• 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 / Activism and Campaigning / New alliance ‘will hold political parties to account’

New alliance ‘will hold political parties to account’

By John Pring on 7th November 2014 Category: Activism and Campaigning, News Archive, Politics

Listen

newslatestLeading figures in the self-advocacy movement hope that a new campaigning alliance will help to hold political parties and the government to account in the run-up to the next election.

Learning Disability Alliance England will be launched in Manchester later this month.

It says it will be the first “effective” alliance that brings together organisations run by and for people with learning difficulties.

Crucially, the way LDAE has been set up means that people with learning difficulties have a veto over its decisions, and cannot be outvoted by people without learning difficulties.

It plans to fill the campaigning void left by charities that its members believe are now afraid to express their opposition to damaging government disability policies, because of measures introduced through the coalition’s new Lobbying Act.

The alliance aims to review all government policies that affect people with learning difficulties; challenge “bad laws and policies”; and encourage people to vote in next May’s general election.

It also plans to award each political party a mark out of 10 for its policies in the run-up to the election.

Gary Bourlet, co-development lead for People First England, and a veteran of the self-advocacy movement, said the alliance would “help fight against injustice and create a loud, strong voice”.

He hopes it will campaign in the run-up to the general election against cuts in learning difficulty services and social security, “making sure that people with learning difficulties maintain their human rights and civil rights, keeping the Human Rights Act intact”, and “making sure self-advocacy groups are well funded by the government but still keeping their independence”.

Other areas he wants it to focus on include: “closing all types of institutions and asylums”, accessible housing and independent living, disability hate crime, an end to benefit sanctions, legal aid, increasing the number of people with learning difficulties in employment, promoting the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and carrying out “quality checking” of central government and local authorities by people with learning difficulties.

Self-advocate Simon Cramp added: “We need to use this new alliance – LDA England – to create a new power base. We have talent that money can’t buy.

“We need to change the political landscape; use this new voice; write to select committees; speak at events and make our voice heard; challenge political parties to produce manifestos that are clear and accessible and get laws changed.”

Wendy Perez, another self-advocate who played a part in setting up LDAE, said: “There are lots of the people who claim to help; but they don’t.

“They just follow the easy options – they don’t look outside the box. They meet their targets; but they are not really helping.

“To change this we have to be leaders; we have to speak out and say what we want; we have to be trouble-makers; we have to go to the top; we have to threaten them; we have to follow our dreams and not give up.”

The alliance started with four main groups: the National Forum of People with Learning Disabilities, which represents self-advocacy groups; the National Valuing Families Forum; the Association for Real Change, representing 150 service-providers; and the Housing and Support Alliance, which represents 150 service- and housing-providers.

But now another 90 organisations and more than 1,200 individuals have also joined the campaign.

Dr Simon Duffy, director of The Centre for Welfare Reform and acting coordinator of the campaign, said the alliance “gives everyone the chance to join together and it can help everyone be braver in challenging injustice”.

He said: “We have never seen things go backwards so fast.

“In the past we could rely on the media, big charities and academics to challenge bad policies.

“But today this seems to be a big problem and many good people are now too nervous to speak out.”

5 November 2014

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: learning difficulties Learning Disability learning disability alliance people first england self-advocacy

Related

‘Shocking’ figures on deaths of people with learning difficulties ‘show need for vaccine action’
19th November 2020
Victims of inpatient restraint and seclusion describe ‘inhumane’ care
22nd October 2020
Charity pays thousands to settle job discrimination claim by disabled campaigner
13th August 2020

Primary Sidebar

Access

Latest Stories

New figures on COVID deaths of younger disabled people ‘show need for vaccine action’

Atos pays out for negligent PIP assessment after visit from debt enforcement officers

Budget’s double blow to disabled people

Treasury rejects delivery of last-ditch appeals for £20 uplift

Anger over disability survey’s ‘degrading’ and ‘insulting’ relationship question

DWP brands DNS ‘vexatious’ for seeking truth about impact of universal credit

Government questioned over ‘unforgivable’ failures on vaccine priority

Regulator fails to record key details from scheme sending COVID patients into care homes

‘Why did it take disabled man’s death to lead to rail safety action?’ campaigners ask

Ministers silent after sitting on report on discrimination in politics for more than a year

Advice and Information

DWP: The case for the prosecution

Readspeaker

Footer

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

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

Copyright © 2021 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web