Where Is The Love?

Not at all homophobic you understand?

Anderton Park Primary School, LGBTI-inclusive education, and Eshter McVey

Amidst ongoing protests at Anderton Park Primary School in Birmingham, England, former cabinet minister and current contender for the leadership of the Conservative Party, and thereby future Prime Minister, Esther McVey, has thrown her support behind those protesting against LGBTI-inclusive education at the school.

“I believe parents know best for their children and whilst they are still children then really parents need to have the final say in what they want their children to know,” says McVey,  “People shouldn't be protesting outside of primary schools. That's young children going into school there. Everyone has to be a bit more adult, a little bit more grown up in what they do outside a primary school.  I'm being very clear. The final say is with the parents and if parents want to take their young children out of primary school, out of certain forms or sex education, relationship education that is down to them.”

Despite her fine words that people should not be protesting outside schools, Esther McVey could not be more wrong, and has effectively thrown the head teacher and staff at the school, as well as parents with no problem with the lessons, under a bus.

First the background.  Anderton Park School is a primary school in Birmingham, England, which has introduced LGBTI-inclusive education into their curriculum, as has been sanctioned by the UK government.  The form it took was an award-winning programme called No Outsiders, formed by local teacher Andrew Moffat.    The No Outsiders programme teaches the realities of LGBTI+ people at age-appropriate level, without any mention of sexual activities.  It merely teaches that LGBT+ people exist, that some children have two fathers or two mothers, that some men like men, some women like women, and that some people identify with a gender which differs from their biological sex.  The aim of No Outsiders, like all LGBTI-inclusive education, is to teach respect and acceptance of others, and thereby reduce the incidence of homophobic and transphobic discrimination, harassment, and bullying.  This is particularly important to children who may identify as LGBTI, in that it aims to foster acceptance from their peers, reduce prejudice and bullying, and teach those children that it is perfectly normal and natural to be who they are, and to own their identity with pride.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  And great it would be, were it not for homophobia, transphobia, disinformation, and propaganda to raise their ugly heads.  The school happens to be in a largely Muslim community, and many children attending the school come from Muslim families.  No sooner had the No Outsiders programme started than there were a small group of Muslims objecting to it.  This formed a protest outside the school gates, which has since snowballed.  The protestors are objecting to children being taught about same-sex relationships, transgender people, and “gay sex”.  The protests started with a small group of parents, but since then others have become involved.  The self-appointed leader of the protests, Shakeel Asfar, does not even have children at the school, but is an uncle to two children attending.  The increasing protest has started to involve others who do not have children at the school, and even those who are not parents at all.  Numbers have increased as other anti-LGBT Muslims, Christians, and even extreme right-wingers – who otherwise are prejudiced towards Asians and Muslims – have joined in.  There are also now signs of the protest spreading to other schools in England.

Were their objections to harmless LGBTI-inclusive education not enough, some of these protestors have started spreading lies and propaganda about the No Outsiders programme.  Protestors are claiming that the programme teaches about gay sex, it does not, that is sexualises children, and worst of all that it is teaching paedophilia.  Abdullah Bahm, an Islamic preacher from Batley, Yorkshire – not even with no relationship to the school, but from a completely different county in England – shouting through a PA system at the protest, held up images including a near-naked couple, which he falsely claimed came from No Outsiders literature, and proclaimed “There are paedophiles in there. There are paedophiles in there.” and claimed that to teach equality is to teach a “paedophile agenda”.

A Christian preacher from Bournemouth – hundreds of miles from Birmingham, again, in another county -  following Mr Bahm, then took the microphone, insisted that teaching about “gay equality” was confusing children, and related an anecdote (which almost certainly never happened) of a little girl being afraid to pick up a friend who had fallen, “in case she was called a lesbian”.  He then went on to rattle off a number of alleged statistics about gay relationships and sexually transmitted diseases – which of course are completely irrelevant to LGBTI-inclusive education.

There are parents who have no problem with their children being taught about equality, and some who have bravely spoken out about it.  However, when these said parents attempt to take their children to school, they are being confronted by protestors, usually outside the school but some have reported being accosted streets away, and being told “If you send your children to that school, you are not a Muslim, and you will burn in Hell.”  Parents, with little children, are constantly jeered as they go into the school.  Teachers at the school, including the head teacher, have been verbally abused, jostled, threatened, and have even received death threats.  The head teacher, Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, described in an interview on LBC Radio, how even in what are supposed to be discussions with the protestors, hardliners have shut down debate by shouting over her and other staff any time they attempted to talk.  There is one reported instance of one man slamming his fist down on a desk and declaring that he was a general in the Kashmiri Liberation Army.  The aforementioned Mr Asfar has no intention of speaking civilly with Ms Hewit-Clarkson, whom he wants to resign, but instead in a speech denouncing her, and in which he threw in completely off-topic various ‘atrocities’ committed upon Muslims around the world, insinuated that she was probably having a sexual relationship with a “biased” female journalist.  Not that it should matter, but the sexuality of Ms Hewit-Clarkson is not known.

