Introduction

Since 2000, the disability movement in Britain appears to have stagnated. Despite important and progressive changes in wider society, the politics of disability seem to have run out of steam. Partly, this may be a consequence of the success of the disability rights agenda. Following the adoption of the disability discrimination legislation for which the disability movement had campaigned for so long, there has been a lack of clarity about future priorities. Meanwhile, mainstream disability organisations and agencies have taken on some of the central tenets of the disability rights philosophy. And there is also a generational effect, as many of the activists who emerged in the 1970s and 1980s have retired or died. Yet I believe that this lack of progress may also indicate the failure of radical approaches based on the social model of disability, which have sometimes become inward-looking and sectarian.