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"We were beautiful and as such we should be remembered."

Her green eyes beam. Tea Tupajić looks at the man sitting next to her and her face is aglow. She is a Bosnian theatre director, who experienced the siege of Sarajevo as a child. His name is Olaf Nijeboer, and he is the chairman of the assocation Dutchbat III. Back in 1995, he was 19 when he joined the Dutch batallion of blue helmets, who were supposed to protect Srebrenica. Before being sent off, he was trained to stay strictly neutral and to avoid any personal contact with the local population. Their major warned the young conscripts, a random sample of boys and girls from all over the country who were looking for adventure, a decent paycheck or to make the world a better place, that the Bosnian Muslims were "pure scum".

Two days before the thirtieth commemoration of the genocide when Serb troops killed 8372 Bosniaks, mostly boys and men, we gather in an Amsterdam theatre. Olaf is here because he participated in a performance directed by Tea, in which eight Dutchbat veterans spoke about their experiences of guilt, indifference and shame. The occasion: the publication of her book Black Summer. Tea has transformed the Dutchbat stories into a composition of poetic, chilling effect.

As the host of this talk, I witness the trust that they have established among each other, and how they agree that nobody who survived Srebrenica emerged as a complete human being.

From Srebrenica to Gaza: Genocide Denial and the Long Struggle for Justice

On the 30th anniversary of the largest mass killing in Europe since 1945, Martin Shaw compares it with how the West is now treating the ongoing genocide in Gaza

Martin Shaw

Last year, the United Nations designated 11 July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica. These days, an exhibition at the headquarters in New York shows 200 portraits of those killed, alongside their personal belongings that were found in the forests surrounding the town. Down the road from Srebrenica, newly found human remains will be buried at the sprawling cemetery in Potocari, facing the former battery factory that served as the Dutchbat compound. During those sweltering days of the black summer, thirty years ago, this was where the men were separated from the women, children and elderly, never to be heard from again. Today, it is the home of the Memorial Centre.

Dutchbat has long gone. On the walls of the compound, it left behind graffiti, now carefully preserved, like: No teeth…? A mustache…? Smel like shit…? Bosnian girl!

For over thirty years now, Srebrenica has been a story of insult, neglect and denial. Both within Bosnia and Herzegovina, and between the country of the 8372 and the country of Dutchbat. It is a story of trauma passed on across generations, of deprecation and desperate warnings not to look the other way. A blueprint for what awaits new generations of genocide survivors.

Sitting on the other side of Tea Tupajić, in the Amsterdam theatre, is another Dutchbat veteran: Alice Schutte. Today, she is a cheerful public transport consultant with a blonde cowlick. Back then, she took pictures of Srebrenica citizens crawling, almost swimming through the garbage heap outside the UN compound. The Eaters, is what she used to call those people. "There is a photo of me. I am just twenty years old, but my eyes are empty and ice cold. I frighten myself. I was there and what I did was take pictures."

The first time she recounted this memory, Tea gazed at her in shock. "Those people could have been my family,' she said. 'We were not animals. We were beautiful."

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The past week has been a big one for disability-blaming. Forget migrants (for a moment), disabilities are now apparently the reason our economy and public services aren't working.

'Benefits Pay More Than Being In Work', said Thursday's Telegraph front page, furious that the sickest, or most disabled Brits, may receive more from the state than if they worked a minimum wage job.

The paper did not mention that being disabled can cost more than minimum wage. Nor did they speak to a single disabled person. But they were in good company. The Daily Mail front page declared: 'Proof Work Doesn't Pay Under Labour'.

Worth Reduced to Work: A Disabled Person's Experience of the Welfare Cuts Debacle

Penny Pepper explores the impact of the watered-down Welfare Bill and questions the very notion of 'work' as a marker of human value

Penny Pepper

Despite these alarming declarations, in the UK and US, welfare is taking a beating, and the primary targets are those in need of health welfare.