Worse still was to come.  A counter-protest of pro-LGBT people, who had gained permission from the school, arrived on the evening of 19 May, and started hanging rainbow flags, pom-poms, and messages of pro-LGBT support on the school railings.  The counter protest had non-violent intentions, and even arrived with cupcakes to hand out and share with the protestors, whom they hoped to have a reasoned discourse with.  Instead, as they were hanging their messages, they were pelted with eggs, shouted and screamed at, cars full of men turned up and told them to “get out of our community”.   But even when they did try to leave, some of the protestors, all women, found their way blocked by a large group of men.  Due to a distraction, they managed to escape.  By the morning, nearly all of the messages had been torn down.

Shakeel Asfar blamed the counter-protestors for the confrontation.  He claimed that the flags and messages were “inflammatory”, and accused the group of provoking residents were about to mark Ikfar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast.   It is not at all lost on me that Mr Asfar is attempting to turn this issue into a wider “Islamophobia” one, when that is patently not the case.

Even at the lower end, there are protestors objecting to what is being taught, chanting “Our children, our choice”, and maintaining it is ‘their’ school.  Yes, it is, but only up to a point.  And this is where Esther McVey is wrong to support them.

Yes, it is their school; every school is part of the community it serves, and parents should indeed be able and even be encouraged to interact with the school, for the benefits of their children.  However, it is not their curriculum and when a curriculum, or part thereof, is accepted by that school, by the local authority, and by central government, that is where the individual input of parents has to end, for the greater interests of all children at that school.  If that were not the case, then every school would have their hands tied, and not be able to teach anything, because of objections from individual parents.  Besides which, there are now a number taking part in this protests who do not have children at that school, some who have come hundreds of miles to protest a school they probably never heard of until this year, and some of whom do not even have children at all.  It is not Shakeel’s Asfar School, far less some Islamic preacher from Bradford, or a Christian preacher from Bournemouth.

If some parents are unhappy with the No Outsiders programme, then they have the freedom to remove their children from the school, which sadly, some have done.  However, when they attempt to prevent the teaching of the programme altogether, spreading lies, disinformation and propaganda, are trying to enforce the resignation of the head teacher, are harassing, bullying, jostling, and threatening staff and other parents, scaring their children while doing so, when they send death threats to staff, when a non-violent group of women with the best intentions are intimidated and threatened by a gang of men, and when they are pelted with eggs, it becomes a different matter.  

This again is where Esther McVey is wrong.  Do parents really know what is best for their children, in every case?  I sincerely doubt it.  To quote an auld Scots saying, “Bairns and fuils speak at the cross whit they hear at the ingleside.”  In other words, bigotry is never learned, but begins in the home.  Even to this day there are few parents who teach their children tolerance of all, but most will still instil, either deliberately or inadvertently, their own prejudices into their children.  Likewise, very few parents are education professionals.  They have never gone to university to learn to be teachers, and they have never had experience of dealing with classes full of children, or all the work which being a teacher entails.  The simple fact is that if parents knew what was best for their children, there would be no schools, because there would be no need for them.  The overwhelming majority of people send their children to school because they know what is best for their children is to learn from teachers whom they know have a far better education than they shall ever have.

What McVey is saying is downright dangerous, and we need not look far to see the results of her thinking.  Indeed, we need only look across the North Atlantic to the USA, where religious maniacs who do not want their children taught in “Godless” schools home teach their children.  And the result is another generation of cretins coming up who are going to be laughed at throughout their lives for believing that the Earth was created by their god in six days, 6000 years ago, and who are going to have poor future employment prospects as a result.  Until they in turn in their dead-end jobs, bring up the next generation who are brainwashed believing that every word in the Bible is the unerring and factual word of their god.

Indeed, we see exactly the same thing in Muslim majority countries, and that includes the few countries where they are even allowed to attend school, girls are enforced to cover up completely, and that the best they can hope for is to have a good husband chosen for them, to whom they must be good and loyal wives.  And quite scarily, teaching like such has been exposed in some Islamic schools in the UK.

Amidst all this, we have the teaching in these religious communities that anything which detracts in the slightest from the cisgender heteronormative is an “abomination” to their god, from whence the protest at Anderton Park School has sprung.  In some interpretations of both Christianity and Islam, followers are taught that LGBTI+ people are at best to be shunned, at worst to be chased down and killed.  A 2016 ICM poll found that 52% of British Muslims polled believed that homosexuality should be illegal, and 47% said that that gay people should not be allowed to become teachers.  And of course, among this, as we have seen, some castigate all LGBT+ people are paedophiles, when in fact the LGBT+ demographic have the lowest incidence of paedophilia in society.  This smear is common to both Islamic and Christian fundamentalists.

As long as parents are filling the minds of their children with this bigoted filth, does Esther McVey still want to claim they know what is best for them?

But then, Ms McVey is equally wrong when she states “if parents want to take their young children out of primary school, out of certain forms or sex education, relationship education that is down to them”, for no part of LGBTI-inclusive education includes sex education.  Some of the protestors have jumped on the sex education bandwagon, claiming that the school is “sexualising” their children, when they are doing no such thing.  In fact, if there were any school teaching children as young as 5 any type of sex education, be it straight or gay, I too would object to that.  But the simple fact is that is not happening, it actually cannot happen under the law (either in England or Scotland), and anyone who claims that is what LGBTI-inclusive education is doing is either misinformed, or an out-and-out liar.  As far as those leading the Anderton Park protest are concerned, I know which of the two I am more likely to believe.

