Disabled election candidates: Independent John Urquhart

As – probably – the only disabled person to have founded a UK political party, John Urquhart* can speak from a position of strength when it comes to the disability policies they would prioritise if their party came to power.

Their Harmony Party UK’s disability policies are entirely decided by disabled party members.

Thanks to complex problems with a former officer, Harmony has had to de-register and register again as a political party, but this has not come in time for candidates to stand at next month’s general election.

Instead, Urquhart (pictured), the radical socialist party’s founder and general secretary, will be standing as an independent socialist in Cardiff West on 4 July.

Their party, which probably has about 200 members and makes decisions and policy through a series of democratic assemblies, would introduce this structure across the country if it won power.

This would include an assembly of disabled people, which would be able to demand policy changes from the government if its members believed disabled people were being unfairly disadvantaged.

Their party would also set up a disability justice court to enforce those demands if they were ignored by the government.

Urquhart said: “No other active party that I’m aware of was founded by a disabled person.

“I know for a fact no other political party can even claim to be entirely led on disability issues by disabled people, but that’s true for us.”

Another key policy would be the introduction of a National Care Service that would be integrated with the National Health Service (NHS), but – they said – with “no private services sapping off resources” from the NHS.

Urquhart describes the current government’s record on disability as “diabolical”, with a series of “seamlessly spiteful” policies over the last 14 years of Conservative-led governments.

They believe that disabled people “represent a potentially dangerous political bloc” but have been deliberately marginalised by successive governments.

They insist they have “no interest personally” in standing at the election, but they have done so “because someone from my constituency needs to stand up for the people here”.

Urquhart grew up on a council estate, and lives with chronic pain, chronic fatigue and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (cPTSD).

Asked for an incident that politicised them as a disabled person, they said: “When I was a kid, a teacher said I was not allowed to go to the toilet to take painkillers because other kids would ‘take advantage’ and go to the toilet more often. I was about 11.

“I was already politicised but honestly this infuriated me and I still think about it regularly even now, aged 40.”

They said: “I worked a variety of jobs as a young adult; all of them incredibly painful.

“I worked because I was told to and thought people would hate me if I didn’t.

“Eventually, I learned how ridiculous that was, but only after my cPTSD made absolutely definitely sure I didn’t have a choice about the ‘not working’ thing.

“Much of my life I’ve been gainfully unemployed, donating labour to other people’s projects in various ways, and sometimes my own.

“Often, that was online, because a big chunk of the middle part of my life was housebound.”

As for the access barriers they have faced, they said: “I’m not even sure I know where to begin on those barriers; just imagine fences around everything and a twisted fate of being unable to jump them and you’ve got the idea.”

Asked how they would appeal to other disabled people to vote for them, they said: “Harmony was founded by disabled people. No other party was.

“Our entire ethos – nothing about you without you – is rooted in disability activism.”

Comparing today with 2010, when the Conservatives came to power, they said the last 14 years had seen “a decline in quality of provision of almost all services for disabled people”.

And, they said, there had been an increase in the “targeting of disabled people with hatred and abuse in the streets – and discrimination everywhere else”.

They said: “At the same time, thanks to Covid, the number of disabled people is steadily increasing.

“It’s not hard to see why we’re hearing the word ‘euthanasia’ so much more often, and it’s not difficult to understand why people are being left on benefits, languishing until death in far too many cases.

“We are a growing bloc in this country – and we could be a powerful one, if we can only find our way to understanding that each of us can only find liberation in liberating other people.”

*This is part of a pre-election series of articles that will give some of the disabled people standing as candidates at the general election a chance to describe why they wanted to stand, how they became politicised, and the kind of barriers they have faced as disabled people. The aim is to raise the profile of some of those disabled people seeking elected office. DNS will analyse party manifesto commitments separately

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