Suella Braverman - That Woman Is An Idiot

While some are actively trying to get what passes for a UK Government to do something about the looming escalation of the cost of living crisis, those out there on the right have been indulging themselves in acts of not merely partisan, but viciously disingenuous, deflection. Which beings us to the latest excursion of supposed Attorney General Suella Braverman.

Suella Braverman

Ms Braverman has been addressing Policy Exchange, the so-called think tank which was a favourite of Young Dave, until one day it went totally gaga and told anyone not yet asleep that cities like Liverpool had failed, and their population should therefore all up sticks and move to London. They all nodded along with Ms Braverman. Not many outside the room did so.

Those outside included Jolyon Maugham, who picked up on her all too predictable attack on transgender people, noting “Suella Braverman is now encouraging children to misgender their trans peers and undermining schools who wish to treat them with respect. Quite, quite wicked”. There was more.

“What Government is doing, encouraged by so much of the media, is alarming. Trans people are portrayed as degenerates, would-be rapists, who should be publicly humiliated … In demonising trans people, Braverman has common cause with fascists abroad. We know the historical precedents. And can see her attempts to undermine Parliament, the judiciary, regulators, protest, universities. I hope we do not see fascism here but I do not feel complacent”. Deepti Gurdasani, who you can tell as she’s a doctor, agreed.

“Promoting hate against marginalised groups seems to be their only area of 'competence'.... first it was immigrants, ethnic minorities, eastern Europeans ... and now the trans community. It'll never end … and of course the disabled, the poor, the unemployed ... they just hate anyone who isn't a privileged corrupt Tory donor”. How do Genderqueeer people feel about this?

Owen Hurcom has set out their thoughts on Ms Braverman’s speech HERE, and had made this observation: “She says that the fights for rights are undermining democracy and then goes to criticising the 2010 equality act and as she puts it - our ‘rights culture’. This is hugely dangerous rhetoric, but on brand for her and the Tories. Rights ensure equality, they want that gone”.

Where Ms Braverman is heading is a very dark and dangerous place. All people have rights. There is nothing wrong with a “rights culture”, indeed, that should be the default position. Perhaps the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press will cheer her on, but any minority group will not.

Down with this sort of thing

The idea that existing laws should be interpreted to discriminate against trans people is the first step down the slippery slope. What other marginalised and vulnerable group would Madam care to pick off next? Would Ms Braverman like to answer that without assistance, or will she need the help of her press cheerleaders first? And, talking of rights, we then arrived at the ECHR.

As Peter Walker has told in a Guardian article, she “said the European convention on human rights (ECHR), to which the UK is a signatory and which is interpreted by the Strasbourg-based court, limited action vital in areas including stopping protests and deporting overseas offenders”, claiming “a culture where fringe campaign groups, purporting to champion rights, have claimed a moral high ground and have adopted an attitude of intolerance”.

It got worse. “Often with vastly inflated salaries and armed with a Newspeak dictionary, they have created mighty citadels of grievance across the public sector and made huge inroads into the private sector … Equality laws have been misconstrued and weaponised to fight those who challenge their views as perpetrators of hate speech, calling for them to be swiftly no-platformed or cancelled”. This is, whisper it quietly, total bullshit. But the press will love it.

So she wants the UK out of the ECHR. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, Walker points out that “Removing the UK altogether from the ECHR, the rights of which were incorporated into UK law in 1998 with the Human Rights Act, is viewed as notably difficult, not least as the ECHR was an integral part of the Good Friday deal that brought peace to Northern Ireland”. The signatories to which include the USA.

Which means one peep in the direction in which Ms Braverman says she wishes to travel, and along will come the administration in Washington DC to tell her to desist. And her idea that the law will allow discrimination against a vulnerable minority will most likely not survive the first legal challenge. So, as what she appears to want isn’t going to happen, why is she proposing it?

Simples. It’s what the right-wing press wants to hear, and will provide them, and indeed her, with an endless stream of grievance opportunities. While telling her audience that someone else is creating “citadels of grievance”. It is a pointless waste of time and resources, it will encourage hate mobs, and will get us precisely nowhere, except to see her name in the news headlines.

This shows a certain low cunning. But ultimately, it is merely a show of idiocy.

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