• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Politics / Labour conference: Party ‘showed contempt for autistic members’ by ignoring manifesto
Three people behind a table, with microphones

Labour conference: Party ‘showed contempt for autistic members’ by ignoring manifesto

By John Pring on 30th September 2021 Category: Politics

Listen

Labour has been accused of showing “contempt” for autistic and other neurodivergent party members, after ignoring proposals they submitted as part of a policy development process.

A summary of the neurodiversity manifesto that was put together by members of Neurodivergent Labour was submitted to the party’s National Policy Forum, which has been consulting on new policies on social security, poverty and inequalities.

But the party conference in Brighton heard this week that not a word of the manifesto summary had been included in the National Policy Forum annual report (PDF), which was debated by conference this week.

The manifesto was drawn up by Neurodivergent Labour with the support of John McDonnell, Labour’s former shadow chancellor, who said at the last full party conference in 2019 that senior figures in the party had not done enough to take on the policies outlined in the manifesto.

The disabled activist and author Janine Booth, chair of Neurodivergent Labour, told the conference this week that despite neurodivergent people experiencing “discrimination, prejudice, social isolation and economic exclusion, made worse by Tory austerity”, there was “not a single word about neurodiversity” in more than 100 pages of policy in the report.

She said: “We submitted a comprehensive set of proposals that were widely supported, only to be ignored.”

Booth said that more than 200 party members and more than 100 constituency Labour parties around the country had signed a statement supporting these concerns.

The Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) union also raised concerns about the failure to include any of the proposals in the annual report.

Mick Carney, TSSA’s president, told the conference that the failure to mention the manifesto in the policy forum report was “a missed opportunity”.

Jonathan Farr, treasurer of Disability Labour, told Disability News Service later that the conference had paid “scant attention to disability in general”.

He said the manifesto was the second most popular online submission in the consultation on that part of the National Policy Forum process, “and yet not a single word of it went into the final document.

“How is that just or fair? If the Labour party actually cares about disabled people then they need to show that commitment by talking about all disabled people in their policy documents.”

Labour had not responded to a request to comment on the neurodiversity manifesto by noon today (Thursday).

Picture: John McDonnell (left) and Janine Booth (centre) at the 2019 fringe event

 

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: Autistic Janine Booth John McDonnell Labour Labour conference Neurodivergent Labour neurodiverse

Related

Anger as Starmer focuses again on ‘working people’ in major speech
18th May 2023
Tories and Labour silent on social care charging, a week before local elections
27th April 2023
Disability minister faces resignation calls after posting ‘dangerous’ and hostile video
27th April 2023

Primary Sidebar

Chichester Festival Theatre, Everyone’s Welcome

Access

Latest Stories

DWP hands hundreds of millions more to firms linked to claimant deaths… but not Atos

Review finds multiple agencies failed over Whorlton Hall abuse scandal

Regulator tells government’s access advisers to act on unlawful secrecy

Government breaks pledge to consult on improvements to housing adaptations

Broadcaster’s silence over ‘rabblerouser’ tweet on disability benefits

Met’s mental health emergency warning ‘risks creating serious harm’

Call for direct action protests to build support for ‘radical’ social care reform

Disabled mum took her own life after actions of DWP and Capita ‘magnified’ anxiety

Public inquiry on inaccessible footbridge will be ‘line in the sand’, say activists

Thousands of disabled people tell MPs: Cost-of-living crisis is affecting our health

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web