The decision to lift the suspension of the Batley Grammar School teacher does not necessarily mean he can safely return to work. As the second half term begins, we do not know if he will return. Whatever happens, he will have to live under constant fear. His possible return is not helped by the wording of the decision, which is a victory for mob rule, intolerance and contains a recommendation that the teacher and the school self-censor and the avoid giving offence in class in the future. The independent inquiry convened by the school found that the teacher and his colleagues did not show the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in a lesson on blasphemy with the ‘intention to cause offence’. But the school felt it had to make an abject apology, recognising that ‘using the image did cause deep offence to a number of students, parents and members of our school community. The Trust deeply regrets the distress this has caused’. (Executive Summary).
This is not the end of what we could call the UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment as some may hope. What happened at Batley Grammar School is a triumph for those who do not merely shout “That’s offensive!” but physically intimidate students and teachers while making demands for disciplinary action or the sacking of those they believe have caused offence. Mob rule by Islamists and others will be encouraged by this decision and by the cowardice of teachers and teacher unions to stand up for the freedom to teach.
The Charlie Hebdo moment began with a mob
Thursday 25 March 2021 was the day when the UK began to experience its ‘Charlie Hebdo’ moment. A mob gathered outside Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire to demand the sacking of an RS teacher who had apparently shown students the cartoons of Muhammed that had appeared in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. This was during a lesson on blasphemy. It seems perfectly reasonable to illustrate ‘blasphemy’ with reference to these cartoons that incensed Islamists to slaughter 12 of the writers, editors and cartoonists at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris on 7 January 2015. What is happening in the UK is less violent but equally frightening.
A Muslim Charity calling itself ‘Purpose of Life’ had written to the school head teacher demanding that the RE teacher – who they named – be sacked. It appeared to be behind the protests at the school gates. They were offended that the Prophet Muhammed had been depicted and saw it as blasphemy. They did not care that there is no blasphemy law in Yorkshire (or the UK) and that criticism and satire about any religion is allowed. They did not care about freedom of speech!
The weak head teacher, Gary Kibble, caved in immediately and had a statement read out unreservedly apologising for what had happened. He said that the use of the cartoons was ‘completely inappropriate’ and would not happen again. The teacher was suspended pending an investigation.
If Mr Kibble thought that an abject capitulation to a mob would resolve matters, he was incredibly naïve. The next day another mob of mostly Muslim men, unconnected with the school, turned up outside and vowed to stay there until the teacher was sacked. The consistently weak Mr Kibble closed the school.
There were death threats against the teacher, whose name and address were known. He went into hiding with his family in the early morning of Friday 26 March, possibly under the direction and protection of the police.
This tragic situation resembled the persecution of the French teacher of history and geography, Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by Islamists in October 2020 for allegedly showing his class the Charlie Hebdo cartoons to illustrate his country’s commitment to freedom of speech and expression. The letter from parents and Muslim groups that preceded the murder of Paty has a parallel in the early response to the lesson by the RS teacher. In France, a fatwa was issued condemning Paty. There was no need for a fatwa in Batley. The head teacher had internalised the fatwa in his thinking.
The silence of the teacher unions
As happened in the case of Samuel Paty, the teacher unions were silent. A teacher was driven into hiding in fear of his life and they said nothing. They could not bring themselves to defend a fellow teacher for fear of being called ‘Islamophobic’. They were as cowardly as the head teacher and a disgrace to the profession and failures to what could be a brilliant moment for free thinking and debate.
The heroes of the moment
The real heroes of the UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment were the Batley Grammar School students. They launched a petition on Change.org to demand their teacher be reinstated. Within hours it had over 10,000 signatures and at the time of writing has over 71,400 signatures.
Putting the teacher unions to shame a union branch of bin-men kicked up a stink about the suspended by putting forward a motion from their trade union branch to Shamefully, the National Education Union, the largest teacher union, tried to get them to withdraw it.
AFAF, the Free Speech Union, and several individuals, wrote to the head teacher and demanded that the RE teacher be reinstated immediately and allowed to return to work. They received no response.
The fatwa determines future practice
Not only the head teacher and the teacher unions but the barrister leading the ‘independent’ inquiry have internalised the fatwa. The executive summary of the enquiry states:
“The Trust will not avoid addressing challenging subject matter in its classrooms, but it is committed to ensuring that offence is not caused and that this is always done with care and sensitivity, enabling students to build empathy, mutual respect and understanding” [italics added].
No one has the right not to be offended and if a curriculum is designed to avoid offending anyone then it will be no more than a political tract.
If fear of the mob determines what we are free to teach and silences trade unions, then freedom in education will be under threat from future mobs. It is not good enough to hope the UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment will simply go away. Cowardly capitulation can only encourage more Islamist, and other, offended mobs.
The Batley and Spen parliamentary by-election is a chance for all candidates to speak up for free speech. The UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment is far from over. #JesuisBatleyGSteacher.
MailOnline - news, sport, celebrity, science and health stories
MMU student told his course leader he was 'extremely concerned' about Batley
Batley Grammar teacher is under police protection after showing picture in class
MMU student said he worried about the 'cowardly response from the unions and other bodies connected to teaching' amid the row over the Batley teacher
By Henry Martin For Mailonline
Published: 13:22, 13 May 2021 | Updated: 16:44, 13 May 2021
A teacher trainee was hauled before a fitness to practise meeting after saying he 'would not hesitate' to use images of the Prophet Mohammed in a class - sparking a fierce backlash from freedom of speech advocates.
The Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) student had told his course leader he was 'extremely concerned' about the recent case of a teacher at Batley Grammar School who was suspended after he showed an image of the prophet to pupils.
The Batley, West Yorkshire teacher and his family are still under police protection, and the threat to their safety is judged as so severe that even their relatives do not know where they are now living, more than six weeks after fleeing their home.
The MMU student, who is set to complete his Postgraduate Certificate in Education course this summer, had written an email to his course leader on April 1 saying he worried about the 'cowardly response from the unions and other bodies connected to teaching', The Telegraph reports.
'I would like to know whether or not MMU is prepared to stand up for any student who finds themselves in a similar position,'he added, arguing that the protests which arose amid the row were a 'clear attempt to enforce a de facto blasphemy law on teachers and schools'.
'I would not hesitate to use drawings of any religious figure, including Mohammed, and I certainly will not bow to any pressure from protests, and I would like to think that my university will stand with me,' he said.
The course leader did not reply, but one month later the student was contacted by the head of the teacher education department demanding he attend a 'fitness to practise cause for concern meeting'.
The reaction has prompted fury as critics voiced their support for the trainee teacher.
The Free Speech Union said: 'It is absolutely ludicrous that a trainee teacher could be barred from teaching for supporting the Batley Grammar School teacher over the Mohammed cartoons.
'There is no blasphemy law in England, nor should there ever be again.'
Social media users agreed with the union's statement, with one saying: 'Where are all the teachers backing him up? Should be ashamed of themselves.'
