They were also asked about the need for a human rights-based social security system; whether the next government would “upskill” Deaf and disabled people to allow them to deliver their own services (asked by the British Deaf Association); and their support for recent government consultations.

Asked what the Liberal Democrats would do to move towards a humane, rights-based social security system, Baroness Brinton said there needed to be “a major culture change inside the DWP”.

She said: “It almost doesn’t matter which government is in power, there is something about the culture that has absolutely got to change, and I do hope that the next government takes that on.”

Foxcroft said: “You know it, we know it, it needs fixing and that’s the reason why I’m absolutely committed to working with disabled people’s organisations to make sure that we get this right.”

She said the work capability assessment was “inhumane”, that “many people don’t get their decision right the first time”, and that some claimants “are going for reassessments time and time again when they don’t necessarily need to be because their condition isn’t going to improve”.

Lewis, for the Greens, said: “I think the system is bureaucratic, it’s expensive, it’s not fit for purpose.

“I think we’ve all given so much feedback on what needs to happen and how the system needs to be changed and how it could be tweaked and made better.

“So all that needs to happen now is action and it needs to be changed.”

But when Fifield was asked what the Conservatives would do, he pointed instead to the government’s Disability Action Plan, which does not mention the social security system.

He told the audience that “the way forward is the Disability Action Plan… and I hope that the next government, whichever rosette it wears, will pick that up and take it forward because I think it is a good way forward”.

On housing, Baroness Brinton said it was a “disgrace” that the government had failed to implement the recommendation from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry that all owners and managers of high-rise residential buildings should be forced to prepare a personal emergency evacuation plan for disabled residents who might find it difficult to self-evacuate.

And although the measure was not in her party’s election manifesto, she called for new laws to ensure that all new homes are built to stricter accessible housing standards, with a proportion built to be wheelchair-accessible.

Foxcroft and Lewis also backed raising the minimum standards, even though Labour and the Greens also failed to include the measure in their manifestos.

Asked what their parties would do to make it easier for disabled people to enforce the Equality Act, Foxcroft criticised the cuts to funding faced by the Equality and Human Rights Commission under successive Conservative-led governments.

But she also promised that a Labour government would publish an equality impact assessment of all major policy announcements, and “restore enforcement” of the Equality Act “by working with disabled people… to make sure that we get this right”.

Lewis said she was “personally angry” as a disabled activist that when service-providers discriminate against her “they know I’m not going to take them to court, I’m too exhausted, or I haven’t got the funds, so they can just get away with things”.

She said: “I think that lack of enforcement has to change, and has to be addressed, and Green MPs would be able to push for that.”

Asked whether their parties would work with disabled people and DPOs to co-produce policy, Foxcroft said Labour had “already been working on plans together to make sure that we deliver this if we’re lucky enough to form the next government” and that co-production was “absolutely key to me to getting things right”.

She added: “And we know that it will take some time to rebuild capacity in [DPOs], but it’s absolutely imperative that we do this.”

Lewis said disabled people “must be at the table” but she also said they were “not a free resource” and that she was “sick to death” of the attitude that they do not need to be paid “when you would expect to pay any other professional who has that kind of expertise”.

Fifield said that “when you’ve got a good range of disabled people with a range of disabilities in a room, [then] you can discuss things and you can actually come up with better solutions”.

At the end of the hustings, Rick Burgess, from GMCDP, told the panellists: “Over the last decade and a half, we’ve had two United Nations reports that have found grave and systemic human rights abuses of disabled people.

“We still face institutionalisation, poverty and avoidable deaths.

“We have a chance to turn this decline around, to regain and extend our rights and remove the disabling barriers in our society, so the next time the UN report comes around, the UK will no longer be notorious for its abuse of disabled people.

“We are ready for this challenge. Will the next government work with us to make an inclusive and non-disabling society a reality?

“Whoever that government may be, we’re ready. We hope you are. We’re not taking no for an answer.”

*Critical race theory argues that systemic racism is part of American society and that it is “embedded in laws, policies and institutions”

Picture: (From left to right) Vicky Foxcroft, Mags Lewis, Charles Fifield and Baroness Brinton

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