Inside Disability Activism’s Generational Divide

David Carlisle

So Dr Miro Griffiths has this new book coming out on August twenty seventh, twenty twenty six, called Youth, Disability, and Resistance. And, um, the findings are pretty stark when it comes to who actually gets a seat at the table in disability activism across the UK and Europe.

Harper Bennett

August twenty seventh. Wow, okay. And what is, er, what is Dr Griffiths finding?

David Carlisle

Well, young disabled campaigners are running into this walls of hostility and ageism from veterans in the movement. Like, literally being told they have to, to recite past victories and show reverence to history before their voices count today.

Harper Bennett

Recite past victories? Like an entrance exam just to fight for your own rights?

David Carlisle

Basically, yeah. And here is the big rift. In the survey, the vast majority, ninety per cent, of the young disabled people Dr Griffiths surveyed said it was vital that activism is explicitly intersectional. Meaning, you know, connecting disability rights directly to LGBTQ plus justice and racial justice.

Harper Bennett

Ninety percent! That is huge. But the older leadership wants single issue focus?

David Carlisle

Exactly. Older movement veterans are often sticking to single identity, single issue framing. They see intersectionality as a distraction rather than, well, the reality of how people live.

Harper Bennett

Ugh, that brings back memories. When I started Fresh Perspectives back in college, trying to pair disabled students with non disabled peers for creative arts projects, we got so much pushback from established advocacy groups. They, they literally told us we were diluting the core message because we were bringing in cultural and queer identity workshops alongside accessibility access. It was so frustrating feeling like you have to fit into a fifty year old mold or you are not doing real work.

David Carlisle

It is like gatekeeping the very door you are trying to open, right? If ninety percent of young campaigners see their identities as overlapping, forcing them into a single track just drives away the exact people who will carry the movement forward.

Harper Bennett

Precisely. And if veterans demand young people pay homage before listening to them, you end up with a complete generational freeze.

David Carlisle

Which leads directly into how institutions fail when accountability is demanded from the outside. There is unpublished Freedom of Information data about the Department for Work and Pensions, the DWP, and how they handle coroner inquests in England and Wales.

Harper Bennett

Wait, what did the Freedom of Information request reveal?

David Carlisle

Get this. In twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six, the DWP supported hundreds of multi agency internal reviews, including safeguarding reviews and domestic abuse death reviews. Yet when it came to coroner inquests across all of England and Wales, the DWP provided evidence to only twenty five inquests all year.

Harper Bennett

Twenty five? Out of hundreds of reviews into harm and deaths, they only gave evidence in twenty five formal inquests?

David Carlisle

Twenty five. That is it. Take the case of Krissi Hunt, a thirty one year old woman who tragically died by suicide in twenty twenty three. Her inquest explicitly concluded that DWP errors contributed to her mental health decline. But despite that, the coroner did not issue a Prevention of Future Deaths report, nor did they demand formal evidence from the DWP.

Harper Bennett

Thirty one years old. So even when a coroner explicitly finds that state errors contributed to a death, there is no automatic system requiring the department to step up and explain themselves or change policy?

David Carlisle

None at all. It just, um, it gets swept away. You know, navigating school boards and local authority bureaucracy with my two kids, I see a small version of this all the time. When systemic administrative mistakes happen, institutions will naturally default to silence. Unless a family puts their entire life on pause and shoulders immense emotional strain to force accountability, the system just closes ranks.

Harper Bennett

It puts the entire burden of proof and trauma on grieving families while the department stays completely silent in ninety five percent of cases.

David Carlisle

Exactly. If coroners do not compel evidence, the public never sees the pattern, and nothing changes.

David Carlisle

And that issue of top down power brings us to what is happening right now with Personal Independence Payment reforms, or PIP.

Harper Bennett

Ah, the PIP review. What is the latest there?

David Carlisle

Well, the Welsh Government has formally raised significant concerns with UK Minister Sir Stephen Timms. Deputy First Minister Sioned Williams stated clearly that the resulting level of co production has fallen well short of what disabled people in Wales have a right to expect.

Harper Bennett

Fallen well short of what disabled people have a right to expect. Wow. So Wales is openly rejecting how Westminster is handling this?

David Carlisle

They are. The UK government set up fifteen focus group workshops across the country in autumn twenty twenty six, calling it co production. But grassroots groups like DPAC Cymru and the Welsh Government are saying, look, paid focus groups where ministers keep absolute authority to accept or trash feedback is not co production. That is just basic consultation with a nice label.

Harper Bennett

Right! Real co production means sharing actual decision making power from step one, not asking for opinions on a draft you already wrote in Whitehall!

David Carlisle

That is the core conflict. Can genuine co production ever exist when central government retains unilateral power to write the final policy behind closed doors?

Harper Bennett

Sioned Williams is demanding an independent, disabled led review for a reason. Because if the sovereign power to accept or reject changes stays inside the walls of Whitehall, consultation is just performative listening.

David Carlisle

Whether it is young activists being told to wait their turn, coroners letting government departments off the hook, or policy reviews run on central government terms, the thread is the same. True inclusion requires actually sharing power, not just holding the microphone for a minute.

Harper Bennett

Spot on. Alright, good chat today, David.

David Carlisle

Talk soon, Harper.