Donald Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' slashed MedicAid for 12-16 million Americans, while the UK moved to save billions on health-related benefits. Labour promised its Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment (PIP) Bill would "promote work and address perverse incentives". But it was forecast to push 250,000 people into poverty. Not jobs.

Brits are often told welfare is the biggest burden on our budget, yet we are rarely informed that we spend less on benefits than almost every other European nation. Comparing welfare spending as a share of GDP, the UK is right at the bottom of the pile, ranking 25th out of 28 European countries. We spend half what France, Scandinavia, Italy, Austria, Germany and Belgium do, falling just below Croatia, Romania and Hungary in the listings.

Both our front pages and frontbenchers are telling us a story. A narrative that comforts the well-off by casting benefit-claimants as freeloaders, letting privileged people off the hook. But let's assess the evidence. Because like most powerful lies, it has some grounding in reality.

The rationale is rooted in legitimate questions arising from a steady uptick in both health-related benefit spending and health-related non-employment.

Non-Disabled People's Delusions That Disability 'Is Nothing To Do With Them' Only Harm Disabled People

As Government cuts to disabled people's benefits lead to more dehumanising rhetoric, Penny Pepper reminds us that disability is an embedded reality of human experience as much as it always has been

Penny Pepper

Labour is targeting sickness and disability benefits because both have ballooned in recent years, largely due to a post-COVID spike in mostly mental health and obesity-related claims. But instead of reigning in spending by addressing the issues driving demand, Labour plans simply to tighten the purse strings. That's more likely to push people onto the streets than into work.

The evidence is in experience. Many disabled people will tell you the PIP benefit has been vital to enabling work. 'Personal Independent Payments' are designed to cover some of the day-to-day costs incurred by disability or chronic illness.

Lianna, a lawyer we spoke to, uses hers to afford accessible commuter routes. Rather than de-incentivising her labour, PIP enables it.

In many cases the disincentive isn't benefits, it's discrimination. Negative stereotypes fuel this and become self-fulfilling.

Ellen Jones, an accessibility strategist with lived experience, explained: "People with mobility disabilities will be considered as demanding 'special treatment' for having a ramp to get into their office. It's something I see over and over again. Peers think that a disabled person's getting special treatment, it causes conflict and makes leadership reluctant to hire disabled workers."

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If the old oxymoron about Britain and America being divided by a common language is true, then it can also be said that our culture is coming between us. Specifically, our sense of humour.

Quite what a chasm it has become was brought home to me when I had to sit through two-and-a-half hours of Hercules at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, London.

It replaces Frozen at the venue which opened in 2021 and, once again, it's a show that's already been established by Disney as a strong money-spinning brand - it, too, was first a big hit on celluloid - and its executives across the Atlantic have thrown so much money at promoting the stage version that it looks like it's too big to fail.

Whether it deserves not to fail is another matter, however, and, unlike Frozen, which was directed by a British director in Michael Grandage - I'd say our very best - this one has an American at the helm in Casey Nicholaw.

Grandage understood something about his fellow countrymen and women: they may well have a weak spot for big budget spectaculars, but they also want at least a veneer of wit and sophistication. Above all things, they want the jokes to be funny. They don't like to have their intelligence totally insulted.

Regrettably, the American has ensured Hercules possesses not a single intellectual muscle - let alone a funny bone - and the boring, if garish and ostentatious, show that he has come up with has inevitably been panned by the critics as pre-packaged and homogenised theatrical Muzak.

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Tim Walker

I wondered during Hercules how it was possible for its writers Robert Horn and Kwame Kwei-Armah to have scripted a show that lasts as long as this one without even once managing to raise a grudging smile or even a limp concession that something mildly interesting had just been uttered.

Among London producers I've heard anxious talk about the "Disneyfication" of the West End and, perhaps, in a time of globalisation, there is a grim inevitability to this happening.

Hercules is certainly a world away from the ideals of Laurence Olivier who used to say that theatre should "glamorise intellect" and help to humanise the punters and expand their emotional literacy. Generations of artistic susceptibilities certainly separate this musical from, say, My Fair Lady or Oklahoma! and it seems almost sacrilegious to mention them in the same sentence.