Certainly, there is mention of relationships in LGBTI-inclusive education, but that is only to explain same-sex relationships, which are simply a fact.  One mother at Anderton Park asked a reporter if they knew how difficult it was to explain to her little one “why some children have two mummies”.  What is she going to do?  Ignore it and hope that it will go away?  So when her child does actually encounter a child with same-sex parents, or sees a gay couple with a child, and asks questions, what is she going to say then?  Pretend they don’t exist and they never saw them?  What indeed is she going to say if her daughter turns out to be gay?  How about letting professionals in the field of education instead quietly explaining that love is love, and some people are attracted to the same gender?

Likewise, a Christian father recently phoned LBC Radio claiming that little children are too young to learn about any relationships.  Are they really?  So, Dad, I take it you’ve never told your kids fairy stories about women being swept off their feet by dashing, handsome princes?  Of kids being cruelly treated by their wicked stepmothers, or being rescued by beautiful princesses?  Of course you have.  Every parent has.  And in fact, I’d be more worried about instilling young minds with stereotyped perceptions of what is and what is not ‘beautiful’ – and the perceived roles of women – than the relationships within those stories.  But then, one wonders if the said father has any qualms about teaching his children about Adam and Eve, or even the relationship of Mary carrying the child of God for that matter?

Joking apart, there is an important point here; children are actually much more switched on and accepting of the lives of others than many adults give credence to.  And when they do see or hear of a child with same-sex adults, or hear of or encounter someone who comes out as gay, transgender, or any other aspect of the LGBTI+ spectrum, and ask questions, they deserve honest answers, and will more than likely be very accepting of that.  Likewise, as far as gender goes, science has proven that children as young as 3 are capable of expressing their gender; and that goes for all genders, including cisgender.  

It is not the children who are hating others at Anderton Park, or anywhere else.  It is the adults doing that, and brainwashing the children with their hate.

But if the protestors at Anderton Park Primary School are in the wrong, if Esther McVey is in the wrong, then they are nowhere near as in the wrong as the Westminster Government, who have been constantly asked by Sarah Hewit-Clarkson, and other head teachers across England to give clear guidance on LGBTI-inclusive education, and have remained steadfastly silent upon the matter.

Don't Cry For Me, Spartan Theresa

Everyone get the hankies out!

The truth is, I never loved you.

On Friday, 24 May 2019, Conservative Party Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May, after months of dropping popularity, and poor handling of the UK’s exit from the EU, announced that she would resign with effect from 9 June 2019.  She gave this announcement in a long speech outside 10 Downing Street, and in which she made many claims, and choked back her tears at the end.

Here is my response, which carefully examines ever sentence of that speech, and gives my reaction to it.

“Ever since I first stepped through the door behind me as prime minister, I have striven to make the United Kingdom a country that works not just for a privileged few, but for everyone.”

No, you have not.  You have in fact created a UK that is more fractured and unequal that it has ever been in recent history.

“And to honour the result of the E.U. referendum.  Back in 2016, we gave the British people a choice.”

A choice which was ill-informed, and based on scaremongering and lies on both sides, but mostly from the Leave campaign, who have since been proven to have acted illegally during the campaign.

”Against all predictions, the British people voted to leave the European Union.”

Nonsense.  It was well known that a vote to leave the EU was more than likely.  As far back as 2014 I was warning people in Scotland that if they voted No to Scottish independence, then the likelihood would be that we would find ourselves tied to the UK, and out of the EU.   It gives me absolutely no pleasure to have been proven correct in that prediction.   Indeed, there would have not have been a EU referendum had it not been for the weak leadership of former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, in bowing to the demands of Nigel Farage, UKIP, other Eurosceptics, as well as outright racists and xenophobes.

“I feel as certain today as I did three years ago that in a democracy, if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide.”

It is always laudable to stand by a democratic decision.  However, in the case of the 2016 EU membership, no-one knew what they were actually voting for.  There was no explanation of how the exit from the EU would be achieved, or the implications of what leaving the EU would mean for the UK, or it’s constituent nations and regions.  Not to mention that those who voted to leave the EU did so on the basis of misinformation, propaganda, and in some cases outright lies.

”I have done my best to do that.  I negotiated the terms of our exit and a new relationship with our closest neighbours that protects jobs, our security and our union.”

Indeed you did not.  You presented a deal which was the worst of all worlds, which would in fact cost jobs, and has in fact already cost jobs, threaten security, and could lead to the break up of the United Kingdom.  Ever since you presented your deal, there has been an enormous rise in support for Scottish independence, the business community in Northern Ireland are now saying that perhaps a united Ireland is the answer – and the people are listening, Plaid Cymru are once more on the rise in Wales, and even Mebyon Kernow are now showing renewed promise in Cornwall.

Your ‘closest neighbours’ are in fact those constituent nations of the UK which you claim to hold so dear to heart.  Yet you consistently ignored and snubbed Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, refused her of SNP ministers a say in Brexit negotiations, and have even flouted parliamentary procedure when Ian Turnbull and other SNP MPs have been speaking in the House of Commons.  You have consistently and repeatedly been told that your deal does nothing to address the problem of the UK / Irish border in Northern Ireland, and threatens the peace and security of the province, where the Good Friday Agreement ended 30 years of bloodshed.  Instead, you have brushed the ‘backstop’ off as if it were nothing, even claiming that new technology could be used; technology which does not in fact yet exist.