Another said: '@GavinWilliamson I'm a teacher. The profession is being intimidated. The people in charge of education acquiesce to the demands of a religion.'
A third said: 'He should not be fighting to keep his job, this is a clear case of the tail wagging the dog. The people at the top need to stand up, grow a pair and tell everyone that they will not be cowed or intimidated in this way.'
The fitness meeting could result in a referral to a Fitness to Practise Panel following the MMU student's comments claiming he would be willing to show the picture of Mohammed in class, he was told.
The head of department told him it could be a breach of Teachers' Standards - which include upholding 'public trust in the profession'.
The concern 'specifically relates to the Prophet Mohammed' due to 'particular sensitivities' around drawings of him, the student was told.
The student teacher called the response 'ludicrous and humiliating'.
An MMU spokesman told MailOnline: 'Manchester Metropolitan University has always supported and championed freedom of speech. We provide an academic environment in which debate and the sharing of views is encouraged.
'However, there is a difference between the expectations on students within an academic environment on a University campus and the expectations once our students move into a professional practice environment, such as a primary school.
'We look at all cases on their individual merits and in knowledge of the full context around a particular issue, and then take a course of action that is relevant and most suitable to deal with that specific issue.
'In this instance, it was thought best to have an initial discussion with the student about the potential impact in a primary school environment of the suggestion that he would be happy to share imagery which would be upsetting to people of a particular faith.
'We believe the discussion with the student was positive and constructive and we await further feedback from him before deciding whether any further steps are required.'
It comes after the row over Batley deepened this month as Imam Adil Shahzad, who travelled to Batley from Bradford to join the protests, insisted he wants the teacher dismissed.
Posted on National Secular Society website: Thu, 08 Apr 2021 by Bob Forder
Religious leaders have long feared irreverent drawings that could challenge their authority. We should remember that amid the latest effort to prevent the use of Muhammad cartoons, says Bob Forder.
In recent weeks there's been another furious response to the use of Muhammad cartoons – this time in an educational setting, at Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire.
There is nothing new about cartoons being used as a device to poke fun at the religious. They have been a contentious source of blasphemy prosecutions and allegations ever since technical developments enabled their mass print production.
An early example is Leo Taxil's 'La Bible Amusante', which satirised what Taxil regarded as biblical inconsistencies and absurdities. G.W. Foote latched onto the cartoons in this book when he founded The Freethinker in 1881. He would undoubtedly have been encouraged by efforts to have Taxil's book banned in this country. From the outset Foote republished some of the cartoons as 'Comic Bible Sketches', although they were supplemented by others. More than anything else it was cartoons that made The Freethinker notorious and the reason the newspaper was such an immediate success in terms of its circulation.
At the same time, the leading US freethought newspaper The Truthseeker was publishing Watson Heston's cartoons (example below), which satirised biblical passages and celebrated US secularism and secular heroes like Thomas Paine. These were later collected together in books such as 'The Bible Comically Illustrated' and 'The Freethinkers' Pictorial Textbook'. These caused quite a rumpus, although little is known about Watson Heston.
Both D.M. Bennett (who founded The Truthseeker) and Foote were clear about the purpose of their cartoons. They reasoned that if you laugh at priests or ministers you can't take them seriously and they therefore lose authority. He had a point – and the same could be said for imams as for priests. I think this accounts in large part for the furious response in Batley.
Foote was eventually prosecuted for blasphemy (partly for the special 1882 Christmas number of The Freethinker, which was a cartoonists' feast). I include a copy of the cartoon from the front page (see main image). Other contents included a cartoon strip "A new life of Christ" and a particularly contentious cartoon "Moses getting a back view" with a quotation from Exodus "And it shall come to pass that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and I shall take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts". The cartoon features a rather startled Moses staring at a pair of well-filled check trousers with a tear in the rear. None of this has me rolling around with laughter, but I can understand the furious response provoked in 1882 – and Foote's courage in publishing them.
Foote got a year in Holloway Gaol and was widely regarded as a hero and martyr in National Secular Society circles. It was this that ensured he became president when Charles Bradlaugh – the NSS's founder – resigned in 1890.
The Charlie Hebdo cartoons were published for similar reasons and are part of the same tradition.
There is, however, a significant difference between now and then. Those who objected in the 19th century were largely part of an elite which held a privileged position in society as a whole, embodied and supported by the established church. In some ways those demanding retribution in Batley can be considered amongst the least privileged in society and, for them, this is an issue tightly linked to their ethnicity and sense of identity.
This makes the issue far more complex and helps explain the disappointing woolly thinking, platitudes and fudge about the need to engage and listen that has crept in amongst what might loosely be termed the liberal left. But those condoning the dangerous and over-hasty behaviour of the Batley Grammar School governors and management really need to think again.
Secularism is a fundamental liberal democratic principle. The strength and success of liberal democracy rests not only on principles such as fair elections but also on the assumption that the political system accommodates all religions and beliefs with equal respect and access, apart from those intent on its overthrow.
A failure to understand this, and the freedom of speech it entails, is the real threat to us all, particularly the less privileged. Freedom of speech must entail a right to offend, however regrettable this might seem.
Sadly, the array of religious and community leaders (some self-appointed) assembled outside Batley Grammar School purport to represent a less privileged community. But giving in will simply enhance and protect these leaders' own status and position within their community, at others' expense, and run the risk of that community becoming further isolated from society at large.
ON the first Easter Sunday we were together my wife rushed into the garden to tell me that the Pope was just about to give his address ‘Urbi et Orbi’, to the city and the world. I was baffled at her enthusiasm. Our mutual lack of understanding was because she had been brought up in the Roman Catholic tradition and I in the Anglican. It has not stopped us living in peace and harmony for 46 years. Nor has it meant that our ideas have remained fossilised in the past. But it’s a difference that had people imprisoned, tortured or burned at the stake 500 years ago.
The Reformation*, when Henry VIII broke with Rome and established himself as the head of the Anglican church, is seen by some as one of the most significant events in English history. But at this distance a more realistic appraisal is that it merely exchanged one form of intolerance for another; an insistence that one set of beliefs was the one true way, for another.
For the next 150 years the insistence that they, and they alone, knew the truth about how to worship their God drove those who happened to be in power at the time to impose their beliefs on the populace. Burning at the stake was in vogue during the reign of ‘Bloody Mary’, as she was called in my history book, but not that of my wife. During the heyday of Puritanism in the mid 17th century dancing and Christmas celebrations were forbidden, a bit like Jehovah’s Witnesses refusal to celebrate today, or the Taliban’s ban on pigeon flying.
