‘It’s a dark time to be disabled in the UK right now’

Disability campaigner and presenter Sophie Morgan spoke to Metro ahead of the Scope Award winners being announced next week (Picture: Metro/Rex/ITV)

TV presenter Sophie Morgan is calling for greater protections for the disabled community after a raft of ‘inhumane’ government cuts.

The Loose Women panellist, who also presented Crufts this year, told Metro that it is ‘unbearable’ and a ‘dark and difficult time’ for disabled people in the UK right now.

Sophie said the proposed changes to the welfare system aimed at saving £5bn by the end of 2030, which were announced in March, are a warning for what is to come next.

‘I think it should be a wake-up call for Britain that if they can target the most vulnerable, anybody can become a victim of this government,’ warned Sophie, who is paraplegic. 

Speaking ahead of the Scope Awards, in which she has been shortlisted in the Celebrity Role Model category, the disability activist added that there was a ‘dangerous rhetoric being peddled about disabled people always ‘taking, taking, taking’.

But every disabled person I know wants to give back,’ she said. ‘We want to participate. We want to be part of the society.

‘We want to be able to do all of the things that anyone else wants to do.

‘We’re not trying to be given handouts to do nothing.’

In 2003, Sophie suffered a spinal cord injury in a car crash when she was 18. She was left paralysed from the chest down and has used a wheelchair ever since. 

At times like these, we need a bit of joy and light, and celebrate what we have managed to achieve.

Sophie recently moved to the USA because she said she felt the UK wasn’t accessible enough for disabled people(Picture: Anthony Harvey/REX/Shutterstock)

She became a household name after coming second in BBC3’s Britain’s Missing Top Model, and has gone on to present numerous documentaries – not just on disability issues – as well as becoming a regular on Loose Women and The One Show, and hosting Channel 4’s TV coverage of the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo.  

Currently living in California, the 40-year-old said that she has ‘never felt less disabled.’

Sophie is nominated for the Celebrity Role Model category at the awards and said her role model is Paula Craig MBE(Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

‘I spent 20 years living in the UK as a disabled person, and I realised I was sort of living a half life where I couldn’t go to any of the places I wanted to go,’ she explained. ‘They were so limited because it’s so inaccessible. 

‘But then I got an opportunity to work with NBC and host the 2024 Paris Paralympics over here, so I moved to California about a year ago and I love it.

‘I set up a production company called Making Space Media, and we’re teaming up with Reese Witherspoon’s production company, working up ideas around disability and centering women’s narratives.

‘It’s very liberating living here.’

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Talking about what needs to change back home in the UK, Sophie believes that better protections need to be put in place for the disabled community. 

‘I’d like us to overhaul what we call the Equalities Act. The fact that you only have to make a “reasonable adjustment” to businesses and goods and services is not enough,’ she said.

‘We need to have stronger laws, so that we have something to protect us when we’re discriminated against.

‘It’s one of the reasons why I moved to America, because I’m so tired of going into places and people saying “this is an old building, you can’t come in here”.’

Sophie, who has been voted one of the most influential disabled people in the UK as part of the Shaw Trust’s Disability Power 100, added that she is keen to see more disability advocates on screen talking about the challenges the community face. 

‘We don’t have enough disabled role models. I’d love to see more disabled heroes –  and I don’t mean Paralympians, I mean disabled people doing brilliant things in higher places,’ she explained. ‘I want to see disabled CEOs, disabled politicians, disabled leaders.’

One of her own role models is former police officer and wheelchair user Paula Craig MBE, who she met while she was in spinal rehabilitation and has since appeared on TV shows with.

‘She is just so badass,’ said Sophie. ‘She was a detective and a wheelchair user. I was just blown away by what she did. So representations have always mattered for me.

‘Those women who defy the odds, just do their own thing and make their own rules are so vital. And that’s why the Scope Awards are important too.

‘At times like these, we need a bit of joy and light, and celebrate what we have managed to achieve.

I’ve spent 20 years working hard to improve representation and shiftingperceptions around disability, so it’s a really nice thing to have been recognised.’

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