ABSTRACT
To understand the roots of current injustice, it is necessary to understand how it has developed. Analysis starts with brief consideration of the post-Second World War era of national and international efforts to avert future conflict. In the United Kingdom the national establishment of the welfare state and the NHS adopted rhetoric of universal rights. The inequalities and exceptions in these initiatives have been gradually exacerbated particularly in relation to disability and migration policy. The Immigration and Asylum Act (1999) removed access to the welfare state from people subject to immigration controls. The needs and costs of being disabled would no longer be acknowledged if a person was claiming asylum. The same year, then Prime Minister Tony Blair set out his vision for welfare reform. Without reference to the restrictions imposed on people in the asylum system, his call to break with Bevan's notions of universal provision introduced similar conditions on access to support. Before his vision could be implemented, there was a need to shift from hegemonic assumptions of collective responsibility. The exceptions to universal rights, the promotion of individual responsibility and the justification for the reduction of state services became core to the restrictions that would follow.