And then it stopped; not all at once, not everywhere in the world, not even everywhere in Europe, but slowly this thing we call ‘The Enlightenment’ came into being. It wasn’t a single thing, but included a range of ideas centred on, sovereignty of reason, empirical investigation and the evidence of the senses as the primary sources of knowledge. It advanced ideals such as individual liberty, constitutional government, separation of religion and state, and toleration, including religious toleration. The countries where these conditions still do not exist are too well known for me to need to enumerate all of them; three will suffice, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Although The Enlightenment has dethroned religion as the sole arbiter of truth and knowledge its ideals of individual liberty and of religious tolerance has ensured that those so inclined can hold and practice their beliefs without persecution by the state, and the state will act to ensure that they are able to do so. It is no coincidence that the Archbishop of Canterbury has said; ‘We have to speak freely, I’m much more towards the US end of the spectrum on freedom of speech than I am elsewhere towards the other end. I think we have to be open to hearing things we really dislike’.
Even if many of a religious persuasion do not, Welby is aware that his Anglican faith benefits from that ideal of tolerance which those of us who do not share his beliefs attempt to give meaning to. Tolerance of other peoples’ beliefs and their practice of them does not mean that they should be immune to critical analysis or criticism. I believe that any claims about the existence or non-existence of transcendental beings or deities have no meaning in the absence of any empirical test to determine their veracity. But it does not stop me defending the rights of Christians to express their views on God’s opinion on homosexuality, even though I think they are nonsense, or defending Asia Bibi against persecution in Pakistan.
In other words the freedom that the followers of Islam, including those who reside in Batley and are demanding that the teacher who did something they dislike should be sacked, have to practice their beliefs in this country rests firmly upon ideals of The Enlightenment. Insisting that we in the UK abandon those ideals and adopt their own stance of intolerance towards those whose views we disapprove of will not serve them well. Anyone for banning Halal slaughter?
Historians usually date the start of the Protestant Reformation to the 1517 publication of Martin Luther’s “95 Theses.” Its ending can be placed anywhere from the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, which allowed for the coexistence of Catholicism and Lutheranism in Germany, to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. The key ideas of the Reformation—a call to purify the church and a belief that the Bible, not tradition, should be the sole source of spiritual authority—were not themselves novel. However, Luther and the other reformers became the first to skillfully use the power of the printing press to give their ideas a wide audience.
IN Great Britain the common law offence of blasphemy was abolished in May 2008. Which suggest that the recent BBC News headline ‘Batley Grammar School: Blasphemy debate leaves town at crossroads’ is not simply misleading but mischievous. For more than 150 years before that it had been restricted to protecting the "tenets and beliefs of the Church of England". It has not been missed as the last case in which anyone went to jail was in 1922 when John William Gott was sentenced to nine months hard labour for comparing Jesus with a circus clown. There is no record of whether God thought this was necessary.
A late amendment to the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 contained a clause which reads "Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system."
The legislation has been attacked by a number of Muslims on the basis that it is too rigidly drawn, and that the scope of the offence of incitement to religious hatred is too narrow. The amendment noted above was inserted after campaigns by religious and secular groups, and comedians and satirists who were concerned that as originally drafted the act to hinder free speech.
In an Australian case brought by the Islamic Council of Victoria citing the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, which applies to public behaviour not personal beliefs, the outcome was a statement agreed to by both parties which affirmed everyone's rights to "robustly debate religion including the right to criticise the religious belief of another, in a free, open and democratic society".
In a nutshell the actions of the teacher in the Batley Grammar School case were not unlawful in the UK. Had the intension been to vilify Muslims rather than to discuss blasphemy it would have fallen within the scope of the act.
The protests outside Batley Grammar School are an attempt to introduce a new blasphemy law by stealth.
Editorial comment: Mark Birkett has responded with the comment below and has tried to spell out the problems with regard to the Batley Grammar School dispute over the teacher who displayed the cartoon of the Muslim Prophet in his class on religous studies. Some of the Muslim parents took exception to this and are calling for the teacher's dismissal by gathering outside the school to protest.
*******************
Mark Birkett's view on the question of 'Blasphemy' & Islam:
'Yes, that's right. I'm curious as to the genuine motives of those parents who have called for the sacking of the teacher. I think that was clear in my comment below. But if not I'm happy to clarify it.
'I've been an anti-racist all my life. But the problem we seem to have, with this sort of reaction by some Muslim parents living in Britain, or indeed the murderous persecution of so-called 'blasphemers' in places like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia - is that challenging the Islamic faith gets conflated with racism. The two are not even remotely one and the same thing. Providing the intellectual space and the intellectual tools for all children to discuss these issues meaningfully is a major challenge for our society. We cannot keep pretending otherwise.
'The reasons for it being a challenge are many. For instance, we all know very well that there are many on the far right who delight in provoking Asians simply because it suits their racist beliefs. And many in such racist groups cynically use wider revulsion at some of the worst aspects of Islam (including its appalling attitude to women, homosexuals and apostates) to further that sort of racist agenda.
'Unfortunately, there are just as many within the Muslim community who completely fail to see how bigoted their religion is. Islam is by no means the only bigoted religion of course (if in doubt, read the Old Testament and / or the more blood-curdling threats in 'Revelations') but it is (in my view) the most murderous of all three Abrahamic faiths. It's certainly the only one that calls for murder in the case of apostasy (thou shalt believe in Allah .. or else).
'The other oft-confused element in this quagmire is the false notion that there is such a thing as a 'Muslim' child. No child is 'born' a Muslim, nor Christian, nor Satanist. nor voodoo-ist ... nor any other religion or cult for that matter. They are just children, each of whom needs to be taught how to think, not what. Every child subjected to any religion presented to them as factually true is by definition being brainwashed. And teachers in our schools have an absolute duty to call a dead halt to that. They need to encourage children to question all such evidence-free thinking. To discenr the welcome aspects of religion (Thou Shalt Not Kill etc) from the wholly unwelcome (women are second to men etc). They need to be taught how to question and value satire too. And they need to be able to do so without fear that some idiot will decide that they need to be sacked for doing so (or far worse).
'Imagine if a teacher was suspended for discussing the impact Monty Python's 'Life of Brian' in a classroom? We'd see it as utterly absurd. Yet far too many seem to think Islam should have a free card here. It absolutely shouldn't. Satire is a vital part of a free democracy. It doesn't mean I think showing the (so-called) 'Prophet' with a bomb under his turban is in good taste. Nor am I blind to the fear that such cartoons might even encourage some children to grow up seeing all Muslims as terrorists. But that's the point. Discussion of these ideas, and the reactions that flow from them, is an essential part of every child's education. Far too many Muslim parents refuse to see that point.
'Muslims who think it's OK to threaten teachers who try to encourage pupils to think clearly about religions - including (I'd hope) getting to children to discuss the bigotry inherent in all of them - cannot claim sanctuary behind terms such as 'Islamophobia' - a term without the slightest moral or intellectual currency. All who live in this country - a nominally 'free democracy' - need to accept that satire (esp. in the form of cartoons) does not automatically equate to racism. Nor do they have the right to claim that 'blasphemy' has any place in a modern democracy either.