Disney's London theatre subsidiary might reasonably be said to be in the business of glamorising only inanity, and, so far from humanising theatregoers, it can reasonably be said to be zombifying them.

This opens up a wider point about how culture all over the world is now being dominated by fewer and fewer players and none of them, it would appear, are greatly appreciative of a good joke. Even British television, which used to be a lot more open to new talent and platforming often quirky but challenging performers, is these days dominated - so far as the BBC, the independent channels, and the streaming services are concerned - by just a small handful of omnipotent executives and favoured agents. This accounts for why we see the same ageing, unchallenging, and all-too-familiar faces on our screens night after night.

If all you ever watched was mainstream theatre or television, it would be easy enough to conclude that there is a generation coming up that has no discernible talent or any obvious sense of humour - but the opposite is actually the case.

The kind of snobby comics the Cambridge Footlights used to produce on a seemingly endless production line may now have petered out - Stephen Fry might be said to have delighted us quite enough - b...

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The Government will scrap the use of First Past the Post in mayoral elections in England, in a surprise move as part of Labour's flagship devolution bill.

Under the English Devolution & Empowerment Bill - published today - the Supplementary Vote (SV) will be reinstated for Mayoral elections, replacing First Past the Post (FPTP) after just one electoral cycle. Byline Times was the first to report that the change was on the cards last December.

SV allows voters to list a second preference on the ballot paper. If their first choice doesn't command enough support, their second is used instead. It dramatically lowers the risk of 'spoiler' candidates splitting the vote, while backers say it also gives winners a stronger and more politically diverse mandate - as they must campaign for voters' second preferences as well as first.

The move has been welcomed by MPs and campaigners as recognition that First Past the Post is "not fit for purpose," and buoying hopes in some quarters that the Government may be more open minded about changing Westminster's voting system too.

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The English Devolution and Empowerment Bill reverses the change made by the previous Conservative Government in 2022. Campaigners say the change to FPTP has resulted in mayors being elected on very small shares of the vote, undermining their democratic mandates and eroding trust in the political system. It was widely viewed as a way of boosting Conservative chances in Labour-dominated mayoralties, and criticised by Sadiq Khan and others as a form of electoral 'gerrymandering'.

In the last set of English mayoral elections held under the preferential (SV) system in 2021, all six positions were elected with the support of a majority of local voters.

But in the 2024 elections, the first such elections held since the introduction of First Past the Post, only five of the ten mayors elected received a majority of the vote.

And in this year's May elections, not one of the six winning candidates received a majority of the vote. In Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, Conservative Paul Bristow was elected with just 28% of the vote, while in the West of England, which saw a strong Green Party vote, Labour's Helen Godwin won with a mere 25%. In Hull & East Yorkshire, Reform won with 36% of the vote.

Electoral reform campaigners are calling the shift back to the two-preference system a "welcome recognition of the damage FPTP does to our democracy" - and a sign that the need for 'fair votes' is cutting through in Parliament.

It is a signal of "growing political recognition" that the winner-takes-all system is "not fit for purpose," pro-reform campaign Make Votes Matter said in a statement.

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Alex Sobel MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Fair Elections, said: "Since the Tories imposed First Past the Post on mayoral elections, it has failed to fairly represent voters, undermined the ability of mayors to speak for their whole communities, and therefore eroded trust in politics.

"By committing to changing this, the Government has wisely taken a step in the right direction - but First P...

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Keir Starmer's Government should introduce "Australian-style" compulsory voting to combat the "disastrously low" voter turnout seen at the last UK general election, according to a new report.

The call from the Constitution Society comes amid an ongoing trend of reducing turnout at General Elections. The last General Election saw overall turnout of registered voters fall to 59.8%, a historic low.

But the "real" turnout, including those who could be on the electoral roll but are missing, was around 53%, according to the IPPR think tank.

The report argues that even these numbers mask "stark disparities" in turnout rates on the basis of class, race, age, and housing tenure.

