The Welfare State Is Crushing Britain

The Wall Street Journal ^ | October 12, 2026 | Max Colchester and David Luhnow

[MinorityRepublican]

Catherine Wieland got on Britain’s welfare rolls in 2021. With a history of emotional trauma, she was too anxious to go outside or carry out simple tasks like washing herself, she told the government.

Soon, she was receiving about £700, or $1,000, a month in disability benefits. And, it turns out, going outside quite a bit.

Using a taxpayer-subsidized program for those with disabilities, Wieland paid a small deposit for free use of a BMW, which she used to regularly visit the hair salon, dine out at restaurants, attend a Brighton pride parade and visit an amusement park. According to court reports in her fraud conviction, she also flew to Cancún, Mexico, where she posted pictures of herself ziplining and riding a quad motorbike.

Wieland’s case is an extreme example of a new reality in the U.K.: Disability payouts are no longer just for those most in need; they have become a financial crutch for a large swath of the population as wages stagnate and prices rise.

It’s blowing up Britain’s welfare bill, hamstringing its politicians and imperiling its long-term financial stability.

Some seven million people—more than 10% of the population—now claim at least one or more sickness or disability benefits. The numbers are growing fastest among working-age people who should be powering the country’s economy, surging more than 60% in the past six years to 4.7 million from 2.9 million in 2019.

Not including healthcare, the country will spend more than £100 billion this year on all types of welfare benefits for the sick and disabled, about a third more than defense spending. The tab has surged by a quarter in just four years and is on course to hit £130 billion in the next four, according to the government’s fiscal forecasts.

---

TOPICS: United Kingdom
KEYWORDS:

[butlerweave]

The Taxpaying Brits(in all Western countries) are supporting the laziest group on the planet , muslims

[OttawaFreeper]

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The important thing is they have free healthcare...

...if you live long enough to make your appointment.

[GOPJ]

Maybe Soros needs to boat in a few hundred thousand MORE third world ‘migrants’ - the country is still surviving...

[ClearCase_guy]

The UK is ahead of us but we’re headed in the same direction.

Young people who cannot manage themselves and have no skills.
Older people expected to fill the “leadership” roles of society, but they also have no real knowledge or skills. Keir Starmer being an example of this.

The UK (like us) abandoned heavy industry. They don’t make stuff. They don’t really grow much food. They are poor and in debt.

And they have far too many Muslims.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"Wieland’s case is an extreme example..."

I'd wager it's not so extreme. I'd bet it's fairly common. They just don't have Nick Shirley and other citizen journalists rooting out massive fraud. You probably go to jail for reporting it.

[dfwgator]

Going Down To Liverpool - The Bangles

Hey now
Where you going with that load of nothing in your hand
I said: Hey now
All through this green and pleasant land.

I’m going down to Liverpool to do nothing
I’m going down to Liverpool to do nothing
I’m going down to Liverpool to do nothing
All the days of my life
All the days of my life.

Hey there
Where you going with that UB40 in your hand
I said: Hey there
All through this green and pleasant land.

I’m going down to Liverpool to do nothing
I’m going down to Liverpool to do nothing
I’m going down to Liverpool to do nothing
All the days of my life
All the days of my life.

Hey now
Where you going with that UB40 in your hand

I said: Hey now
All through this green and pleasant land.
I’m going down to Liverpool to do nothing
I’m going down to Liverpool to do nothing
All the days of my life
All the days of my life.

[MinorityRepublican]

I'd wager it's not so extreme. I'd bet it's fairly common. They just don't have Nick Shirley and other citizen journalists rooting out massive fraud. You probably go to jail for reporting it.

Which was why Tommy Robinson was arrested and sentenced to serving some time in prison.

[dayglored]

Sounds like the Brits managed to develop their very own Cloward-Piven Strategy to collapse the country by expanding welfare until it all comes crashing down.

America to follow shortly unless we do more to stop it.

[dayglored]

For those not familiar with Cloward-Piven:

The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. The strategy aims to utilize "militant anti poverty groups" to facilitate a "political crisis" by overloading the welfare system via an increase in welfare claims, forcing the creation of a system of guaranteed minimum income and "redistributing income through the federal government".

[MinorityRepublican]

Sounds like the Brits managed to develop their very own Cloward-Piven Strategy to collapse the country by expanding welfare until it all comes crashing down.

I get it. But that will just create another version of the Soviet Union.

Been there, done that.

[dayglored]

The Cloward-Piven Strategy was not some historical curiosity.

These two political activists were Presidential advisors to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Not sure about Biden.

They helped steer those administrations as they worked on how to destroy America.

[rlmorel]

And Cloward & Piven are popularly un-known for one of their most insidious, corrosive, and destructive endeavors:

[dayglored]

Cloward passed away in 2001, but Frances Piven is still going at age 94.

Unsurprisingly, Piven is a member of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), and was one of its Honorary Chairs.

[Nateman]

Politicians on the Left love Islamic invaders. All that rapey stabby grifting stuff has its drawbacks , of course , but their sense of entitlements is huge! They literally believe they are God's gift to the universe so that everyone else must pay them for not being one. The payoff for the Left is that they will happily vote for them ! Consequences and reason don't matter with this group : they are the ultimate gibsmedats!

[rlmorel]

Thomas Sowell gives that POS Francis Fox-Piven what-for...as does Milton Freidman:

LINK: Thomas Sowell Dismantles Egalitarianism (Frances Fox Piven Edition)

[MachIV]

The collapse of BSA was probably like a black swan event.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Hang Fire - Rolling Stones

In the sweet old country
Where I come from
Nobody ever works
Nothing ever gets done
We hang fire, we hang fire

You know marrying
Money is a full-time job
I don’t need the aggravation
I’m a lazy slob,
I hang fire, I hang fire,

We got nothing to eat
We go nowhere to work
Nothing to drink
We just lost our shirt
I’m on the dole,
We ain’t for hire
Say, What the hell? Say, What the hell?
And Hang fire

[captmar-vell]

“Welfare State Is Crushing Britain”

It was also supposed to be crushing the USA by now with the USAID and NGO funding of their schemes being off the charts with vax tyranny, socialism and illegal outside invader chaos leading the efforts.

America threw the Klaus Schwab WEF memo to ‘Build Back Better’ and “Great Reset” the economic engine of the Earth (USA) into the rubbish bin.

The NWO globalists are now scrambling and wondering whether to wait out us out or continue on with Agenda-2030 without us.

The way wicked Mark Carney and Jupiter Macron have been behaving, they appear to be increasingly desperate. Keir Starmer seemed too dense to notice the dodgy patch he fell into and Andy Burnham is hoping no one notices him at all for a little while longer.

They require the USA to play along for them to get back on course to crash the West and the entire world system into their tokenized resources, CBDC and Digital ID (AI Surveillance State) Control Grid.