'It's very difficult to get these things right of course, and I'd never want to give the slightest succour or comfort to racists, but teachers being suspended for openly discussing the satirising of religion need to be protected and defended at all costs. If parents wish to silence such teachings, let alone perhaps pretend that the Charlie Hebdo murders were even remotely justified, then they truly don't belong in our free democracy. Those of us who can see the difference between these two approaches to discussing the role of religions need to be ultra-clear whose side we're on.'
Thousands of people have signed a petition calling for a Batley school teacher to be reinstated after he allegedly showed derogatory caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed.
The unnamed teacher, who is now under police protection, has been suspended from his role with Batley Grammar School issuing an apology to parents who have been protesting outside the school gates.
Ricky Gervais has waded in on the row by condemning the protesters and there are calls for the teacher to be reinstated after a pupil started a petition.
It has been signed by thousands of people and is gathering momentum despite [other] protesters calling for the teacher to be sacked.
Other reports:
The organisers behind the online petition claim to be students at the West Yorkshire school.
They said the teacher "was trying to educate students about racism and blasphemy" and was "not racist and did not support the Islamophobic cartoons in any manner".
It added: "This has got out of hand and due to this, students have missed out on lessons because of 'peaceful' protestors" .
FREEDOM of speech, especially freedom of the press is in danger the world over.Two major Western Democracies, USA and the UK are trying to curb the press. Not my own opinion but also recently retired broadcaster, John Humphrys, who wrote this headline in his newspaper column this week: "Don't silence us hacks, Boris....muzzle your 'evil genius'"
He quotes Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the American Declaration of Independence: "Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press. Were it left to me Ito decide between government without newspapers and newspapers without government, I would not hesitate to choose the latter".
UK police just arrested two journalists in one week
The UK government likes to brag about how we live in a democratic nation that “supports human rights, democracy and good governance around the world”. But its support for democracy doesn’t seem to stretch to upholding the rights of journalists.
In the past week, two journalists were arrested trying to go about their jobs, reporting on protests in different parts of the country. Meanwhile, the UK continues to score badly in rankings for World Press Freedom. At 35th in the world, it lags behind much of Europe. And in September 2020, The Council of Europe issued a Level 2 “media freedom alert” after the government blacklisted journalists from Declassified UK.
Taken together, this paints a grim picture of press freedom in the UK. And it’s one that should worry us all.
Threatened with a Covid fine & then arrested
Denise Laura Baker was arrested on Saturday 30 January as she attempted to cover the police evicting anti-HS2 activists from their protest tower in Euston.
Baker is an accredited photo and video journalist who has been making a long-term documentary about the resistance to HS2’s high speed railway line. Police and National Eviction Team bailiffs began to evict activists on Wednesday 27 January, and Baker had been there daily documenting it.
She told The Canary that there were lots of police on the Saturday of her arrest. In Baker’s opinion, the police were trying to remove anyone that could witness and document the actions of police and bailiffs. Baker said:I was approached by a female officer who told me to leave the area. I informed her that I was working legitimately and showed her my NUJ press card. She told me that it was not a recognised card and that it did not prove I was working. I informed her that I had been there since Wednesday with no issues. She called over colleagues who said they were going to issue me with a Covid fine. When asked for my details I refused and explained that in accepting the fine I would legitimise their accusation of me being unlawfully in the area and give them free rein to keep moving me on. I then walked away from them and continued working.
They followed me, insisting that they were issuing a fine and if I didn’t give my details they would arrest me, which is eventually what they did. They then cuffed me, put me in the police car and took me to Kentish Town station.
Baker continued:
'It is my belief that they simply wanted me out of the way so there were less witnesses to their work on that day.'
Journalists are classed as key workers in the coronavirus pandemic and Baker should, legally, have been allowed to carry on doing her job.
The second arrest of the week
But Baker wasn’t the first journalist finding herself in police cells last week. Freelance photographer Andy Aitchison was arrested on Thursday 28 January. The police came to his house more than six hours after he photographed a protest at Kent’s Napier Barracks, where hundreds of asylum seekers are currently being imprisoned. The police seized Aitchison’s mobile phone, as well as the memory card from his camera, and arrested him under suspicion of causing criminal damage.
Commenting on Aitchison’s arrest, Baker told The Canary:
Mine is the second recent incident where a reporter has been arrested while working. It’s extremely concerning that if a photographer or journalist appears to be on good terms with the activists, they are at risk of being targeted. These actions set a dangerous precedent. Aitchison’s case is particularly concerning given the seizure of his phone and memory card. Journalists not only do not have to reveal their sources, but they are also obligated to protect them. As the NUJ states:
The NUJ ethical code of conduct stipulates that a journalist must protect the identity of sources who supply information in confidence and material gathered in the course of her or his work.
Normally if the police want to view a journalist’s footage for evidential purposes, they have to do it through the courts. In 2012, media organisations won a High Court battle against the police who wanted their footage of the eviction of Dale Farm. On winning the case, head of newsgathering at the BBC stated:
Journalists must maintain their independence, must not be seen as evidence gatherers and must not have their safety compromised
NOT ISOLATED INCIDENTS
Unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents.
In 2019, The Canary reported how the Metropolitan Police arrested freelance journalist Guy Smallman while covering an environmental protest. And in September 2019, journalists from The Canary were obstructed and assaulted while covering protests against the London arms fair.
At the end of 2020, the National Union of Journalists reminded the police to respect journalists’ roles as key workers after “hostility towards reporters and photographers” who were covering anti-lockdown protests.
The Canary contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment on Baker’s case. But it had not responded to the specific case at the time of publication and instead referred us to the guidance from National Police Chief’s Council.
UK press freedom is a “cause for concern”
Reporters Without Borders releases an annual World Press Freedom Index. It highlights that while the UK “champions” media freedom, the reality is different for reporters on the ground. The organisation argues that:
Despite the UK co-hosting a Global Conference for Media Freedom and assuming the role of co-chair of the new Media Freedom Coalition, the UK’s domestic press freedom record remained cause for concern throughout 2019.
And it pointed out that:
During the general election campaign, the Conservative Party threatened to review the BBC’s licence fee and Channel 4’s public service broadcasting licence if the party returned to government.
Reporters Without Borders has also highlighted how the current government has done its best to shut down the dissenting voices of what it calls “campaigning” media. In particular, it argues that government bodies have used:
heavy-handed responses to reporting on stories related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
It continues:
We are alarmed by the UK government’s dismissal of serious public interest reporting as ‘false’ and coming from ‘campaigning newspapers’. These Trumpian tactics are only serving to fuel hostility and public distrust in media.
