Brits seem apathetic towards Labour's disability benefit cuts. Where has all the empathy gone?

Once more, Britain faces welfare cuts. This time, it’s disability benefits that are on the chopping block. Eligibility for personal independence payments (PIP) will be tightened and incapacity benefits under universal credit will be frozen. Think tanks and charities have warned that these reforms will disproportionately affect the poorest with a million standing to lose vital income support.

The proposed cuts follow more than a decade of crippling austerity that has hollowed out public services beyond recognition. They also come hot on the heels of earlier refusals to reverse damaging policies that were put in place by the previous government, most notably the two-child cap on benefits. Evidence is mounting that this cap on payments has increased child poverty, and that scrapping it would be the surest way to reduce child poverty.

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Yet, justified by the need to balance the books and grounded in an unwillingness to tax – and thereby antagonise – the rich, it’s again those at the bottom of the pecking order that are forced to tighten their belts. Hope that the Labour government would end years of devastating clawbacks in vital government support for the country’s most vulnerable has now all-but evaporated.

However, what is perhaps most striking is not that these cuts are happening, but that they take place with such little resistance. Instead of a public outcry, there’s a sense of resignation: a collective shrugging of shoulders at their deemed necessity, at the supposed lack of alternatives. Years of cutbacks and repeated messaging have normalised the idea that welfare spending is an ill-afforded luxury and that those who receive it must prove their worth.

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Contrast this with the public outrage at the lack of free school meals in the holidays during the Covid pandemic. A petition by footballer Marcus Rashford collected a quarter of a million signatures within days. Then-PM Boris Johnson took it upon himself to personally pick up the phone and inform Rashford of the government’s change of tack.

This time round, the country seems to suffer a collective sense of apathy. Britain’s poor and vulnerable, and especially those with long-term health issues, have become the sacrificial lamb, forfeiting their lives and wellbeing so the rest of us – and especially the rich – don’t have to. There have been loud and impassioned pleas by anti-poverty campaigners, disability and mental health charities, unions and some of Labour’s own MPs to denounce the proposed plans. The public, however, appears mostly silent.

So where has the empathy gone?

Greater stress and anxiety for all serves as one explanation for lack of compassion. Higher food and energy bills, longer NHS waiting times, fewer secure employment options: everyone is feeling the squeeze. For the first time, the current generation won’t be better off than those who went before. Precarity has become a more realistic prospect for many more. This anxiety-inducing socioeconomic insecurity reduces people’s ability and willingness to connect with others’ suffering and feel compelled to do something about it.

The second reason isn’t so much about an empathy deficit, but rather about the dark side of empathy. We are far more likely to connect with those similar to us, or members of our ‘in group’, than we are with members of the ‘out group’. And acting in the interest of ‘us’ often comes at the expense of ‘them’.

In this case, the ‘us’ are working people. Explanations for changes to the disability and incapacity benefit are peppered with statements about how the current system isn’t fair for those who work and that the shakeup will ‘get Britain working’. While most will agree with the need for reform, such claims handily tap into and reinforce tropes about ‘them’ lazy welfare claimants versus ‘us’ hard-working taxpayers to justify cuts that risk hurting the poorest and most vulnerable most.

Reserving the willingness to put ourselves in the shoes of others comes at a cost for everyone. Greater schisms between the haves and have nots decrease a sense of solidarity across society, leading to higher social costs and ultimately higher tax bills.

Empathy – connecting with the suffering of others, especially those who are in situations we find more difficult to imagine – is vital for the public to stand up to injustice and to urge politicians and policy makers to conjure up more compassionate forms of change.

Doing so takes courage. It demands stepping outside of our own socioeconomic bubbles and being curious about someone else’s. It requires defying the urge to tap into prevailing narratives of us versus them, and counteracting the suggestion that improving the lives of society’s vulnerable is a zero-sum game that leaves others worse off.

Empathy isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a radical act of resistance. And we need it now more than ever.

The Empathy Fix: Why Poverty Persists and How to Change It by Keetie Roelen is out now. You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

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