Cuts to benefits for people struggling with mental health issues are more than just financial decisions—they are attacks on survival, dignity, and humanity. For those reliant on the system, simply hearing that benefits may be cut can send their nervous system into survival mode. The body perceives a direct threat: How will I eat? How will I keep my home? How will I manage my condition without stability?
For many, the stress response is immediate. Adrenaline surges, thoughts race, sleep is lost, and the world feels unsafe. When you are already living with mental health challenges—depression, anxiety, PTSR, ( post traumatic stress response), complex trauma—uncertainty isn’t just uncomfortable; it’s catastrophic. The system that was meant to provide stability instead fuels panic, pushing people deeper into dysregulation, despair, and in some cases, crisis.
For some, work isn’t just difficult—it’s unbearable. It’s not a case of “not wanting” to work, as political narratives often suggest. Many simply cannot function in environments that disregard their needs, trigger past traumas, or strip them of dignity. Assuming they even feel able to attend an interview, they face scrutiny, judgment, and systems designed to weed them out rather than support them.
And what about the wider impact? The harm doesn’t stop with the individual. When adults are in survival mode, children feel it. Families fracture under the weight of poverty. The stress of financial insecurity seeps into relationships, mental health, and even physical health. A child growing up in a home where survival is the main focus learns deep, unconscious lessons about their own worth. I am a burden. I do not deserve ease. Life is struggle. These beliefs shape futures, limiting opportunities and reinforcing cycles of poverty and distress.
Why does a Labour government—historically positioned as the party of workers and social support—choose to ignore this harm? Why take from the poorest instead of addressing the systemic inequalities that keep people trapped? Why strip humanity down to numbers on a spreadsheet while ignoring the lived reality behind those figures?
True leadership requires compassion, not just policy. It means recognising that people are not statistics, and that the value of a life cannot be measured in pounds, shillings, and pence. It means understanding that economic policies have real, human consequences—that stripping support from the most vulnerable creates suffering that ripples across generations.
A just society does not punish people for needing help. It does not push people deeper into distress in the name of efficiency. It prioritises people over profit, humanity over bureaucracy, and care over control. Because the measure of a society is not how it treats its most powerful—it’s how it treats its most vulnerable.