While high-profile cases like that of Julian Assange fill newspaper headlines, many lesser-known journalists, whose work is absolutely vital in holding the government and corporations like HS2 to account, are also facing persecution. We should all be horrified at these attacks on press freedom.
by Philip Dickens Comment, on the FREEDOM PRESS WEBSITE Jan 12th
Editorial Note: We are publishing below a post by Philip Dickens from the anarchist Freedom Website. In it Phil Dickens mocks the blog 'Spiked' edited by Brendan O'Neill as representing the 'reactionary fringes of the mainstream discourse'. It is worth noting that not only the American Civil Liberties Union has warned about the unchecked power of platforms like Twitter and Facebook to remove people from the forum of everyday discourse. I say 'everday discourse', but of course many people, including me, do not use either.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that Mr. Dickens sneeringly jumps up and down announcing: 'Predictably, this led to #thisis1984 trending on Twitter, with the right decrying the ban as Orwellian.'
And yet Dickens is right to argue that there is a 'legitimate debate about the impact of corporations on freedom of speech and expression, but it doesn’t rest on the right of a US President to Tweet'.
Nor is this a novel problem of the internet era. Indeed, Orwell noted in 1946 in his essay 'The Prevention of Literature' that:
'Any writer or journalist who wants to retain his [sic] integrity finds himself thwarted by the general drift of society rather than by active persecution. The sort of things that are working against him are the conceration of the press in the hands of a few rich men, the grip of monopoly on radio and the films, the unwillingness of the public to spend money on books, making it necessary for nealy every writer to earn part of his living by hack work, the encroachment of official bodies like the Ministry of Information and the British Council, which help the writer to keep alive but also waste his time and dictate his opinions... Everything in our age conspires to turn the writer, and every other kind of artist as well, into a minor official, working on themes handed to him from above and never telling the whole of the truth.'
Dickens knows all of this, as he himself suffers from earning his living as a tax inspector. At one time the left were the main advocates of free speech, but because of the cancel culture campaigns etc. this ground as the novelist Margaret Atwood has recently argued, has been largely surrendered to the right. The FREEDOM WEBSITE despite its anarchist pretentions has in the last two decades fallen short as a defender of liberty or free speech; its current editor in 2016 even put up a blacklist of four people he didn't like who had the audacity to apply for positions on the FRIENDS of FREEDOM PRESS committee. Dickes approach suffers from being too simplistic as shown were he writes that 'private ownership by the capitalist class is protected from dissent by the state and its monopoly on violence.' Dividing politics into a left / right dichotomy is of questionable application today, especially in relation to Trump who was generally recognised to be an unconventional president.
**********************************************
'FREE SPEECH for PRESIDENTS' by Philip Dickens
FOLLOWING the short-lived occupation of the US Capitol building, Twitter and a number of other social media platforms have banned US President Donald Trump.
Predictably, this led to #thisis1984 trending on Twitter, with the right decrying the ban as Orwellian. Brendan O’Neill of Sp!ked – the publication which leads the advance of terrible opinions from the reactionary fringes into the mainstream discourse – declared this “a chilling sign of tyranny to come.” This is, he says, “a very significant turning point in the politics and culture of the Western world” as it sees “exceptionally wealthy and aloof elites determining which elected politicians may engage in online discussion.”
This isn’t a position confined to the right, however. A member of the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative counsel has said that “it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions — especially when political realities make those decisions easier.”
There’s a legitimate debate about the impact of corporations on freedom of speech and expression, but it doesn’t rest on the right of a US President to Tweet.
Yes, a few companies in Silicon Valley control the whole social media landscape and have undue influence as a result. That’s not a unique or historically unprecedented phenomenon though: it reflects the balance of power and ownership in both the traditional media and physical spaces.
What O’Neill calls the “powerful, unaccountable oligarchies of the internet era” are mirrors of the media barons who dominate print and broadcast news. However, the almost unmoderated right of reply that exists in social media is absent, and instead the discourse both reflects and directs the ‘Overton Window’ of acceptable opinion – with what is acceptable defined not by popular or democratic will but by who owns the press and by the fact that it doesn’t sell news to an audience but an audience to advertisers. In other words, just as O’Neill says tech companies are doing, media owners and advertisers have long been “exploiting their monopolistic power to dictate what political opinions it is acceptable to hold and express.”
In physical spaces, from the workplace to the public square, private ownership by the capitalist class is protected from dissent by the state and its monopoly on violence. Anti-strike legislation limits the extent to which workers can stand up to their bosses, whilst a tangle of laws serve to restrict the conduct of protests and criminalise protesters in a myriad of ways.
The media commentators who see unprecedented totalitarianism in Trump’s Twitter ban have no qualms over any of the above. Instead, they view any kickback against that monopolisation of discourse as the real threat to free speech. This is why they have been vocal in opposition to the Stop Funding Hate campaign, which seeks to redirect advertising influence towards making (for example) media demonisation of migrants unprofitable. It is why all of the furore around ‘cancel culture’ is centred on the defence of those with a considerable platform and privilege from any consequences for their words yet they will say nothing when Julia Hartley-Brewer, a member of the Free Speech Union’s PR/Media advisory council, threatening to get a man sacked for challenging her Covid-denying propaganda against the NHS.
In other words, they’re concerned about defending the free speech of the powerful from efforts by the powerless to resist that through free association and action.
So it is with Twitter. The platform is genuinely guilty of arbitrary and questionable banning decisions – more often than not against small voices who challenge the powerful or the genuinely dangerous. That, under immense pressure, it is occasionally forced to follow its own rules and look at safeguarding and risks of incitement isn’t the problem. Rather, the fact that under other circumstances the power and influence those accounts hold would protect it and see instead the less influential who challenge them banned is the problem here.
Private monopolisation of what should be public spaces is the key issue. Within that, the fact that (just like in real life) the powerful are protected from the consequences of their actions except in the most extreme circumstances is the crucial point.
Anarchists recognise that genuine liberty and equality go hand in hand, and that we cannot have either if we fail to address questions of power.
Alongside formal hierarchies, such as those embedded in the institutions of the state and capital, this includes invisible hierarchies that inevitably grow out of supposedly ‘structureless’ environs. In a group without a formal leadership, those with the most confidence and the loudest voices dominate with no democracy to rein them in. In a meeting without a chairperson, the most brash can speak unhindered – but the consequence is that others in turn are silenced.
That’s why our primary concern isn’t the right of US President to a massive platform and untold influence, including the ability to incite (amateurish, incompetent) coup attempts.
Those whose only demand is that those already with a platform and influence are never deprived of that do not stand for free speech. They stand in defence of a fundamentally unjust status quo in which free expression is directly linked to power.
Proposals requiring Cambridge University staff and students to be “respectful” of differing views under a freedom of speech policy have been overwhelmingly rejected in a vote by its governing body.
The policy will instead emphasise “tolerance” of differing views after an amendment put forward by those concerned about the impact on academic freedom was carried by a landslide majority (86.9%).
Cambridge alumni including Stephen Fry had been among those who had opposed elements of the new policy, which the actor and writer had described as “muddled”.
Visitors to the university would also have been asked to be “respectful” of the views and “diverse identities” of others.