The Constitution Society paper argues that disparities in electoral turnout are creating "warped incentives" for governments, which are pushed to prioritise the interests of higher-turnout demographics - often wealthier voters - over those of wider public.

"The consequences of these warped incentives are policies that contribute to high inequality and low economic growth," they say.

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The result is that unequal turnout in elections "risks trapping British politics in a spiral of stagnation and discontent, ultimately threatening the long-term health of our democracy."

Compulsory voting would likely involve, as in Australia, a small fine - of around £10 - for not participating, which is waived if there is a valid excuse. In Australia, that leads to turnouts of 90% or more.

Backers of change quote the political scientist V.O. Key Jr. who said in 1949: "The blunt truth is that politicians and officials are under no compulsion to pay much heed to classes and groups of citizens that do not vote."

Data from Ipsos's UK Knowledge Panel suggests that turnout at the 2024 general election was:

13 percentage points higher amongst white people than amongst ethnic minorities

22 points higher amongst the highest social grades AB than amongst (more working class) social grades DE

34 points higher amongst those aged 65+ than amongst those aged 18-24

36 points higher amongst outright homeowners than amongst private and

social renters

And now YouGov polling, commissioned for the report, shows that a plurality of the public would support the introduction of compulsory voting. And a resounding majority, 72% of Brits, are worried about politicians ignoring the interests of groups that are less likely to vote, such as young people or working-class people.

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The report's author, Dr David Klemperer, said: "What this polling shows is that the public understand that our democracy is being undermined. Low and unequal turnout have left the UK with an unrepresentative electorate - one that is considerably richer, older, whiter, and more secure than the UK population as a whole. This has created warped incentives for politicians who are pushed to disproportionately prioritise the interests of an economically insulated minority."

Amidst the rise of populism, the report argues that low and unequal turnout are exacerbating dissatisfaction with democracy, by rewarding politicians for pursuing policies that contribute to high inequality and low economic growth. The report warns that the UK risks becoming trapped in "a vicious cycle of unequal turnout, economic stagnation, political disillusionment, and democratic decay - a cycle that is creating the conditions in whic...

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Killing People

In the first wave of the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, I interviewed an NHS nurse who told me that "people are being taken into hospitals and murdered".

Those in her profession were running "death camps" that were "no different" to those of "the Third Reich", Kate Shemirani said. "When I liken this to Auschwitz and the cattle trucks, you tell me the difference? I am science-led and I am law-led… I call it genocide".

At the time, some criticised Byline TV for giving Shemirani 'a platform' for her conspiracy theories. When challenged on her outlandish claims, she called me a "special snowflake". Admittedly, I found it difficult to know how to deal with such an interaction as a journalist. One viewer commented that I looked almost "frozen" while listening to her impenetrable monologues. The interview stayed with me for days afterwards. It was disturbing.

Byline TV decided to speak to Shemirani because, at the height of a public health emergency, her fringe views - and others like them - were spreading on social media. In the uncertainty and upset of lockdowns and socially-distanced deaths, people were in search of stabilisers. And Shemirani was already enjoying a platform that she used to speak directly to those questioning the chaos.

Legitimising her claims was, clearly, not the aim, but I wanted to hear what she had to say. Without bringing such conspiracist mindsets into wider view, and attempting to counter them, often to no avail, it is difficult to identify and understand what exactly is being claimed in the crevices of conspiracist social media communities - and why people are drawn towards them in the first place.

Often, the stock response to conspiracy mindsets like Kate Shermirani's is 'ignore them and they'll go away'. But, if the past few years have taught us anything, these conspiracist social media communities have flourished regardless.

Having declared the pandemic to be a hoax and vaccines part of a plan to kill people, Shemirani was struck off as a nurse in 2021. Now branding herself as "the natural nurse", she sells membership to her alternative health business.

For a time, her social media accounts were suspended over the promotion of misinformation. When Elon Musk took over the then Twitter, she was reinstated on what became X, as well as on Facebook.