“I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal.  Sadly, I have not been able to do so.  I tried three times.  I believe it was right to persevere, even when the odds against success seemed high.”

No, you simply arrogantly and ignorantly refused to listen to voices wiser than your own that your deal is completely unworkable.  That it does not address the NI backstop, that it would lead to mayhem of goods and people travelling between the UK and the EU, and that it would in fact leave the UK in a position of having to agree to EU terms, while not actually having a say in that legislation; which is precisely what many who voted Leave claimed to be against in the first place.

You are the very one who claimed earlier in this speech “if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide”.  Yet not content with the House of Commons telling you a clear and emphatic “NO” to your deal, you presented it a second time, then when it failed, presented a third time, only for it to fail again.  It therefore beggars belief that before you decided to resign, you were fully intending to present it for a fourth time.  Where then is your commitment to democracy?

“But it is now clear to me that it is in the best interests of the country for a new prime minister to lead that effort.  So I am today announcing that I will resign as leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party on Friday, 7 June, so that a successor can be chosen.  I have agreed with the party chairman and with the chairman of the 1922 Committee that the process for electing a new leader should begin in the following week.  I have kept Her Majesty the Queen fully informed of my intentions, and I will continue to serve as her prime minister until the process has concluded.”

There were many times you should have stepped down long before now.  The first of these was the 2017 General Election.  You called a snap General Election to prove that the UK was behind the way you were handling Brexit.  That failed miserably, and it was a clear message to you that the electorate did not in fact trust your handling of Brexit.  Any dignified politician would have taken the message, and did the honourable thing in standing down.  Instead you made a deal with the DUP to form a minority government.  And I would point out that is the DUP which has a strongly sectarian, anti-Catholic history and membership, who voted against the Good Friday Agreement, who are strongly anti-abortion, and are just as strongly opposed to LGBT+ people, with the result that Northern Ireland is now the last remaining part not just of the UK, but of the whole physical British Isles, where abortion and same-sex marriage remain illegal.  And you claim to have “striven to make the United Kingdom a country that works not just for a privileged few, but for everyone.”

You likewise should have stepped down the first time your Brexit deal was defeated in the House of Commons, by a margin of 230, making it the greatest Commons defeat in history.  That it was subsequently defeated again, that should have been a clear message to you to go.  And that is before I even mention all the other failures and scandals of your disastrous premiership.

“It is, and will always remain, a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit.  It will be for my successor to seek a way forward that honours the result of the referendum.  To succeed, he or she will have to find consensus in Parliament where I have not.  Such a consensus can only be reached if those on all sides of the debate are willing to compromise.”

Indeed, compromise and diplomacy are what makes politics.  But if your successor is to succeed, then they must be willing to listen to all sides, where you, in ignoring Scotland and Northern Ireland, and to everyone pointing out all the failures of your deal were completely unwilling to listen.  They must not, as you did, try to continually present a Bill which is unwanted, unworkable, and the worst of all worlds.  They must be willing to listen carefully, discuss and debate with all, to take their ideas on board, and to scrap plans and start again where necessary.  They must also be willing to listen to the growing number of voices across the UK calling for a second referendum on EU membership.

“For many years the great humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton — who saved the lives of hundreds of children by arranging their evacuation from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia through the Kindertransport — was my constituent in Maidenhead.  At another time of political controversy, a few years before his death, he took me to one side at a local event and gave me a piece of advice.  He said, ‘Never forget that compromise is not a dirty word. Life depends on compromise.’  He was right.”

Well, for a start, using an appeal to emotion is a low blow, even for you.  I have no doubt that Sir Nicholas Winton, who was indeed a great man, was absolutely correct.  But one wonders what he would say today if he could hear you abusing his kindness towards those children for your own selfish political motives?  I doubt he would be impressed, and neither am I.

Where was your supposed care about the Windrush Generation?  British Commonwealth citizens who had come to the UK quite legally, had lived in the UK most of their lives, and who legally had right to remain, suddenly being classed as illegal immigrants, having benefits removed, and with the NHS, landlords, and others being told to report them to the Home Office, and many means of pressure put upon them to leave the UK.  Of course, I realise that the Home Office Hostile Environment Policy, which was designed to pressurise ‘non-patrials’ to leave the UK was started before you were Prime Minister.  Indeed, it was started in 2013 under the then Home Secretary – Theresa May MP.  It was you who ordered the vans to go around the streets “asking” people to leave the UK.  It was you who was responsible for illegal deportations.  It was you responsible for deaths in custody.  It was you who said that your policy was to, and I quote, “deport first and hear appeals later”.  And of course, it was you who continued that policy into your Prime Ministership.

“As we strive to find the compromises we need in our politics — whether to deliver Brexit, or to restore devolved government in Northern Ireland — we must remember what brought us here.  Because the referendum was not just a call to leave the E.U. but for profound change in our country.  A call to make the United Kingdom a country that truly works for everyone. I am proud of the progress we have made over the last three years.  We have completed the work that David Cameron and George Osborne started: The deficit is almost eliminated, our national debt is falling and we are bringing an end to austerity.”

