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Introduction
There has been a longstanding history of protest by mad people at the negative way in which they are viewed by society and the systems that society has set up in order to deal with them. An early example of collective action can be seen in "The Petition of the Poor Distracted People in the House of Bedlam" in 1620. However, in the twentieth century, due to the convergence of a number of factors, the conditions were ripe to support the birth of the mental health service user[1] movement. First, there has been widespread criticism of psychiatry across a number of diverse issues, including the medicalisation of mental distress, concerns about human rights and the damage caused by incarceration within psychiatric institutions, not least for example, damage to self-identity and institutionalisation. These criticisms of psychiatry over the years and the anger of service users at the way they are treated by society have led to resistance and action by service users as a means of changing or abolishing the system. While as [4] Campbell (1996) points out, there is something of a dearth of published histories of the development of the service user movement in the UK; it is generally acknowledged that the user movement became active in Western society in the early 1970s with the increasing drive towards democracy, libertarian policies and civil rights for all.
Though the UK mental health service user movement might claim some successes, notably the MIND campaign for the closure of the asylums, service users have long continued to struggle to have their voices heard. The advent of New Labour with its focus on social inclusion seemingly provided opportunities for service users to participate in the development of mental health policy, and thus be "empowered", by working in partnership with other key stakeholders.
This paper provides an analysis of such New Labour policy and argues that, despite the rhetoric, it frequently did not meet the needs of mental health services users in making a meaningful contribution to the development of mental health policy. Moreover, the explicit endorsement of previous conservative neoliberal ideological themes by New Labour has weakened future possibilities of engagement around social solidarity and equity of outcome ([14] Page, 2007).
Indeed, by specifically drawing on [1]...