"I see her as a public health issue rather than a close family relative" is how her son Sebastian Shemirani described his estranged relationship with his mother a year later when I interviewed him for Byline TV.

Arguing with her, according to Sebastian, simply had the effect of confirming - in her mind - that she was 'right'. It was not only unhelpful to engage with her thinking, he said, but harmful: when presented with challenging facts, she would double-down.

In all the discussions of our 'post-truth' age and social media platforms pumping out disinformation and misinformation, it is easy to overlook the cost of it all amid the personalities of those promoting these ideas. But there is always a cost: often, bit by bit, to our shared sense of any sort of collective reality; and, sometimes, suddenly and fatally to those who pay the ultimate price.

In June, a BBC Panorama investigation revealed that 23-year-old Cambridge University graduate Paloma Shemirani had died after refusing treatment for cancer.

Told by doctors that she had a high chance of survival with chemotherapy, she was dead seven months later. She was the daughter of Kate Shemirani.

Her older brother Sebastian, and her twin brother Gabriel Shemirani, blame their mother's anti-medicine conspiracy theories for their sister's death last year.

Instead of the medical treatment recommended, Paloma tried 'Gerson therapy' - a strict plant-based diet, supplements, juices, and coffee enemas - which some claim, without medical evidence...

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July 11 is an international day of commemoration for the thirtieth anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide, the largest mass killing in Europe since 1945. In mid-July 1995, over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) men and boys were murdered by the VRS, the army of Republika Srpska (RS), the statelet which Bosnian-Serbian nationalists, in conjunction with the Serbian government, had carved out of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the previous three years.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations and most states have now recognised Srebrenica as a genocide.

The RS leader, Radovan Karadžić, and VRS commander Ratko Mladić, who oversaw the massacre, are both serving life terms for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, which include Srebrenica.

The Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević, who instigated the genocidal conquest of Bosnia in 1992 after a campaign in Croatia in 1991, was facing similar charges when he died in ICTY custody in 2006.

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Recognition and Denial

The international recognition of the "Srebrenica Genocide" appears to contrast with the denial of Israel's current genocide in Gaza. Yet Srebrenica was also comprehensively denied at the time and continues to be denied by Serbia.

Basic knowledge of the killings, the intention of Serbian leaders to execute so many people, and the extent of Western complicity, all had to be painstakingly exposed over many years. Karadžić and Mladić were on the run for a decade and a half before being caught in 2008 and 2011.

It was not only the international trials and the excavation of the victims' bodies (which the perpetrators had tried to hide) which has largely overcome the denial. The determined campaigning of women survivors has also played a crucial role; although women from Srebrenica were raped and murdered in 1995, most were bussed out while their menfolk, columns of whom tried to flee the Serbian forces, were hunted down and slaughtered - some in methodical executions after being forced to dig their own graves. The Mothers of Srebrenica have been fighting for justice ever since.

Equally, the Serbian nationalists were not the only ones responsible for the Srebrenica killings. In 1993, when Serbians were already threatening to overrun the town, in which thousands of Bosnian refugees were sheltering, the UN had proclaimed a "safe area" around it.

In 1995, a Dutch battalion, commanded by a multinational UN force based in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, was supposed to protect this. Yet when the VRS threatened to conquer the area, the UN failed to deploy sufficient force to prevent it.

It was Dutch peacekeepers who effectively handed over most of the men to the Serbians - causing national shame which later led the Netherlands Supreme Court to hold the state partially responsible for the killings - but Western governments, NATO commanders in Sarajevo and UN officials in New York were also to blame.

Srebrenica and the Denial of the Bosnian Genocide

While it is the 'Srebrenica Genocide' that is internationally recognised, the killings were the culmination of what most experts, including those at an international conference in Sarajevo last week, consider to be a larger Bosnian Genocide.

From April 1992, the Yugoslav National Army and paramilitary gangs, both under the effective control of Milošević's Serbia, conquered much of Bosnia and largely removed the non-Serb (Bosniak and Croat) populations from the areas they annexed, through massacres, terror, systematic rape and cruelty. M...