Indeed, the deficit is down.  It fell to £24.7bn – which is actually short of the government’s own forecast to bring it down to £22.8bn for the 2018/19 tax year.  And due to this, your government is talking of revising the budget.  That is moving the goalposts, and it fools no-one.  And how has that deficit been brought down?  By swingeing cuts in public spending, which has seen local authorities across the UK, the NHS and the police in England suffer as a result.  London can barely get through a weekend without a stabbing, and you pretend that has nothing to do with government cuts to the police budgets.

The national debt is falling?  Then perhaps you would like to explain how it recently surpassed the £2 Trillion mark, £2,17 Trillion to be precise?  I can explain it; it was due to uncertainty over Brexit – uncertainty which you created.

Bringing an end to austerity?  Really?  Except in 2017 you told the 1922 committee that austerity was over.  On 3 October 2018, after dancing onto the stage at the Conservative Party conference, you gave a speech in which you declared, quote, “a decade after the financial crash, people need to know that the austerity it led to is over”.  On 28 October 2018, your then Chancellor, Phillip Hammond, stated, quote, “hard work is paying off and the age of austerity is coming to an end”.  In January 2019 you again reiterated that austerity was at an end.  Which is it?

“My focus has been on ensuring that the good jobs of the future will be created in communities across the whole country, not just in London and the southeast, through our Modern Industrial Strategy.  We have helped more people than ever enjoy the security of a job.”

There is no security of a job.  Go and have a look at the job boards.  Most of the jobs on offer are poorly-paid agency contracts, which are mostly temporary, many are part-time, and some are on zero hours contracts.  By using agencies, employers can get around the usual safeguards which ensure job security and workers rights.

“We are building more homes and helping first-time buyers onto the housing ladder — so young people can enjoy the opportunities their parents did.”

The Help to Buy scheme came not out of any caring initiative, but was a mark of desperation out of pure necessity when your government was shamed into action by a shocking housing shortage, caused by Margaret Thatcher’s failed “right to buy” policy.  Your government and past Tory – and Labour – administrations failed to build new homes, or to address the problem of rich absentee landlords snapping up properties, then letting them out at rents which few could afford.  This has been a particular problem in London, where entire communities have been completely forced out of the city, while the rich have moved into their place.  So much so that there are now calls from white, middle-class residents in Notting Hill suggesting that organisers take the Notting Hill Carnival elsewhere.

“And we are protecting the environment, eliminating plastic waste, tackling climate change and improving air quality.  This is what a decent, moderate and patriotic Conservative government, on the common ground of British politics, can achieve, even as we tackle the biggest peacetime challenge any government has faced.”

That would be under legislation which was ruled by, ermm, the European Union, which you have been trying so hard to get the UK out of.

And of course under the Kyoto Accord of 1992, long, long before you were even in government, let alone Prime Minister.  Every country which signed the Kyoto Agreement has to reduce carbon emissions and carry out other environmental improvements, so quit trying to tell us that you and your government came up with it.

And actually, England is trailing behind the world in environmental issues.  According to the European Environmental Bureau, England is 18^th in the world league table on recycling.  Meanwhile, a rise in VAT on solar panels, introduced by your government, has made installing them impractical for many home owners.  Compare that to Scotland where most or our electricity is now produced by renewables, and we are already ahead of our carbon reduction targets.

“I know that the Conservative Party can renew itself in the years ahead, that we can deliver Brexit and serve the British people with policies inspired by our values: security, freedom and opportunity.  Those values have guided me throughout my career.”

Actually, Brexit may be the complete undoing of the Conservative Party.  The divisions which it has driven, and with members defecting to other parties, may yet prove terminal to the Conservative Party.  As to security, there have been a spate of terrorist attacks in England under your premiership, which police were powerless to stop.  Many freedoms have been curtailed under your watch both as Home Secretary and Prime Minister, and your own government’s Online Harms White Paper, in openly seeking to restrict “behaviours which are harmful but not necessarily illegal” is little more than an Orwellian ‘thought police’, which will intrude upon and affect the perfectly legal online behaviours of millions.  As to opportunity, what opportunity?  The opportunity to work in temporary, dead-end, poorly-paid, agency contracts, and keep doing so until you are 70 years old, or drop dead doing so?  Certainly don’t look to better yourself in England, because with crippling tuition fees, there is little incentive to go to university.  And even if one does, where are the jobs befitting those graduations?  I do not doubt that those values have guided you, because when you talk of “security, freedom and opportunity”, it seems to me it is purely your own you are thinking of.

”But the unique privilege of this office is to use this platform to give a voice to the voiceless, to fight the burning injustices that still scar our society.  That is why I put proper funding for mental health at the heart of our NHS long-term plan.”

Except you did not.  Far from it, you have continually cut back funding in mental health in England.  The number of beds allocated to mental health patients dropped by 30% in 2018, while mental health nurses dropped by 15%.  And in the same period, 400,000 young people in England were referred for mental health issues.  These figures all have one common factor behind them; the continuing austerity and cutbacks imposed on the NHS, communities, and young people by your government were a huge contributory factor.  You only started pouring money into mental health after these things were pointed out to you.  So far from being a “long-term plan”, it is a kneejerk reaction.  And given you made this statement just a week after the UK Mental Health Awareness Week, that was another low and cynical move.

