Words Have Consequences: Boris and the Bishop

 

In case you don't know, the clergyman in the photograph is the Reverend Paul Bayes, the retiring Bishop of Liverpool. I am not familiar with the bishop's career, but an interview he recently gave to The Guardian shows him to be an enlightened and perceptive commentator on current affairs. In his interview, besides making a swingeing attack upon Boris Johnson's Jimmy Savile smear upon Sir Keir Starmer, he spoke about an issue that has plagued the Church of England for years: LGBTQ rights, especially in relation to marriage. His view is worth quoting at length:

“I want to see a church where, if a congregation and its ministers want to bless and marry same-sex people or trans people, then they should be free to do so without stigma. And those who don’t want to do so should be given freedom of conscience not to do so. I want to see gender-neutral marriage canons, that simply say marriage is between two people.”

The bishop admits that this will not happen overnight, but he hopes to see it come about in his lifetime. I do not want to take sides in what is, after all, an internal debate in the C of E, but what the bishop finds an ideal state of affairs will continue to be resisted by many in the church, especially the evangelical wing. For evangelicals of all denominations, the Bible is the Word of God and is the ultimate authority in this, and other, moral issues:

 "God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error". Romans, 1: 26, 27.

It looks as if the C of E has got much discussion ahead of it on this issue, and is a matter for them. Nevertheless, the text above, taken from the New Testament, is absolute condemnation of homosexuality for evangelicals, and brings me to the main part of this post, which is to discuss the recent attack on Sir Keir Starmer outside the House of Commons. The two issues are linked by the words of  House of Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who said of the attack:

"Words have consequences".

Indeed they do, for politicians, as well as evangelical Christians.

The attack , which happened on Monday, 7th February, was widely reported in the media. It is one of a number of attacks upon our elected representatives that have happened in recent years, and, to me at least, seem to be part of a world wide assault upon democracy. If that sounds sensationalist, remember the invasion of the US Capitol building and the deaths of Jo Cox and Sir David Amess, two British MPs murdered by fanatics of two different anti-democratic ideologies. It is a tribute to the skill of the six uniformed police on duty that Starmer, and his Shadow Secretary of State, David Lammy, M.P.  were not beaten up - or worse. 

The words of consequence here, of course, were made by the Prime Minister in a Commons debate. He said that Starmer  "spent most of his time [as DPP] prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile". Now, Boris has partially retracted his words, saying on February 3:

"I'm not talking about the leader of the opposition's personal record when he was DPP. I was making a point about his responsibility for the organisation as a whole."

This half-hearted attempt to weasel out of responsibility for providing ammunition for extremists has not prevented some of his top aides from resigning and has brought condemnation from a number of MPs, including many Conservatives. However, Boris has his loyalists, who have made the remarkable claim that the demonstrators who attacked Starmer had attacked other MPs. Not the fault of dear old Boris, then.

Anyone who entertains this idea is sadly deluded. Starmer's assailants were quite clear in their chants and abuse that they were echoing the PM's unfounded claims. There was the Jimmy Savile slur:

"At one point in the footage, a member of the group surrounding Sir Keir, was overheard making a baseless claim, by shouting: "Why did you let Jimmy Savile off?" - Sky News.

And then, there was the issue of prosecuting journalists:

“Why did you go after Julian Assange? Why did you target a journalist?”

Most media attention has been upon the anger directed towards Boris. This is understandable, but scrutiny of the perpetrators - the "demonstrators" - has been limited to very few media outlets. Inews, to its credit, is one such. One man named is one William Coleshill, an ex-councillor from Bush Hill Park in Enfield, North London. Inews says:

"In 2018, Coleshill was suspended from the Conservative Party for allegedly making racist remarks, but sat as an independent councillor until last year."

This gives an insight into this man's present political views. He is co-editor-in-chief for anti-lockdown YouTube channel Resistance GB.

William Coleshill is on the left. "A man is known by the company he keeps".
Another of these charming people is  Fiona Hine, who filmed herself shouting “f*****g c***s” and “arsehole” as police tried to keep the mob away from Sir Keir. She is seen below with a police escort.

Social media powers these people, whether they be fascists, anti-vaxxers, Qanon fanatics or plain old conspiracy nuts. Most press organs did not publicise the fact that the PM's words were widely circulated online on extremist websites. How Boris can claim that his words did not lead to the attack on Sir Keith is beyond the bounds of credibility - even if a dwindling number of people still believe him. But there was another influencer of note who should be mentioned here.

Inews again is alone in pointing out that:
"Footage posted on social media also showed anti-vaccine activist Piers Corbyn addressing protesters who had targeted Sir Keir."

I can't say that I'm surprised at this. I think it underlines the truth of the statement by the senior Tory, Tobias Ellwood, that we are seeing "a drift towards a Trumpian style of politics". 

I would qualify that by saying that, so far, the lunatic fringe in Britain don't have a leader of the Donald Trump stature - but it might be possible in the future. I conclude with the words of Bishop Paul Bayes:

“You see clear illiberalism in eastern Europe, you see the rise of the extreme right in France, and you see what you see in the United States … Basic decencies have been lost.”

If ever words deserved to have consequences, those words need to be heeded.