It was subject to a ballot in recent weeks among members of the institution’s Regent House, its official governing body, which is largely comprised of academic and senior administrative staff.
There are also implications for the issue of “no platforming” as a result of the support for three amendments, elements of which stress that those invited to speak at the university “must not be stopped from doing so” as long as they remain within the law.
The vote was welcomed by Cambridge’s vice-chancellor, Prof Stephen Toope, as “an emphatic reaffirmation of free speech in our university”.
He added: “Freedom of speech is a right that sits at the heart of the university. This statement is a robust defence of that right.
“The university will always be a place where anyone can express new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, and where those views can be robustly challenged. The statement also makes it clear that it is unacceptable to censor, or disinvite, speakers whose views are lawful but may be seen as controversial.
“Rigorous debate is fundamental to the pursuit of academic excellence and the University of Cambridge will always be a place where freedom of speech is not only protected, but strongly encouraged.”
The new policy reads: “In exercising their right to freedom of expression, the university expects its staff, students and visitors to be tolerant of the differing opinions of others, in line with the university’s core value of freedom of expression.
“The university also expects its staff, students and visitors to be tolerant of the diverse identities of others, in line with the university’s core value of freedom from discrimination.”
However, other academics at the university have expressed concern about the changes to the original policy statement, while the Cambridge branch of the Universities and Colleges Union has said that it and the amendments are not “fit for purpose”.
Prof Priyamvada Gopal, an academic at the university, tweeted: “There is no ‘free speech row’ at Cambridge. There is the university scrambling to follow government orders based on false moral panic, there are the poor students trying to make it less draconian, & there are the Freeze Peach brigade trying to stop the right to protest.”
The controversy has played out against the backdrop of increasingly fraught debates on campuses and elsewhere about the limits of freedom of speech.
Students at Cambridge University called earlier this year for a porter at Clare College to be suspended from his job after he resigned from his role on the city council in protest over a motion in support of transgender rights.
Opposition to the original freedom of speech policy proposal was spearheaded by a number of people at the university including Dr Arif Ahmed, who is a reader in philosophy there.
He told The Times last week: “A lot of people feel as if they’re living in an atmosphere where there are witch-hunts going on, a sort of academic version of Salem in the 17th century or the McCarthyite era.”
• This article was amended on 10 December 2020 to add Gopal’s title as a professor, to give Dr Ahmed his correct honorific and to describe him as a reader in philosophy rather than a philosophy professor.
EDITORIAL STATEMENT:A STATUE of George Orwell stands outside Broadcasting House, the
headquarters of the BBC, in London. The wall behind the statue is inscribed with
Orwell's words
'If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what
they do not want to hear'.
Although the statue was not unveiled until 7 November 2017, the
Northern Voices blog, and before that the magazine of the same
name, was established to be a concrete manifestation of that same sentiment.
We do not have an alignment with any political party and have a scepticism about
the activities of many politicians. It will be apparent to readers that our
contributors have left of centre allegiances. This covers a spectrum of
libertarians, trades unionists and democratic socialists. We believe that
everyone has the right to have a different viewpoint from ourselves and from
others, irrespective of who they are, and no one should be prevented from
expressing that viewpoint, even if we or others disagree with it. This does not
place upon us any obligation to publish material which is abusive,
unsubstantiated or merely an assertion. However often an assertion is repeated,
it does not make it true.
In commenting on the views of others we avoid overused terms like, racist, sexist,
homo-phobic, trans-phobic, islamo-phobic, anti-semitic, fascist, nazi etc, and
object to their use in contexts where they are little more than abuse intended
to intimidate others into remaining silent and so stifle debate on contentious
issues. If anyone reading this blog objects to what one of our contributors
has to say then we encourage them to write a comment. Unless they can provide
some evidence more substantial than their own opinion about the nature of the
content, it is unlikely that it will be taken down or altered.
“HARRY POTTER” writer J.K Rowling, “Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood and “Midnight’s Children” writer Salman Rushdie are amongst 150 public figures to have signed a letter condemning the practice of public shaming, or ‘cancel culture’ as it is known popularly.
‘Cancel culture’ is a term used to describe individuals who have
shared an unpopular opinion or have past behavior that’s deemed
offensive, who are ‘canceled’ on social media. Rowling is one such
example, due to her views on the trans community.
Atwood received considerable backlash in late 2016 after supporting
an open letter calling on Canada’s University of British Columbia to
provide its reasons for suspending and firing novelist and instructor
Steven Galloway after sexual assault allegations emerged. Meanwhile,
Rushdie’s 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses” has also drawn criticism over
the years for its depiction of Islamic beliefs.
Other signatories of the letter include authors Martin Amis and
Jeffrey Eugenides, public intellectuals Malcolm Gladwell and Noam
Chomsky, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, psychologist Steven Pinker,
feminist Gloria Steinem, chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov and CNN and
Washington Post journalist Fareed Zakaria.
The letter, published Tuesday in Harper’s Magazine, states: “The free
exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society,
is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on
the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our
culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming
and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a
blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic
counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear
calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived
transgressions of speech and thought.”
“Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result
has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without
the threat of reprisal,” the letter argues. “We are already paying the
price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists
who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or
even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.” “We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement
without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very
thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the
state to defend it for us,” the letter concludes.
The letter has provoked a deluge of online responses. Author and
transgender activist Jennifer Finney Boylan, who signed the letter,
recanted her position within hours. “I did not know who else had signed
that letter,” Boylan tweeted. “I thought I was endorsing a well-meaning,
if vague, message against Internet shaming. I did know Chomsky, Steinem
and Atwood were in, and I thought, good company. The consequences are
mine to bear. I am so sorry.”
Similarly, historian Kerri K. Greenidge, an original signatory, was
removed from the list after she tweeted that she does “not endorse” the
Harpers letter, and had contacted the publication about a retraction.
Surgeon and scientist David Gorski tweeted: “I read the letter. It’s
the same old whiny BS about ‘cancel culture’ from privileged people with
large audiences complaining about facing criticism and consequences for
their speech. I am unimpressed.”
Meanwhile, John Boyne, author of “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas,”
tweeted: “I agree with this letter completely. Self-appointed
witch-finders hounding people for perceived moral slip-ups while
trashing reputations, destroying careers, shouting down women &
pursuing cancel culture is the opposite of free speech & reasoned
debate.”
IN aninterview
with Reasoned on Tuesday, the controversial historian Dr. David Starkey argued, “Slavery was
not genocide, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks in
Africa or in Britain would there?”
Since then Cambridge's Fitzwilliam College has announced
it will discuss Dr David Starkey’s Honorary Fellowship at a
Governing Body meeting on Wednesday, following widespread
condemnation of “racist” comments by the historian.
Dr. Starkey has argued: “You cannot decolonise the curriculum because you, Black Lives
Matter, are wholly and entirely a product of white colonisation. You
are not culturally Black Africans. You would die in seconds if you
were dumped back in black Africa.” He went on to say, “Of course, slavery was not the same as the
Holocaust.”