“It is why I am ending the post code lottery for survivors of domestic abuse.  It is why the Race Disparity Audit and gender pay reporting are shining a light on inequality, so it has nowhere to hide.”

You, in fact created the ‘post code lottery for survivors of domestic abuse’ during your tenure as Home Secretary, and you have done nothing to address until recently as Prime Minister.  Absolutely the same can be said of race disparity and the gender pay gap.  You have had 10 years to sort things out that you and you alone were largely responsible for creating, or at least did nothing to address before, and it is only now, that your popularity is in the bin, that you are pretending to care.

“And it is why I set up the independent public inquiry into the tragedy at Grenfell Tower — to search for the truth, so nothing like it can ever happen again, and so the people who lost their lives that night are never forgotten.”

This has got to be the lowest blow of them all.  Whoever had been Prime Minister, there would always have been some sort of investigation into the causes of the Grenfell Tower fire, whether that be by inquiry or inquest.  And in fact, you created the independent public inquiry into it only after London Mayor Sadiq Khan and others pressed you to do so.  But let us just look at Grenfell Tower.  Here was a tower block filled with some of the poorest and most vulnerable in UK society; the unemployed, refugees, former homeless, single mums – all of whom had suffered at the hands of your government’s policies, placed in a dangerous slum dwelling, which was surrounded by the lavish apartment blocks of the rich and privileged.  Grenfell was a disaster waiting to happen, and Kensington and Chelsea Council – ran by your party, the Conservatives – did nothing to address that.

Meanwhile, while you make sanctimonious statements about remembering the dead, I notice you say nothing of the survivors, who two years later still suffer the trauma of that terrible fire, 96 of whom are still living in temporary flats, hotels, serviced apartments, and some even ‘couch-surfing’ with friends.  This in addition to those who were offered accommodation which was completely unsuitable, including one person offered a house which was in desperate need of repair, a disabled person who was offered an upstairs apartment without a lift, and one person who is suffering PTSD from the fire, and was offered an upper storey apartment in another tower block.  Your words are empty.  Your party created the circumstances which made the Grenfell Tower fire not only possible, but inevitable, and which have done nothing to address since, except your inquiry attempting to place the blame on the brave firefighters who tried their best to fight an impossible situation that night.

“Because this country is a Union.  Not just a family of four nations.  But a union of people — all of us.  Whatever our background, the colour of our skin, or who we love.  We stand together.  And together we have a great future.  Our politics may be under strain, but there is so much that is good about this country. So much to be proud of. So much to be optimistic about."

The Union of nations you claim to care so much about, may well be undone, by your very own hands.  Your continued unwillingness to recognise the wishes of over 60% of the Scottish electorate to stay in the EU, and to snub the First Minister of Scotland in Brexit talks, has already lead to a backlash which may yet see Scotland leaving the Union.  Likewise, your ignorance of the NI backstop is leading people in the province to question whether a united Ireland may be the answer.  The EU referendum itself has sown the seeds of division which has seen many vicious attacks upon people for their ethnic background, and the colour of their skin.  Your own government’s policies have seen many torn from their communities and deported.  As to “who we love”, may I remind you that in your political career you supported Section 28, voted against adoption by same-sex couples, and opposed equal age of consent?

“I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold — the second female prime minister but certainly not the last.”

Indeed, I certainly hope not.  Nicola Sturgeon has shown just how effective a woman leader can be.  However, I remember the last woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, all too well.  Having survived her misrule, I never thought there could ever be a worse Prime Minister.  But Thatcher was a saint compared to you, the pound shop Thatcher.  It is no lie that you have done much more damage to some of the most vulnerable in UK society in only 3 short years than Thatcher managed to do in 11 years.  Thatcher was a complete bastard, but she had an idea of what she was doing.  You have been completely out of your depth, and wholly incompetent at your job – and the poorest of the poor have suffered for that incompetence.  Great leadership comes from ability to do the job, not from gender.

”I do so with no ill will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love (sobs).”

Yeah?  Well, while you claim to have no ill will, I have plenty.  So, dry your eyes.

I will save my tears for the children who will go to bed hungry tonight.  For the severely disabled, and those desperately and even terminally ill who have benefits cut, because they have been deemed fit for work.  For those who faced with benefit cuts or just plain austerity could go no further, and took their own lives.  For the 1.2 million – including some working but on low wages – who have to rely on handouts from food banks.  For the 320,000 homeless who will be sleeping on the streets, in graveyards, in shelters, or couch-surfing tonight.  For every person of an ethnic or racial minority who lives daily with the threat of violence.  For the families and friends of yet another young person stabbed to death.  For those torn from their families, friends, and communities and deported from the country they have come to call home.  And for the millions of other lives that your disastrous tenure as Prime Minister has destroyed.

These too are people of the UK.  You don’t love them; you care absolutely nothing for them, you have shown them utter contempt, and you certainly were not weeping for them.

Your tears were for yourself, and no-one else.  I am not at all impressed, and I shed absolutely no tears for you.

Our Need for the Serpent's Cunning

A mild example from a well-known Indy blogger

No room for online abuse which only harms the independence movement.

