A Wolf in Reformist Clothing

A Wolf in Reformist Clothing: Dissecting the Structural Ableism of Reform UK's SEND "Vision"

As a Green Party Disability Officer with three decades of experience, and as a parent who has spent 15 years battling intransigent local authorities for my neurodivergent son, and others, I watched Richard Tice’s press statement with a familiar, corrosive fury. This is not a blueprint for reform. It is a masterclass in the very structural ableism and neoliberal betrayal that has manufactured the SEND crisis. So come with me, and let’s dissect it with the critical eye that it demands.

The Insidious Linguistics of Erasure

Tice with his core creed: “Nobody's disabled, people are differently abled.” This phrase is not progressive; it is erasure. It is a feel-good, ablest euphemism designed to sanitise the reality of disability in a society structured against us. Disability is not a matter of “different ability”; it is an interaction between impairment and the countless social, physical, and attitudinal barriers society erects. To deny the term “disabled” is to deny the need for the legal protections of the Equality Act and the specific accommodations that flow from that reality. It signals a fundamental rejection of the social model of disability. His call to “embrace,” “enthuse,” and “encourage discussion” rings hollow when it begins with the linguistic denial of our community’s identity and struggles—a patronising act of indirect discrimination.

The “Both Sides” Dog-Whistle and the “Over-Diagnosis” Attack

This linguistic erasure is compounded by a pernicious framing of the crisis. The narrative subtly pits “unhappy parents” against the system, reviving the toxic rhetoric of “hijacking” he has used before. This pathologises advocacy, framing parents (overwhelmingly mothers) fighting for their children’s rights as opportunists. When asked about “over-diagnosis” and whether some conditions “should not be allowed,” the very legitimacy of our children’s neurology is put up for debate. This isn’t clinical nuance; it’s a politically convenient dog-whistle to justify resource rationing. It green-lights the gatekeeping that denies assessments and tells parents like me, who fought for years for recognition, that our children’s realities are a “trend.” This is scientific and social ableism in action.

The Stunning Hypocrisy on Profit and Austerity

The core of his proposal is the classic neoliberal rebrand: “spending less money and getting better outcomes.” For 30 years, this mantra from governments of all stripes has translated to cuts, rationing, and gatekeeping. His “solution” of councils renting redundant churches is a shocking poverty-of-ambition, proposing makeshift, cheapened provision for society’s most vulnerable.

Instead of modern well equipped schools, with specially trained staff, one of his bright ideas is to hire draughty old church buildings five days a week, and call these SEND education establishments. 

His admission about VAT on private school fees leading to a surge in EHCP applications is revealing. He frames it as a government budgeting error. I frame it as the predictable result of a system deliberately starved of capacity, forcing desperate families into gruelling legal battles simply to secure basic educational rights. These parents aren’t “hijacking” anything; they are navigating a system designed to say ‘no’.

His confusion on profit is illuminating. He says “profit is a good thing,” but objects to private equity profiteering. This is the ultimate hypocrisy. The explosion of private-equity-owned provision is the direct, inevitable consequence of government policy. By chronically underfunding state SEND provision, they created a captive market. They created the desert and now express faux outrage at profiteers selling water at extortionate prices. The £300-400 million in profit isn’t an anomaly; it’s the logical endpoint of marketising human need—a system of state-subsidised exploitation.

The Fatal Flaw: “Efficiency” Over Rights

The question of how outcomes worsen despite spending reveals the utilitarian, economically-driven mindset. For us, it’s no mystery. The money is swallowed by a broken, adversarial process: legal battles, tribunal costs, and obscene private equity profits. An EHCP is not a guarantee of provision; it’s a ticket to another fight. The focus on “outcomes” over inalienable rights is the problem. My son’s right to an education is not contingent on cost-effectiveness on a spreadsheet.

Tice's segue into using AI and retraining is a worrying distraction. It hints at a future where human, specialist support—the very “personal touch” he claims to admire—is diluted by technological cost-cutting. This is ignorant and dangerous.

The Working Group: A Graveyard for Hope

The announcement of a working group chaired by a Dame is the oldest trick in the book: a mechanism to delay, to appear concerned, while changing nothing. Without a commitment to fundamental, rights-based legislative change, without immediate billions for local authorities, and without a moratorium on private equity profiteering, it is a talking shop. We have been on these groups. We have written these reports. Our lived experience is used for credibility, then ignored when it points to the need for radical, expensive change.

The Reform We Actually Need

This is not a shift. It’s a repackaging. It takes a crisis created by marketisation and austerity and offers solutions that deepen the marketisation, wrapped in the soft language of erasure.

As a Green, I believe in a society built on inclusion, rights, and sufficient public investment. True reform is not about cheaper, nicer “differently abled” provision. It is about:

· A legally enforceable right to inclusive education, with funding following the child automatically.

· Dismantling the adversarial tribunal system.

· Banning for-profit entities from the care and education of vulnerable children.

· Fully funding mainstream inclusion with mandatory specialist support.

· Listening to and being led by disabled people and our families.

The system isn’t “broken.” It is functioning exactly as designed—to minimise cost, maximise gatekeeping, and transfer public wealth to private hands. Until Reform UK acknowledges that, they are not reforming anything. They are perpetuating the violence. We don’t need to be called “differently abled.” We need our rights enforced, our society made accessible, and the profit motive ripped from our children’s futures. Anything less is discrimination.

Link to unedited full statement by Richard Tice MP for Reform UK Ltd 16th December 2025: 

Reform SEND Statement Dec 2025