Posted by: davemorgan | December 27, 2007

UKIP at its worst

 http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/conservative-party-general-issues/44422-tories-hit-rock-bottom.html

I was recently directed to a disgusting website. It is a vile attack on the new group for Gay Conservatives, LGBTory, as well specific attacks on a number of Conservative Future members. I find it sad that in this modern world people think as the way as “Mikeuk”, otherwise known as Mike Smith, the UKIP Candidate for Portsmouth North, does. While I would prefer not to have a Labour MP for that constituency, I am certainly glad that Mike is not shouting his backward views in Parliament (then again, not as if he came close, as shown by the results - see http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/guide/seat-profiles/portsmouthnorth)

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Responses

I don’t think that it is fair to call the website ‘disgusting’. The views that Mike Smith expresses are entirely his own. The site is an independent political forum where we try to allow anyone to speak their mind. Obviously that means that some people will find other people’s views ugly or offensive. I can’t for the life of me understand the homophobia that seems so prevalent amongst certain groups, but then many people don’t understand why I am vegetarian. Such is life.

- Anthony Butcher
British Democracy Forum moderator.

By: Anthony Butcher on December 28, 2007
at 7:01 pm

Perhaps I should have stated particularly that thread. However, I do think that it is very important to ensure that voters are fully informed of particular candidates views, especially if Mike is selected to stand again for UKIP.

I believe that I think the personnel attacks on individuals as occurred on your Forum, as well as referring to members of the LGBT community as “scum” and “parasites” is vile. If this Forum had discussed LGBT issues in a measured and fair way, perhaps stating they disagreed with Homosexuality, then so be it. But anyone who reads this thread will see it isn’t that.

I just wonder, whether if these comments were about ethnic minorities, whether you would have enabled this thread to have continued? Given that British Democracy Forum’s Group for debates on Immigration has to be a “Non-racist discussion zone for immigration” (which I agree it always should be), I somehow doubt that an individual would be enabled to write as bluntly about members of the BME community as some of the individuals like Mike Smith wrote on your forum about the LGBT community. While I understand that the issues involved with Homosexuality is different from Race, I don’t get understand why some people can discuss it in reasonable and fair terms.

By: davemorgan on December 28, 2007
at 11:26 pm

Under proposals put forward by Jack Straw MP recently such comments would not be tolerated, where they are deemed to incite hatred of gay people.

The law already protects BME communities in this respect, but these proposals should send a clear message that similar hatred levelled at the LGBT community is not acceptable.

This is another example of the positive action taken by this Labour government towards equality for lesbians and gay people over the last decade. It is the willingness of Labour to talk openly about such issues that influences my support for the party. The Conservatives, whilst no longer overtly anti-gay as they often appeared in the 1980s, are not a fan of this issue (probably as they are afriad of alienating their core supporters of pensioners).

By: David Amini on January 5, 2008
at 10:19 pm

I don’t understand your last comment David. Unless you haven’t heard any news for the past two years? David Cameron since his election as Conservative Party leader has been incredibly vocal in his support for Gay Rights and Civil Partnerships. Indeed in his closing speech to the Conservative Party Conference in 2006, while discussing marriage, he emphasised its importance “whether you’re a man and a woman, a woman and a woman or a man and another man”.

Also, not all New Labour MPs are so willing to defend Gay rights. A Cross-Party Alliance of MPs, including David Taylor, Labour MP for Leicestershire NW, and local Labour MP Jim Dobbin, MP for Heywood and Middleton, are attempting to amend the Criminal Justice Bill, as shown in Pink News, http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-6450.html. In that regards however, I’m not sure about the Criminal Justice Bill. While I do want to reduce Hate Crime, as with the earlier bill in similar regards to Religions, I do worry that the Bill won’t be used against real hate crime, which can already be tackled using a raft of different law, but could be used to shut up people who in regards to their general beliefs disagree with homosexuality. Being a true liberal is sometimes allowing people to say things you disagree with. As the Criminal Justice Bill comes in, I will look at the debate, and then my mind up, but I am honestly unsure of my view on it.

