A week later, and Labour has SHAMEFULLY still not bothered with accessible manifestos

The Labour Party launched its manifesto on 14 June. A week later on 20 June, and it still had not bothered to consider millions of people – leaving them unable to scrutinise its policies just two weeks before the general election. This is because Labour’s accessible manifesto was not… well… ‘accessible’.

Labour: excluding millions of people from its manifesto

As Inclusion London put on X:

2 weeks until the #GeneralElection, but @UKLabour haven't yet published the #LabourManifesto in all accessible formats. Parties must publish accessible manifestoes at the same time as standard format so d/Deaf and Disabled people can participate equally in our democracy. pic.twitter.com/bCMmtut5PE

— Inclusion London (@InclusionLondon) June 20, 2024

That’s right.

The Labour Party has, a week after launch and as of 8pm on Thursday 20 May, not released its manifesto in:

• Easy Read, often used by learning disabled people.
• Easy Read Colours, often used by learning disabled people and potentially autistic and neurodivergent people.
• Audio, for blind and visually impaired people.
• British Sign Language (BSL), for deaf people and those living with hearing loss.
• Screen Reading format, for deaf people and those living with hearing loss.

So, currently, the Labour Party has NOT produced any copies of its manifesto for learning disabled, autistic, neurodivergent, blind, and visually impaired people. That means it is ignoring the accessibility needs of potentially millions of people.

As Inclusion London said on X:

Parties must publish accessible manifestoes at the same time as standard format so Deaf and Disabled people can participate equally in our democracy.

‘Equally’ is the key word, here. Because as a minimum the Labour Party is breaching Electoral Commission guidance. It clearly states:

Political parties must… publish accessible versions of manifestos at the same time as other versions.

This sadly is not enforceable. However, It may well be the case that the Labour Party is breaching the Equality Act 2010.

Labour accessible manifesto: breaching the Equality Act?

As the Disability Justice Project wrote:

The Equality Act says it is reasonable to expect organisations to take steps to provide information in alternative formats. It requires organisations to think ahead about the difficulties Disabled people experience accessing information, rather than waiting until a Disabled person attempts to use their service.

A week-long wait for Labour’s accessible manifesto in various formats in a time-constrained situation – that is, the general election – surely would be applicable.

Not that we should be surprised by the Labour Party’s conduct. The Canary’s Nicola Jeffery previously wrote on its policies for chronically ill and disabled people; fortunately she has no accessibility needs when it comes to the manifesto – otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to write the article.

Jeffery said, compared to the Tories:

Labour’s manifesto Change wasn’t much of an improvement either. It promises to “review” Universal Credit – even though its been failing disabled and chronically ill people for over ten years. There was talk about social care, SEND, and making disabled and chronically ill people work. But there was little else for us. Come on Labour, seriously you need to get your act together. You proclaim to be a voice of the people, so please stop discriminating against the chronically ill and disabled ones. That’s 16 million votes, by the way…

So, just to compound the idea the Labour Party doesn’t care about chronically ill, deaf, and disabled people – it can’t even be bothered to make its manifesto accessible to millions of them.

Maybe don’t vote for a party that can’t be bothered with you?

If you are a learning disabled, autistic, neurodivergent, blind, or visually impaired person – or anyone who cares about equality – maybe you should think before putting your cross in the box next to Labour on 4 July. The way things are going, many of you won’t have a clue what the party’s policies are, anyway – thanks to its disregard for already marginalised people.

Featured image via the Canary