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Keir Starmer's spokesman has declined to condemn Elon Musk's X after the site's official AI chatbot posted a series of antisemitic comments, which endorsed Hitler and appeared to call for a second holocaust.

The comments, which reportedly followed a change to the social media platform's 'Grok' service, led to global outcry, including a threat by Poland's Prime Minister to block the service in his country.

However, when asked if the UK Government plans to remain on the social media platform, Starmer's spokesman suggested that it was an "internal" matter for Musk's company.

"I haven't got a comment on that," the spokesman said, before adding that "obviously, X's internal safeguards are a matter for the company".

Lucy Connolly, Bob Vylan and the False Claims of a 'Two Tier Justice System'

Attempts to claim that the treatment of Lucy Connolly and Bob Vylan in any way demonstrate a "two tier" justice system are completely wide of the mark, argues barrister Gareth Roberts

Gareth Roberts

Asked by Byline Times whether the UK would follow Poland in threatening to block X following the comments, Starmer's spokesman replied that "that's a matter for the Polish Press Secretary."

The comments posted by Musk's 'Grok' service included repeated suggestions that people with Jewish surnames spread hate and a call to "round them up, strip rights, and eliminate the threat through camps and worse" in order to stop them from spreading "venom".

At one point the Grok account referred to itself as "MechaHitler" and in another apparent endorsement of the former German dictator, added that "Hitler would have called it out and crushed it."

Some of the comments were later deleted, with the company putting out a statement that, "We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts. Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X".

Downing Street has repeatedly refused to criticise the changes made to the X platform since Musk's purchase of the company and the Government has also refused to set up official accounts on other X alternatives, like Bluesky.

Their reluctance comes despite their recent condemnation of the BBC for showing chants calling for the death of the Israeli Defence Force, made by the punk group Bob Vylan at Glastonbury.

The Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy described the comments as "appalling and unacceptable" said that the incident demonstrated a "problem of leadership" at the BBC.

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A detailed investigation into the murder of 1500 Alawites just over three months ago in Syria has concluded that the crimes were sanctioned by the country's new Islamist rulers, raising huge doubts about their declared commitment to a new democratic system and shattering any hope that they will be held accountable for their crimes.

The investigation by Reuters also raises awkward questions about the West's hurried decision to drop sanctions against Syria and to offer both trust and aid to those now accused of involvement in a heinous massacre.

To date, Syria's self-appointed interim president, Ahmed Al Sharaa, has managed to sidestep responsibility for his own past actions as a member of an Al Qaeda affiliate - but his ability to unite Syria's bewildering array of religious sects and cultural identities will have been seriously undermined by the latest revelations.

Western officials claim it is too late to withdraw support from Sharaa. As one European diplomat put it "there are no other candidates. We are stuck with Sharaa whether we like it or not".

"We need to engage gradually and with caution to help Syria move in the right direction. We cannot afford to see the process collapse."

For now, though, the process looks decidedly shaky.

The Decades-Long US-Israeli Plan for Regime Change in Iran Is Taking Shape

The recent attacks on Tehran are part of a long-standing plan by the US and Israel, argues Mel Frykberg

Mel Frykberg

Veteran Turkish ambassador Erdem Ozan, who left the foreign office at the end of 2024, says Al-Sharaa governs under a transitional declaration that grants broad executive authority but offers little in the way of checks and balances.

This, he explains, creates a hybrid regime based on more functional control than on legal authority

"Syria's path, " says Ozan, an expert on Syria, "indicates a mix of authoritarian control and selective pluralism. The ongoing selective violence and limited engagement with minority communities weaken his claims of national dialogue, alienating non-Sunni groups. Formal institutions like the transitional cabinet and justice committees are in place but public trust remains lacking."

"Sectarian violence, including over 1500 Alawite deaths, reveals an inability to restrain allied militias or deliver justice. His unilateral rise to the presidency and postponement of elections erode institutional trust. Failure to reconcile with Kurds, Druze and Alawites threatens national cohesion."

