Starmer-Kendall disability benefit change is targeted war on people with mental health issues

New points structure is designed to deny support to those with mental illness or neurodivergence

The Starmer government’s new, intentionally harsher than the ‘consciously cruel’ Tories benefits regime, spearheaded by DWP Secretary Liz Kendall, has been described as a declaration of war on disabled and sick people that has already seen calls to suicide helplines rocket, as people already facing severe struggles and hardship realise what the ‘red Tory’ government intends for them.

The new regime is expected to cost disabled people and those with long-term illness around £5,000 a year as Kendall – who is still fighting to keep the full death toll caused by the Tories’ benefit policies secret – ramps up her ‘useless eater’ rhetoric describing benefit claimants as ‘unsustainable’ and demanding that everyone look for work or face sanctions, even if medical experts have declared them unfit – and even if they are hospitalised by their illness.

And in a particularly sinister development, one of Kendall’s changes will specifically target people with severe neurodivergence or mental illness, as it has been structured to ensure that they ‘fail’ the assessment that claimants must undergo in order to claim the vital ‘Personal Independence Payment’ (PIP) that provides vital extra support for those whose conditions mean they need additional support.

Under the new regime, people will only be eligible for PIP if they score at least four points in a single tested activity out of the minimum of eight points required for the basic PIP or twelve points for enhanced PIP – instead of the simple cumulative scoring process that had already been condemned for its harshness, distress and deaths it causes among disabled and ill people.

This specifically targets and discriminates against people with mental illness, who generally score fewer points across multiple areas, as consultant clinical psychologist Dr Jay Watts explained in a social media post:

Many mentally ill and neurodivergent people can do things, but only with support—reminders to eat (2pts), help structuring their day (2pts), or prompts to wash (2pts).

Under the current system, four two-point scores will qualify for the basic PIP support and six such scores would qualify for an enhanced PIP. Under the new Starmer-Kendall regime, neither will get a penny. As Dr Watts said:

It would be an absolute disaster.

She went on to explain the horrific impact that the loss of PIP would have on those affected:

Losing PIP isn’t just losing money—it’s losing the chance often to have a life. No support can mean no way to go out, get a job, study, or even have a hobby. Many will be trapped at home, struggling to survive. And long-term? This will cost more, pushing people into poverty.

This clearly, disproportionally targets mental illness and neurodivergence where folk generally score well above the new criteria but in a different pattern to many physical disabilities.

She expects the planned change will be overturned by a judicial review but this is far from certain, particularly with parts of the judiciary acting as an arm of the regime. As many have commented, the combination of Kendall’s war and rhetoric with Labour’s drive toward easy and unregulated so-called ‘assisted dying’ carried out for profit is a horrific one in which many sick and disabled people may opt to die rather than continue to face desperate poverty, social stigma and constant stress.

The Tories’ war on disabled people created a hostile environment in which almost half of disability claimants had attempted suicide as long ago as 2014 after just four years of Tory government, yet Labour has admitted, after Skwawkbox exposed it, that it did not even bother to conduct an impact assessment of the effect of its plans on its victims.

The Tories’ targeting of the poor and disabled led to the deaths of at least 330,000 people and was condemned by UN experts as a gross breach of human rights amounting to a ‘human catastrophe’. Starmer’s regime is increasingly using a nazi ‘useless eater’ narrative that sickness and disability benefit levels are ‘unsustainable’ and ‘spiralling’, even though numbers claiming them have not increased significantly in decades relative to population size.

Labour has also now been told by the UN to not only cease but reverse the war on vulnerable people. Instead it is pressing on with an intentionally murderous war on the most vulnerable while escalating handouts to billionaires and corporations.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said a decade ago that Labour would be ‘tougher than the Tories’ on benefit claimants – how typical of Keir Starmer that this is the only promise he has decided to keep.

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