Stop Hate Now!

Over the period of the referendum, there has been an increasing tide of racism and unashamed refugee and immigrant blaming.  This would not have happened without the referendum. It’s been open season for any idiot to come out with the schrodinger’s refugee who both stole jobs and claimed benefits.

The BBC have run programmes focussing on how some migrants are working for lower than the minimum wage. When people have highlighted the illegality of the people employing them and their blatant flaunting of the law or the links with human trafficking. The torrent of abuse has been relentless. They include calls for my own deportation. Not sure where to, since I was born in the town I live in.

The local press have run stories of European migrants paying thousands of pounds for advice that they could have got for free, only to have a stream of comments from people saying that they should not be entitled anything and the should simply go back.

When I joined other local people to protest about chief xenophobe and hypocrite Nigel Farage coming to the town I live in, the town I was born and brought up in, I again faced abuse from those from the left, the right and people who badged themselves as coming from faith communities because this was challenging mainstream politics. Friends of mine have had their houses attacked for standing up for the their town not to be invaded by one more racist that wants to halt immigration but also wants the freedom to employ immigrants when he chooses to. Despite my taking this action on my own time, UKIP continue to want to bring my employers into this. That’s nothing new since they distributed leaflets to EVERY household in Kettering where they were standing citing the fact that the council gave money for a discrimination service (my employers) as a waste of council resources.

When talking about the level of racism in the country at the moment, a colleague said that the genie was out of the bottle and it wasn’t easy to put it back.

With the news of Jo Cox’s death, it’s time to say enough is enough and the hate must stop. Regardless of the actual motives of the perpetrator, she died because she stood up for what she believed in and the included challenging hate. The hate has to stop right here, right now.

Spiking Section 3 of the Equality Act

The Government has had its eyes on the Equality Act for quite some time. Last year, I attended a consultation at the Government Equalities Office in Victoria about the future of discrimination advice. By the time I had left the building the Governments Red Tape Challenge had been launched with a plan to scrap the general duty. For the longest while they seemed to talk about launching a consultation without actually launching one when they did actually launch it is came with a raft of other proposals relating to the Equality Act. 

The consultation responses to keep the General Duty outnumbered those to scrap it by six to one.  However still like a thief in the night the proposal is not only here, but voted through parliament on a vote of 310 – 244 in that 66 vote difference 41 Liberal Democrat MP’s voted. In the 2010 election, the Guardian was urging many to vote Lib Dem to keep a Tory Government out to protect a core set of values about civil liberties. Here those same Lib Dems were vote en mass to remove the General Duty. Jo Swinson argued that it was unimportant. The governments briefing on the reasoning to remove it was it argued creating unrealistic expectations.

A significant proportion of Lib Dems at their own conference expressed concern over the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill and there seemed to be some concerted lobbying to try and get Lib Dem MP’s to at least abstain. It therefore comes as a surprise that the Conservative Peter Bottomley felt able to rebel on this issue whilst only David Ward was the only Lib Dem to do so. If you are still unconvinced about the need to oppose the changes watch the video. If you want to do something about it write to your MP using this site here. If Peter Bottomley can be on the forces protecting Equality perhaps there's still hope.

As local elections draw closer, the Lib Dems are trailing behind UKIP on many polls. In the Borough elections two years ago, they suffered heavy losses in Northampton. Some of the greatest of those were in student areas such as Trinity and St. Georges. With overwhelming more Conservative County Councils being defended in this election, and UKIP polling to get up to 20% of the Conservative vote, the May elections are expected to bring significant change.  It need not have been so for the Lib Dems. They sold their souls for a Proportional Representation referendum and still feel the need to pay for it.