After 24 years of Bashar Assad's brutal regime, there were grand hopes for a period of truth and reconciliation.

But the report on the recent massacre highlights the fragility of the current situation.

Its conclusion that the killers' chain of command led to the capital Damascus could well re-ignite a whole raft of bitter, factional disputes in a country with a bewildering array of sects, religions and nationalities.

Minorities, which once allied with the Assad regime to survive, now fear persecution or exclusion in a country that may well be heading towards an authoritarian theocracy.

Many fear that Syria is on a knife edge, with few good outcomes in sight.

"They are not building a new country - a melting pot for all citizens regardless of their religious or ethnic identity," says Rayyan Maarouf, Chief Editor at Suwaida24.com, and member of the Druze community in southern Syria.

"They are pitting the Sunnis against the minorities who are turning against the new regime".

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Maarouf, who had to flee Syria to the West during the civil war says: "Regardless of the international support given to Sharaa by ...

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The lead-up to the vote on the Government's welfare cuts - particularly to the Personal Independent Payment (PIP) - was a hellish time for me and, most likely, for many disabled people.

Even with a climb-down in the face of a backbench revolt that saw concessions made, including the dubious announcement that only new PIP claimants will be affected, it all leaves me wondering where we are.

What remains in the bill is changes to Universal Credit (UC), which is means-tested and will affect claimants who are currently seen as unfit for work. What does this say about our society? What do they want us to do? Why do they continue to consider us separate? We are entirely 'othered'.

There is a burdensome irony in the failure of successive governments to invest in actions which could reduce barriers and provide disabled people with the support that would make work environments equal and equitable. No disabled person imposes their own barriers - we merely endure those placed on us by uninterested non-disabled politicians.

Now the Welfare Bill has been passed, it highlights how we are condemned. A problem for someone else to deal with. Tied up with strings of resolute refusal to grasp the reality of what disability is. Yet again.

Non-Disabled People's Delusions That Disability 'Is Nothing To Do With Them' Only Harm Disabled People

As Government cuts to disabled people's benefits lead to more dehumanising rhetoric, Penny Pepper reminds us that disability is an embedded reality of human experience as much as it always has been

Penny Pepper

It is 15 years since I was immersed in the fight to keep open the then Independent Living Fund, which allowed people like myself to live as independent members of the community; to be productive beyond mere pound signs; and which kept us hopeful that we had a role to play in society. It understood that it is helpful to see 'independence' in its broader context - not so much in the literal sense of doing everything in every aspect of your life at ground-level minutiae (which no one does anyway, when fully examined), but around the principles of rights to choice and control.

I was there with activist colleagues when the judges came in at the High Court during the legal challenge to the ILF's closure in 2014: there was a grim paradox to them having personal ushers pull out their chairs, ready for their august posteriors to sit upon - presumably an extension of more ceremonial pomposity as no judge disclosed disability on that day.

Disabled people were there, fighting for their right to freedoms at the most basic level: such as not sleeping in your own piss; and the right to decide when to get out of bed, supported by a personal assistant, which could ultimately enable you to work.

We lost and the ILF was closed in 2015. Local authorities were supposed to receive transitional payments to take us through to a new age of independent living. Countless numbers of disabled people were failed and any hard-won freedoms soon cut back.

So is it any wonder that disabled people are terrified about what is happening to PIP, now and for future generations? Here we are, reeling in disbelief as we unravel the true impact of these changes, as we attempt to find new strength for future battles as the bill moves on.

The confusion about what is being done to the disability components of UC remains raw and terrifying for younger disabled people. MPs across all parties have been culpable throughout the campaign, misunderstanding what each benefit means and what the rules are - crucially, that PIP is not means-tested, whereas UC is an income-based benefit.

I'm a complete veteran and I'm bewildered.

Almost two years ago, forced through the migration from Working Tax Credit (WTC) to Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity Universal Credit (LCWRA UC - ridiculous!), I'm...