Senior figures within the Scottish National Party (SNP) have called for a crackdown on online abuse, and for independence supporters to call out and distance themselves from those who engage in such behaviour.  Alyn Smith MEP, Stewart McDonald MP, and Angus Robertson, former SNP Depute Leader have called out online abuse that may harm the independence campaign.

In an interview, Alyn Smith told the Herald on Sunday (5 May 2019), “in the same way the Tartan Army had to clean up its act in the 1980s and then became a massive ambassadorial source for Scotland… …We all need to step up. This is allowing us to be portrayed in a certain way that's damaging… …call them out and send them to Coventry. Make them persona non grata forever - off you pop, you aren't one of us if that's how you behave”.

Angus Robertson stated, "I'm expressly underlining the fact that this is an issue for both sides of the constitutional argument in Scotland, and more generally internationally where on social media, often because of anonymity, some people think that they can insult, attack and offend with impunity… …I think these people are cowards and wouldn't be prepared to continue posting in the same way if they were identifiable, quite often because what they're saying and doing would be considered illegal. We need a cultural change… …There's been reticence by senior Yes supporters to call out abuse for fear of undermining the more general debate about Scotland's constitutional future, and rather than highlight the levels of abuse they received by unionist trolls to let it slide, or to avoid criticism because one is wanting to protect the reputation of public discourse more generally.  This can't go on. People can't go on thinking they can sit in front of their keyboards and do nothing but send abuse to people they don't agree with. You wouldn't do it in public, you'd be thrown out of a pub for doing it, you'd never do it at a family event, why on earth would you do it online?"

I have seen angry responses from some in the Indy camp, who somehow feel betrayed by these comments, but the fact is that the SNP trio are absolutely correct, and I applaud all three for calling out those who are potentially damaging the independence cause.  And those angered may have missed the point that the three actually called out those on the unionist side who partake in the same behaviour.

What does Internet abuse achieve?  Does it change the hearts and minds of the people who are being attacked?  Does it make salient political points that the opponents are likely to take on board and consider carefully?  Or is it just an excuse for at the least a slanging match, or to rant at someone, which may make the person doing so feel good at the time, but which ultimately reflects upon all of us in the independence movement, and has the potential to damage our campaign.

I saw one typical example on Facebook just today.  A friend posted screenprints from a private messaging conversation with a unionist woman, who was not abusive, but really was just mistaken in many of her comments.  There were comments below this of people saying they were going to go to her Facebook timeline to “put her in her place”, “give her a piece of my mind”, etc.  One person who had previously been blocked by the said woman stated that they intended to set up a fake Facebook profile to troll her.  Why?  The woman in question is a diehard unionist who will listen to no reason.  What does attacking her achieve?  What would it help?  Just how does it further the cause of independence to hurl abuse at someone who is so stuck in their views that you will never change their mind?  It does not. And it was not lost on me that some of the comments called her “cow”, “old bag”, and various other sexist and ageist insults.  Well done, guys.  Is there any other way you’d like to damage the Indy movement?

Cyber abuse cannot be ignored.  It takes many forms and it can be extremely damaging, and potentially dangerous.  SNP MP Joanna Cherry recently had call to have police protection at her weekly surgery, due to what was seen as a threatening message posted on her Twitter account.  This comprised of a meme of a masked figure with a gun, and the words “Just do it”, alongside details of Ms Cherry’s surgery.  This came in the wake of Ms Cherry campaigning against the SNP administration’s adoption of gender self-ID for transgender and non-binary people.  As a firm trans ally, I find Joanna Cherry’s stance on transgender people to be deeply offensive, and I feel she has hardly covered herself in glory.  But all that apart, while Ms Cherry’s stance may be offensive to some, it does not warrant any response may incite violence and threatens her or anyone else’s well-being.  If I can strongly disagree with Joanna Cherry without resorting to abuse or threats, so can anyone.  Let us not forget that it is less then 3 years since Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by someone who often tweeted hate messages, and inciting anyone to similar actions, over any issue, is simply deplorable.

And Joanna Cherry is not alone in this.  Nicola Sturgeon, Mhairi Black, and other women SNP politicians have reported having sexist and threatening comments and messages online.  But it is not reserved to the SNP.  Openly lesbian leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, has often come in for homophobic, sexist, and threatening messages online, and on one infamous occasion in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum, one such perpetrator subjected her to a tirade of online abuse of a homophobic nature.  The comments quite rightly disgusted many of us, his true identity were made public, and both the SNP and Yes Scotland were quick to dismiss him, and shamed him into phoning Ruth to apologise.  Ruth Davidson later tweeted that she felt she had been treated by “gallantry” by the independence movement.  And for that, she is welcome.  As much as I dislike Ruth Davidson’s politics, and I probably wouldn’t get along with her on a personal level, to attack anyone for their sexuality is about as low as it gets, and I was never prouder of the Indy movement for acting so quickly in condemning the homophobe responsible.  On that occasion, we got it exactly right.

I can almost hear some reading this shouting “What about the abuse from unionists?”  Yes, they the unionists do indeed involve themselves in cyber abuse of Scots Nats, and sometimes much worse.  I could recount a number of incidences of actual violence carried out by unionists in the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum, and even one in which an elderly man in a Yes hub not far from my home was attacked just recently.  I have personally been threatened and even spat upon by unionists.  I keep my Facebook account set to “Friends” for many reasons, one of which being that I think out my arguments and check my facts very carefully before posting anything.  I am not about to leave that open to some knuckledragger who has taken a nanosecond to come up with their unintelligent response.