In response Fitzwilliam College said: “We support and promote freedom of
speech in our academic community, but we have zero tolerance of
racism. Dr David Starkey’s recent comments on slavery are
indefensible.”
Varsity understands that it is “almost certain” that
his fellowship will be revoked.
Meanwhile Fitzwilliam College has issued the following statement: 'Fitzwilliam College does not tolerate racism.
We support and promote freedom of speech in our academic community,
but we have zero tolerance of racism. Dr David Starkey’s recent comments
on slavery are indefensible. Fitzwilliam was founded upon values of fairness and mutual respect
and we are proud of the College’s inclusive and diverse membership. The matter of Dr Starkey’s Honorary Fellowship will be considered by the Governing Body at its meeting next Wednesday.'
*******************
* Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of
Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain
our editorial independence, our newspaper and news website receives no
funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges.
We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for
funding, and during this unprecedented global crisis, we have a tough
few weeks and months ahead. In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to
look at serving our readership with digital content for the time being. Therefore we are asking our readers, if they wish, to make a donation
from as little as £1, to help with our running cost at least until we
hopefully return to print on 2nd October 2020. Many thanks, all of us here at Varsity would like to wish you, your friends, families and all of your loved ones a safe and healthy few months ahead.
'Eliot’s fondness for doggerel
and light verse, in particular, was intertwined with a racist notion of
blackness as a gateway to cultural disruption and linguistic play.'*
IT was announced last night thatthe Lancashire police have said that no criminal offence took place when a banner reading 'White Lives Matter Burnley' was towed past the football stadium during Monday night’s Premier League game between Manchester City and Burnley. It is perfectly clear by now that the language being used here has become 'a gateway to cultural disruption and linguistic play' that is having massive consequences even as I write.
We at Northern Voices would find broad qualified agreement with what Iffy Onuora,the equalities officer of the Professional Footballers’
Association, said on Tuesday that he was hoping that the widespread condemnation of
the banner would act as a catalyst for further conversations about the
Black Lives Matter movement. And he concluded:
'The words themselves aren’t offensive, it’s just the context. It’s
the rejection of the conversation we’re having at the moment. That’s
what it represents,' Onoura told the BBC. 'I guess people have the right
to do it. For me it’s just proof again that these things can lead to
positive things because all that’s been said in the 12 hours since the
game finished has been, again, a catalyst, another conversation to
have.'
Let's have conversations yes, yet I think we would add that it throws light on the two-faced hypocrisy of some peoplewho are obsessed with skin colour. What has happened since the flight on Monday night is that it brought forth a barrage of unbelievable humbug and virtue signalling by the most feeble minded elements on the left.
Meanwhile the police have said that after assessing all the
information available surrounding the incident, the force had concluded 'that there are no criminal offences that have been disclosed at this
time'.
'We will continue to work with our partners at the football club and within the local authority,' added Ch Supt Russ Procter.
I accept that the meaning of words are in their use rather than in the dictionary definition. But the use of doggerel can be problematic. When more than a decade ago in moving a motion, I broke into some doggerel at a Trade Union Council conference; I was denouncing what are called scabs or sometimes dare I say 'blacklegs' - unskilled workers, who were being used I used rhyming slang or doggerel as 'Chancers - Bengal Lancers' to describe the strike breakers, sadly and predictably, I was challenged for 'racist' talk.
I do worry about all this po-faced lack of humour on the British left.
*
Sometimes doggerel has a non-critical meaning:
plenty of popular comic poets (like Lewis Carroll or any limerick
inventor) had no aim to make great art, just great light verse, and they
succeeded brilliantly. They were masters of doggerel. But pity the
earnest highbrow poet like the immortal Scotsman William McGonagall
whose doggerel was so bad his audience frequently pelted him with eggs
and rotting vegetables. Now his poetry was only fit for the dogs.
I
WROTE the article italicised below in October last
year. I thought that the topic and the approach would make it
suitable for Peace News. It would not be correct to say that
the editor refused to publish it, he simply did not acknowledge it.
Given
the recent ruling by Mr
Justice Julian Knowlesin a case brought by
Harry Miller.
I have included it below this link to
a Guardian
article. In
his ruling Knowles
stressed 'the
vital importance of free speech”,
saying it included “not
only the inoffensive, but the irritating, the contentious, the
eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative.'
In
one of this year’s Reith lectures Jonathan Sumption, who between
2012 and 2018 sat as a member of the Supreme Court, raised the
question of whether the law may be returning to its earlier role as a
means of enforcing social conformity. As instances of how it had
exercised this function in the past he cited the use of the law to
enforce a single pattern of religious worship in the 17th
century and the continued discrimination between denominations into
the 19th century.
To
act as a mechanism for social conformity it is not necessary that
this be exercised by the state, only that the state passes laws which
allow individuals to use the law in a way which forces others to
conform to their views.
In
October of last year a case came before the Supreme Court in which
a Gareth Lee had placed an order for a cake decorated with the words
‘Support
Gay Marriage’.
The owners of the bakery, Daniel and Amy McArthur declined the order
because as Christians they were being expected to express a view that
they disagreed with. Lee argued that they were discriminating
against him because he is a homosexual. Two lower courts had
accepted this argument
but the Supreme Court did not.
The
president of the Court Lady Hale said:
‘It is deeply humiliating
to deny someone a service because of that person’s race, gender,
disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief’.
‘But that is not what
happened in this case. As to Mr Lee’s claim based on sexual
discrimination, the bakers did not refuse to fulfil his order because
of his sexual orientation’.
The
court accepted the argument of the McArthur’s lawyer that forcing
them to bake the cake would be forcing them to go against their
religious beliefs.
Lee was trying to use the
Courts to force the McArthur’s to accept his view of the world. His
mistake was to argue that the couple were being ‘homophobic’ when
they simply had a different view about the world. A view to which he
took exception.
But, as I have argued
previously in Peace News, Lee’s approach is far from uncommon.
Increasingly we see people
who express a view which the listener or reader does not like being
labelled as antisemitic, homophobic, islamophobic, mysoginistic or
some similar pejorative epithet.
The court’s ruling means
that provided we do not discriminate against someone because of what
they ARE, we will not find ourselves in court for expressing our
dissent from the views they hold. In other words such an expression
of dissent is not ‘judiciable’, to use a word which has recently
been rediscovered.
I would not expect to find it
a matter for a court to consider if I decline to call someone who
says they are transgender, ‘she’ or ‘her’, if I sincerely
believe them to be a man. If however referring to such a person as
‘he’ or ‘him’ becomes seen as ‘hate speech’, as some
people wish it to be, then it could be claimed that this is a matter
for the courts.
