When I was the Aldridge-Brownhills candidate in the 2024 General Election I was at a campaign session in our twinned seat of Stoke South when we realised that everyone in our team had a disability. We had a wheelchair user, someone with learning disabilities, someone with an invisible disability and me, who walks with a stick. It was a happy little moment for each of us, because our movement isn’t always brilliant at enabling our disabled activists to contribute.

I don’t want to go into some of the horror stories here, but I know of colleagues in my own Labour group who have questioned whether a disabled person can campaign, and even mused to others that I might be faking my disability to get out of doing it. Since 1 in 5 people in the UK has a disability – and disability campaigners are more drawn to parties of the left including Co-op Party – this is a resource we can’t afford to throw away.

One of the guiding principles of the Co-operative movement is that everybody contributes, and some of our core values as co-operators are self-help and self-responsibility, as well as solidarity. Able-bodied activists can put those into practice by the simple principle of asking “OK, what can you do?” and letting disabled people show that self-responsibility by telling you.

In some cases they may not be able to doorknock, but I know of a branch whose entire social media campaigning is run – very effectively – by a woman who is housebound by her disabilities. I know disabled people who walk very slowly, so they can’t keep up with a doorknocking team, but give them a stack of leaflets and an afternoon and they will deliver street after street. In my general election campaign I had one activist who was registered blind, but could see a few inches so as long as she was paired with someone who could walk her to the right garden path, she would doorknock like a champion. I know of one wheelchair user who is an absolute board-running expert. And another person who racks up the Dialogue numbers like nobody’s business, but can’t leave the house. I myself struggle with steep steps, which means I can’t do one side of a road in my ward called Stony Lane, so I take care of the other side of the street and those who are able do the steep ones.

These are not difficult reasonable adjustments to make, and each of them increases the capacity of a campaign team beyond what would happen if we just wrote disabled activists off, as some do, or questioning our abilities or accusing us of faking it. Just ask us, and watch us go!