The Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG) was for people considered to be "halfway" between unfit for work and fit for work. This group's largest segment consisted of people with mental and behavioral disorders, including those with mental distress, learning difficulties, and neurodivergence. People in this group often find it harder to get work than those with more severe physical disabilities. This may be because our conventional understanding of disability often takes physical impairments more seriously than hidden mental impairments.

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The modern disabled people's movement emerged from the Independent Living Movement, which began in Berkeley, California, in the 1970s. A group of disabled students fought to live alongside other students rather than being segregated in dorms. They established an independent living center to provide support and advice. A notable example of solidarity at the time was the movement's relationship with the Black Panthers.

The movement soon spread to Britain, where the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) was formed. The group's founder, Paul Hunt, wrote a letter to The Guardian to connect with other disabled people who felt disability was an oppression. They began to develop the idea of disability as oppression through hand-written newsletters. This was a radical concept for people who had internalized the idea of disability as a personal tragedy.

Vic Finkelstein, a South African anti-apartheid campaigner who had an impairment, played a key role in developing these ideas. He drew parallels between the oppression of disabled people and the oppression of Black people in South Africa.

Initially, UPIAS was dominated by people with physical impairments because disability services were structured to segregate people based on impairment type. The group's first major victory was to fight for the right of disabled people to live in the community rather than in institutions.

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Historically, disabled people were segregated in long-stay institutions, workhouses, and asylums that arose with the growth of capitalism. These institutions served to remove "unproductive" people from society, and they were rife with terrible abuses. The welfare settlement under Beveridge did not change this; he was a eugenicist who opposed disability benefits, believing in the "whip of starvation" to prevent "malingering."

The majority of disabled people at the time had no choice but to be institutionalized. Horrendous abuses, including neglect, sexual and physical abuse, and even murder, were common in these places. The fight to escape them was of paramount importance.

However, even as people moved from large institutions to smaller housing, the power dynamics between staff and disabled people often remained.

Ellen Clifford