Commenting
on the ruling in the wedding cake case the chairman of the Equality
and Human Rights Commission said:
‘Freedom of expression –
including the right not to express a view – and freedom of belief
are rightfully protected in a democratic society and this case
demonstrates the need for a more nuanced debate about how we balance
competing rights’.
Debate, nuanced or
otherwise, has been noticeably absent from anything surrounding what
have become known as ‘trans’ issues. Are claims of being cis,
trans, non-binary and gender-fluid simply ephemeral affectations as
some people see them or do they go to the core of an individual’s
being and identity? Unless we are willing to discuss the question we
will never resolve the matter.
Union Disipline, Free Speech & Dissent? * by Brian Bamford
PAUL EMBERY, has been a trade union member since he was 16, but Andrew Penman in the Daily Mirror on 27 JUN 2019 wrote that he: 'was kicked out after speaking in favour of Brexit at a Leave Means Leave rally. The official policy of the FBU is to oppose leaving the EU.'
Paul,
who represented the London region of the FBU on its national executive,
seems to have paid a high price for publicly disagreeing.
Now the London Regional Committee has issued a statement saying his
sacking from the national executive “is wrong and goes against the
entire ethos of our union” and has demanded his immediate reinstatement.
'Having
considered the evidence, it is clear to us that Paul has been debarred
from office because of the content of a speech that he made at a
pro-Brexit event organised by Leave Means Leave on the evening of 29
March 2019,'it wrote: 'People are, of course, free to agree or
disagree with Paul's personal opinions on this and other matters, but
the London Regional Committee recognises the right of all officials to
hold and express political views that are not necessarily the views of
the FBU.'
And
it quoted the FBU general secretary Matt Wrack previously claiming to
support free speech, saying: 'To address the huge challenges our
movement faces today, we need to build a culture of debate and democracy
which accepts that there will be different views and sharp difference
of opinion. Democracy must include the right to express those
differences.'
Andrew Penman writes: 'That sentiment does not seem to apply when it comes to his members who oppose the EU.'
To be consistent in its support of freedom Northern Voices supports this statement although I do prefer the remain option mainly because I identify with Europe as my eldest lad was born there in the 1960s. I also believe that the UK will be drawn into the orbit of NAFTA and the USA if it is not inside the EU.
******************
* INTERNAL UNION DISCIPLINE – EXECUTIVE COUNCIL MEMBER: BROTHER PAUL EMBERY
It is not usual for the Union to report matters in respect of an
Internal Union Discipline case via an All Members’ circular, but I feel
on this occasion it is necessary to provide some limited information in
order to ensure that the members are provided with accurate details.
This is because Head Office has been in receipt of a number of email
communications from members, the content of which indicates that the
material that has been circulated is resulting in a false perception of
what transpired at the hearing.
An Executive Council-level Internal Union Discipline hearing took place
on Wednesday 12 June 2019 to consider a report concerning Executive
Council member Paul Embery, where the standard process of presentations
and deliberations took place before decisions were made. Evidence in
respect of six complaints was heard in accordance with the rules, over a
period approaching 12 hours. The outcome was the award of a range of
penalties in respect of a total of four complaints by the Executive
Council. In the case of one of those complaints, it was resolved to
award a debarment lasting two years.
As was explained when making this finding known to Brother Embery on 12
June, the rules allow for an appeal to the Union’s conference which may
be an ordinary meeting or an especially recalled conference. It was made
clear that the rules require that the sanction, i.e. the debarment, shall not be implemented until:-
Either, where there is no appeal e.g. the date of the period for the appeal to be lodged has expired;
Or, where an appeal is lodged, the outcome of the appeal has been determined.
Finally, it was made clear that the rules require that in the meantime, Brother Embery’s suspension from office, which took effect in May, shall remain in place until:-
Either there is no appeal to be heard;
Or, where an appeal has been lodged, the findings of the appeal have been determined.
The period for an appeal to be lodged is 14 days from the date on which
the letter confirming the outcomes of the first hearing was sent to the
Brother Embery.
This is a factual account. We do not intend to make further comment.
We intend to respect the due confidentiality required by the process and
indeed, Brother Embery has asked for such confidentiality to be
observed.
NORTHERN
VOICES
does not have a ‘party
line’
in spite of some people thinking
it
should
adopt theirs. But
there are some discernible themes; a
belief in Orwell’s dictum ‘If
liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what
they do not want to hear’,
a reluctance to spray around like so much confetti words like, nazi,
fascist, racist, sexist, anti-semite, islamophobe, homophobe etc and
an unwillingness to inflate
the importance ofTommy
Robinson
and his ilk.
Recent
events have shown that it is not the streetwise
rabble
rousers
like
Robinson that we need to fear will move us along the road to a far
right politics. It’s the respectable schemers who have managed to
get themselves into 10 Downing Streetand
are working on ways of keeping themselves there in
perpetuity,we
should have been keeping a close eye on.
In
this context it’s
interesting to note the different
reasons cited by MPs who have left the Tory party in
the recent past and
those who have left the Labour party. In a joint letter Heidi
Allen, Anna Soubryand
Sarah Wollaston
described how the leadership had allowed a ‘hard-line
anti-EU awkward squad’
to take over the Tory party. In
other words their reasons for leaving were political
differences
about the EU.
In sharp contrast the MPs who have left the Labour party have
claimed it to be ‘racist’ and ‘anti-semitic’, two
vague and infinitely elastic notions.
It
seems that the Tory dissenters have been far more aware of where the
real danger lies than some who claim to be ‘of
the Left’.
During
the weeks immediately prior to Johnson sliding into the position of
Prime Minister, having first
been
crowned by Tory party membership, I watched, three Labour MPs who at
different times were contributors to BBC2’s ‘Politics
Live’,
launch their on
attack
Johnson by saying he was ‘racist’.
It was the Tory
‘grandee’
Chris Patten, last governor of Hong Kong, who launched his attack on
Johnson by saying he as a ‘liar’,
before saying a lot of other uncomplimentary about him.
Calling
Johnson a racist on the slender evidence of remarks he has made is
lazy. We should be able to expect some deeper political insights from
our MPs. One only had to listen to the MPs who are
backing
him to realise they were single mindedly determined to take the UK on
their own terms. And behind them are a few Tory MPs who would not
serve in his administration to make sure he does
not waver and
leave the EU with ‘a deal’.
Is he going to end up as their puppet?
The
shape of things to come if Johnson wins the next election can be seen
already. Sajid Javid is said to be unhappy with Johnson’s spending
pledges. After he is safely in Number 10 these could be quietly
dropped. Bullying has become the order of the day. According to The
Times,
Dominic
Cummings
who has been imported as Johnson’s enforcer told a meeting of
special advisers, ‘If
you don't like how I run things, there's the door. Fuck off.’ Johnson
is
threatening
to withdraw the whip from Tory MPs who do not back him.
If
we do end up leaving the EU without a deal and Johnson does win the
next election, I hope the Labour MPs who have worked so assiduously
to undermine Jeremy Corbyn are proud of themselves.
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