My personnel remarks in relation to the UKIP forum thread was the levels of personnel attacks against particular members of Conservative Future. I think generally in politics, using such personnalised attacks degrades politics, and doesn’t encourage debate or people voting. If Mike Smith had wanted to discuss his opposition to Civil Partnerships, or the 1967 legalisation, then fine. However, I object to attacks against specific individuals in order to get his point across, all of which were unfair and totally irrelevant to the point that he was trying to get across.

By: davemorgan on January 6, 2008
at 9:00 am

I don’t contend the positive step forward by David Cameron over the past two years. I was merely pointing out that only Labour have actually moved to implement such legislation as the lowering of the age of consent for gays and lesbians, the introduction of Civil Partnerships and, recently, the proposed extension of the protection of LGBT people against hate crime. Labour has a very good record in this area.
David Cameron has finally, thank goodness, moved Conservative thinking in this area into the 21st Century, however this does not necessarily mean that the Tory old guard are supportive.

Also, I assume you are playing the traditional Liberal card of “people should be allowed to say what they like to protect their freedom of speech” whilst at the same times being up-in-arms about the UKIP comments being made on the website. Sounds like you are a little confused on this issue!

The Conservatives only argument on almost every issue is “it’s time for change”, even though it is obvious that they are simply trying to hijack the issues which Labour has achieved so much on over the past ten years and now to hijack the Liberal Democrats by playing up their supposed ‘liberal’ perspective on various issues.

Labour is the party of compassion for others and social justice, whereas under the Conservatives the key focus has always been on reducing taxes (to the delight of the rich), miminal intervention by the state (the wealthy do not really need to rely on the state) and allowing Britain to fall behind the rest of the the Western world - whether it be the decaying schools, failing NHS, miserable provision for pensioners, failure to introduce a Minumum Wage- all of which was their legacy in 1997.

The latest Conservative trick is to attempt to brand new Labour as the ‘controlling, interfering’ party on issues such as ID cards and increasing the detention time for terror suspects. Similarly now with the issue of the protection of gays and lesbians from hate crime, some Christians are complaining that they will no longer be able to express their views against homosexuality - even though Jack Straw made it clear that religious conviction will be taken into account. There is a difference between holding a view and using that view to incite hatred against a group of people.
Is discrimination against gays and lesbians any less destructive than that against BME communities? The answer is clearly no, and few would argue with the race hate legislation which protects so many people - so why is this now such an issue?

By: David Amini on January 6, 2008
at 12:36 pm

While I can say “I don’t believe that people should be criminalised for saying comments like on the Democracy forum” (which I didn’t above), it doesn’t mean that I can’t criticise those views, especially when I don’t like the context. I didn’t like Simon Ashley, Manchester Lib Dem leaders comments this week, and have said so, but I wouldn’t want to prevent him saying such comments.

Many religious leaders disagreed with the attempt to ban religious hatred, as they feared it would be used in a critical way. While I don’t doubt that New Labour are introducing these new hate laws in good faith, the worry is, like with the Human Rights Law, that it won’t deal with real hate crime, particularly violent crime, but will be used to criminalise people with religious viewpoints. I don’t doubt Jack Straw’s intentions, but he was part of the Cabinet which introduced the disastrous Human Rights Act. The same law has led to human rights of murderers being put in front of the victims, and prevented us deporting terrorists.

The fact is the Conservative Party don’t have to paint Labour as interfering and big government - that is what New Labour is. David Cameron has taken a very courageous line over both ID Cards and increasing the detention limit for terrorists. The easy line for him would be to play to readers of the Daily Mail and The Sun like Gordon Brown and support the Government. Instead, he is supporting liberty and thoughtfulness, and hopefully, if enough Labour MPs support us, we can defeat both pieces of dreadful legislation.