It is no use playing “whataboutery”.  We know what the unionists are capable of and that they often go off in tirades of online abuse towards Scots Nats, and indeed, others.  I have personally read and heard unionists come out with racist, xenophobic, sexist, sectarian, and religious abuse.  I am not for one moment saying that all unionists are bigots, I know for a fact they are not.  But I would say they have more than their fair share of such.  That such do indeed make abusive and threatening comments is absolutely no excuse to sink to their level.

We would do well to remember that not all unionists are abusive or bigoted, and I once saw a comment that made me want to cry.  On a friend’s timeline, someone commented that she had voted No in 2014, now realised her mistake, and stated that she would vote Yes in any future independence referendum.  This was immediately followed by a comment from a supposed independence supporter (actually someone I unfriended quite a while) in which he lambasted the woman for “subjecting Scotland to four years of Tory rule”.  Oh, well done.  That’s really going to win hearts and minds, isn’t it?  There are many who voted No in 2014, for many reasons, and it is precisely those people we need to engage if we are ever going to gain a free Scotland.  Abusing them is never going to convince them to vote Yes in the future, it is far more likely to cause them to scurry back to the No camp, and to remain firmly there.

It is also worth mentioning that the above abuser often comes out with openly anti-English statements, which was the very reason why I unfriended him.  While anti-English sentiments are not so prevalent in the Indy movement as they once were, they are still there nonetheless, they need to stop, and those who resort to such need to be called out and ostracised by the movement.  We can make comments about London rule and Westminster all we want.  We can make the point that all the unionist opposition parties are London-based.  But the moment that we blame the ordinary people of England for our woes, we are on a hiding to nothing, and worse still, it abuses many of those who may actually be on our side.  I have a few English friends living in Scotland, and all but one of them is pro-Independence.  One woman in particular campaigns long and hard for independence, which being disabled, is not easy for her.  She certainly does a lot more than the trolls who set out to abuse unionists, and throw in anti-English sentiments to boot.  Likewise, of my online English friends south of the border, most of them support an independent Scotland.  Go look through Nicola Sturgeon’s Twitter feed any day, and you will find English people asking for the SNP to field candidates in England, and how much they wish they had a leader like her in Westminster.  I will never tire of saying this; we in the Indy camp have much more in common with the working class of England than we shall ever have with our own Scottish landed gentry.

These things are indeed important because of the opponent we face.  We are taking on the British establishment, a particularly powerful animal, and it is they who have the media at their back.  We all know that the moment any person purporting to support independence puts a foot wrong, it will be jumped upon by the media, in an attempt to lambast us all, even if we do not agree with the person in question.  The attack on the elderly gentleman I mentioned earlier got about two column inches inside a newspaper.  Compare that to the front-page headline stories and the centre spreads that newspapers have given to a few abusive comments by what is in reality a small minority of people.  Look at the many times that the main TV broadcasters have misreported a story about the Indy camp, or deliberately misrepresented us.   Look indeed at how the media hijacked the term “cybernat”, to claim it represents all independence supporters who use the internet to abuse others.  In fact, if you stand for independence and your main medium for making the arguments for such is online, then you are, like me, a cybernat.  And if people have the time and resources to abuse people on line, then they have the time and resources to put forward positive arguments for independence to those who may be wavering, which is where their energies would and should be better spent.

”We need the cunning of the serpent to deal with money and power.” wrote the socialist Scots poet Naomi Mitchison in her 13-part pro-independence anthology, The Cleansing of the Knife.  And what Mitchison penned in 1941 was never more relevant in the internet age of the 21^st century.  We not only must be squeaky clean, we must be seen to be squeaky clean, especially in the face of the money and power which the unionists have at their resource.

I fully realise that online abuse in the Indy movement is but one symptom of a wider disease.  Politics are becoming increasingly polarised, and there appears to be a belief nowadays that throwing insults and even threats about is somehow valid.  This is not however the case, and if you believe at all in reasoned and democratic debate, then you will have no part in such.  Your right to freedom of speech does not extend to abusing and threatening your opponent.  It never did, it never shall, and neither should it be so.  Therefore, we should call out online abuse because it is the right thing to do.  Whenever and wherever we encounter personal attacks upon and threats or incitement to violence towards those who oppose independence, it needs to be nipped in the bud, and the perpetrators named, shamed, and made pariahs within the independence movement.  Particularly if the abuse is based upon sexuality, gender, ethnicity, race, age, religion – or lack thereof, or any other personal attribute.  Where any online messages contain threats, or incitement to violence, not only do we need to distance ourselves from such, they should be reported to the police as soon as possible.

In the final instance, whenever someone purporting to be pro-independence makes comments online which abuse, threaten, or incite violence, then that can only be harmful to our cause.  If anyone is going to play the man and not the ball, then they do not speak for me, they do not speak for Scotland, they do not speak for the independence movement, and that needs to be made very plain, in loud and clear language.

Our Scotland, and the vision we share for her future, is far too important to allow anyone or anything which harms that to continue.