Tressa Burke, CEO of Glasgow Disability Alliance, speaks to Editor Melissa Holmes about why she publicly declined an MBE, the pressures facing disabled people across the UK, and her relentless pursuit of change.
At the start of my call with Tressa Burke, it’s clear she knows her stuff. Eloquent, smart and breathlessly able to reel off data and research, it’s obvious why she’s been at the forefront of one of the UK’s largest Disabled People-led Organisations (DPO) for two decades.
She’s recently hit the headlines: as the cuts-laden Budget was being read, she opened a letter telling her she was being awarded the MBE, to honour her outstanding achievement for service to disabled people. She refused it.
“I couldn’t accept a personal honour when disabled people were being so dishonoured,” she explains. “It would’ve been a betrayal to my 6,000 members.” Her refusal led to thousands of messages of support. “I feel disabled people are very deliberately under attack by the UK government,” she says. “Things have never been worse, with the rise of the right, and the negative rhetoric and misinformation being spread about disability benefits. We need to start talking about the value of disabled people.”
MORAL COMPASS
Turning down the MBE – “Ultimately, I needed to take a stand in line with my moral compass” – was more than just a symbolic action. It aligns with Tressa’s decades of work to reduce barriers and improve opportunities for disabled people across Scotland and the rest of the UK.
In 2025, alongside other DPOs, the GDA launched a grassroots campaign against proposed changes to disability benefits, which the UK Government itself said would push at least 250,000 disabled people further into poverty.
“GDA members are already frightened to turn the heating and lights on, they’re not charging vital independent living equipment. They’re sitting watching their smart meters,” reveals Tressa. Eventually, some proposals were dropped or altered because: “The Government underestimated that people in the UK are compassionate and fair. At least half of all people in Scotland firmly believe income should be redistributed from the better off to those less well off. This strength of feeling took hold across the UK, showing an intolerance for the brutality of these cuts.”
EMBED COMPASSION
Tressa sees the value of investing in disabled people: “That includes benefits, social care, transport, and participation. As I said in my refusal letter, we need the government to embed compassion and fairness.”
Tressa continues: “Stigma, discrimination and exclusion are not inevitable; they’re a result of political choices. We need politicians to make different choices and design out the injustice and inequality disabled people face.”
Closer to home, GDA members recently took part in a Disabled People’s Cabinet Takeover, which was: “thought-provoking, creative, and offered hope.”
GDA and other DPOs have also worked with the Scottish Government on a £3.5 million Disability Equality Plan to advance rights, improve mental health, and tackle barriers for disabled people. “It’s a really great starting point,” Tressa admits. “But much more should and must be done. Ask me in a year what’s changed.”