By: davemorgan on January 6, 2008
at 4:42 pm

I think Simon Ashley had a point, albeit not a very well-made one.
You are obscuring facts I’m afraid - the Human Rights Act 1998 was necessarily introduced in order to incorporate the European Convention on Human Rights into English law. Although the law may produce undesirable outcomes in certain cases it is overwhelmingly a positive act, not a disaster.

And if anybody is pandering to the Daily Mail readers it is the Conservatives, who love to give anything EU-related a good kicking at any opportunity.

Gordon Brown has reiterated today that ID cards would not be mandatory for British citizens, but would be used as a way of monitoring the numbers of foreigners entering Britain. More Tory/Daily Mail scaremongering, suggesting we will all have to fork out hundreds of pounds and be monitored by Big Brother.

The detention limit for terrorist suspects is a highly contentious issue, and I do not profess to know all the facts of the case. However, I really don’t see this as a huge issue for the vast majority of the public. You accuse Labour with their Human Rights Act of defending the rights of murderers, yet you seem to be more than happy to defend the rights of terrorists. No one is saying the police cannot release the suspects sooner than the limit if they have no further grounds for suspicion - another mountain out of a molehill for the Hate Mail to get excited about.

By: David Amini on January 6, 2008
at 11:56 pm

I think that our point on the Human Rights Act has already been well made and is agreed by the majority of the public.

Over ID Cards, they are simply not necessary - Spain had ID cards, and yet still had a terrorist attack. I think it shows a lot more about the ‘Big Brother society’ that we are creeping too, and the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens, UKIP, and a large amount of the Labour Party agree.

And the same is true in regards the detention limit for terrorist suspects. If you read the issue, the Labour Government want to lock people up for 3 months, when there is no specific evidence to do so. We have said, if there is a case for it then we will look at it. However, we are not going to start reducing the civil liberties of potentially completely innocent citizens without a specific reason to do so. We will not simply follow public opinion, unlike the New Labour Government. Yet again, more opportunism from Gordon Brown.

By: davemorgan on January 7, 2008
at 1:40 pm

I don’t think Labour are motivated purely by public opinion at all. Gordon Brown and Tony Blair should be credited for taking the tough long-term decisions on schools, the NHS and the economy and undoing some of the damage wreaked upon the nation by almost two decades of Tory neglect of public services.

The sad fact is, it is this government that has had to deal with the aftermath of a changing world (changed for the worse by our unquestioning support of Bush’s ‘war on terror’ - one Labour/Conservative policy I didn’t agree with) , where suicide bombers are actively planning and attacking the country.

When you are not in power you have the luxury of being able to say that moves to tighten legislation against terrorists are not necessary, but then you don’t have to deal with the consequences of such horrendous attacks as 11/7.

This is hardly bringing back the death penalty, we are simply talking about allowing the possibility of extending police powers to detain individuals about whom the police must have some reasonable suspicion of carrying out a terrorist attack. This tiny number of people would be detained for a few extra days if deemed necessary, they would hardly be subjected to torture.

As to whether there is any actual need to extend i.e. whether this would benefit terrorism investigations, this is a subject of intense debate and I don’t think there are any clear-cut answers but we are right to have the debate in light of the recent terrorism attacks and foiled plots and not just to leave things as they are.

It’s not about panderin to publicopinion, it is about the law reflecting the values of our society. As the old vile piece of legislation Section 28 proved, the Tories have a history of clinging on to old legislation for dear life instead of moving with the times.

By: David Amini on January 8, 2008
at 4:12 pm

Dave, I seem to recall this chap from UKIP being expelled from the Conservative Party by then leader Iain Duncan Smith over his views and activities related to the subject of Gay and Lesbian rights. Much of the drivel Mike Smith’s been peddling of late is sour grapes from a bitter man.

Thankfully our party has moved on from this, and we recognise the fundamental right of equality for each and every citizen in this country.

By: mckenna4southfield on April 12, 2008
at 6:48 pm

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