THERE were heartbreaking scenes in Westminster yesterday as disabled people tearfully mourned the closure of the independent living fund (ILF).

Members of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) left hundreds of copies of a petition at Downing Street after it had been signed by over 27,000 supporters of the ILF.

They then marched with their supporters along Whitehall, to lay a wreath reading “RIP ILF” outside the House of Commons.

DPAC campaigners fought for years against the closure of the fund.

Almost choking up DPAC member John Kelly told the Star: “I suppose, over the last week, the realisation that no-one is actually listening to us has impacted on us all.

“It’s pretty hard today, it’s pretty emotional.

“We need to fight, we need to be louder, and we’ll do anything we can to be louder.”

Mr Kelly added that people across Britain needed to join the fight: “The big thing here is about empathy. Disabled people don’t want sympathy, disabled people want human rights.

“This is about supporting us and saying the kind of society we want to live in is one where we all work and live together, not one where we are segregated and put into little boxes.

“When we come together, we are a pretty big group and actually we are the majority, we are not the minority anymore.

“What’s really important is that people join us and be part of it, because it is about everyone. It is not just about the disabled.

“Independent living, the majority of people don’t really think of it because it’s already there, you’ve got it. It’s not until it’s been taken away that you realise just how important it is.”

Explaining why he came dressed as Schimmel, the horse from socialist play The Threepenny Opera, Mr Kelly said: “Riding this horse today is kind of the end of my dignity.

“It’s a symbol, really, that we are going to fight.

“This is our battle horse and we will keep fighting.”

Green Party welfare spokesman Jonathan Bartley and Labour MP John McDonnell also came to the protest against the end of the ILF.

Mr McDonnell congratulated those who had fought so hard against the scrapping of the fund, saying: “We may well not have saved the ILF, but actually what we’ve done was give courage and determination and inspiration for the next campaign.

“They think we are just going to disappear — we are not.”

In their words

Tahara Azam
ILF claimamant

The ILF has been meeting the cost of having personal assistants (PAs) to support me in my own home with everyday living things such as getting up in the morning, going to the toilet and then going out for the day.

If I’m doing some voluntary work then they do go with me, getting involved in the local community, getting involved with my family, getting involved with my friends.

Now the government has decided to give the local authorities this money.

Local authorities are cash-strapped already — where is that money coming from?

I don’t want to rely on family and friends, I am independent and my PAs provide that independence.

I employ six people. Those six people are off the dole queue and those six people are paying their taxes.

If they decide to put me into residential care, that costs twice, three times as much.

So where’s the benefit to anybody, where’s the benefit to the Treasury?

Melissa Ridley
Her carer

The reason I do this job rather than working in a care home is so I can help people so they are able to stay in their own homes.

I’ve been doing care for 12 years but I don’t want to go back to a nursing home because for me it’s a conveyor belt — there’s no independence.

You’ve got to go to the toilet when they say you have to go to the toilet, you have to get out of bed when they say you have to get out of bed.

They say you get choice but you don’t.

I love my job and I love working with Tahara, she’s a lovely lady.