Launching the LGBTIQ Greens strategy for 2011-2012

Over the last couple of months, the Committee for the LGBTIQ Greens group has been working on a strategic plan for the coming year. I thought it would be useful to share our thinking behind some of the key areas we will be focussing our attention upon. For members of the Green Party, the full summary of activities can be found on our Member's Website.

Organisation:

To ensure the group is sustainable for the longer term, we thought it important to create stronger foundations for the group to build upon over the coming years. This means drafting and ratifying a constitution for the group that clearly outlines our aims and objectives, roles and responsibilities for elected officers, as well as making the their elections much more democratic and transparent.

We also realised that many of the activities we hope to undertake this year will require financial resources, so will work upon a method by which we can start modest fundraising efforts to build our capacity. This will occur alongside a refreshing of our external appearance and ensuring regular practical resources are available for members nationally to access and use in their local campaign work.

Communications & increasing our reach

We were also keen to make the best use of the communication avenues available within the Green Party to get our message and activities out to the greatest audience. We have set ourselves firm targets on expanding the number of people in contact with the LGBTIQ Greens, be that through our section on the Member's Website, via our website, our Twitter or Facebook feeds or through our mailing list. This will be coupled with more consistent communication about our achievements with members, so members can hold us to account and hopefully are inspired to contribute their energies too.

Externally, we are aiming to look at procedures around Press Work, to ensure that we are publishing material reflective of collective views, of high quality and working in partnership with other external communications stakeholders within the national party to reach the right audiences. Likewise, we are aiming to involve many more people in spotting news opportunities across England and Wales and sharing responsibility for this element of our work.

Policy & campaigning

Similarly, we are aiming to examine the policy-making process for LGBTIQ Greens, to ensure it is accessible and inclusive to the concerns of ordinary members, especially as we will need to examine our manifesto for the European elections within the next few months.

More broadly, we felt it was essential that LGBTIQ Greens plays a greater role within our communities, both as partners and leaders. To that end, we will work to build ongoing partnerships with some LGBTIQ community and campaign organisations in the coming months, especially around areas such as transgender rights that have traditionally been less well-served.

Support and Regional Focus

At the LGBTIQ Greens AGM in September, one of the striking things that I heard was the appetite for ordinary LGBTIQ members to feel part of the Green Party, but many reported that this wasn't always easy in local parties where they felt in a minority.

To begin addressing this, we have decided to try and organise a number of regional events, so as many members as possible have the opportunity to engage with other LGBTIQ individuals in a supportive environment. If anybody want to come forward and work with us to organise other events in their local area, we would love to hear from you. In the longer term, we want to look into the possibility of a mentorship and leadership programme to nurture the next generation of LGBTIQ activists and elected representatives.

If you have any feedback or questions around the strategic plan, please don't hesitate to contact me directly to discuss further. Likewise, if you would like to contribute any time or expertise to any of the activities, each of the Officers responsible would be keen to hear from you.

How the Right began setting the agenda for LGBT rights

When opening a broadsheet newspaper in the last few weeks, you can’t have failed to see a disproportionate number of column inches devoted to a shift in policy from the UK Government towards LGBT rights. Making international aid conditional on a good track record on LGBT rights is now floated as a concrete policy, with countries such as Uganda and Ghana in the firing line for cancelled aid. On the face of it, we seem to be seeing a Conservative Party in power that has genuinely changed their tune on gay rights. Wrong.

Of course it is important for LGBT rights to play a greater role in our foreign policy outlook. There has been lobbying for years from UK activists to achieve this and steady progress under the Labour Government. However, this isn’t an area you just blunder into with a sledgehammer. The cracks in this new approach are already beginning to show – earlier this week a coalition of all the major African LGBT and human rights organisations released a strong statement illustrating their disquiet over the UK Government’s stance and calling for a more nuanced approach. Additionally, the UK approach to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting taking place this week has ignored the efforts and undermined years of lobbying from LGBT groups in the global South, whilst stepping forward to speak for others without any sense of history... or irony.

Once again, these UK activists and politicians are ignoring rule number one of working on international development, which is to start by listening to the lived experience of those you are campaigning to support. The truth is that activists in other countries have a more sophisticated sense of their own political contexts, know what strategies will work best and where to apply pressure. For those of us who want to see a more just and equal world, this means we must listen, pledge solidarity and apply pressure as and when requested. We are running the risk of being viewed as arrogant amateurs who think they know best: the worst kind of colonialism repackaged for the 21st century.

We are already seeing the unintended results of this policy strategy. In a number of African countries, homosexuality is portrayed by a hostile media and political elite as an imported cultural abomination. Reduction of international aid, (still desperately needed in severely poor countries) will be blamed upon Western imperialism and LGBT communities in these states will be convenient scapegoats. This can already be seen in Malawi, where this is another stick with which to demonise communities already under siege.

A cynic might wonder whether this threat to reduce UK aid to homophobic states is a progressive sheen to a longer-term policy of reducing aid levels. Why isn’t the UK Government pledging to provide aid directly to those NGOs with a proven track-record in extending human rights to LGBT citizens? The Department for International Development (DfID) gives virtually no financial support to the inspiring, frontline work these groups are undertaking under the harshest circumstances. Behind their progressive headlines, are we seeing the limits of Compassionate Conservatism?

How to solve a problem like Brighton Pride?

Just before I head off on my summer holiday, I wanted to come back and discuss the upcoming Brighton and Hove LGBT Pride festival, which will be taking place on Saturday 13th August. I recently asked you for feedback on the decision this year to charge for entry. Thanks to all who contributed, although I wasn't ready for either the volume of responses or the polarized views I received! Whilst it was evenly-balanced, it was hard not to detect an underlying anger amongst some that the principle of free entry had been undermined.

LGBT Pride in the city has been a politically charged issue for many years, which isn't surprising considering the impact our particular festival has on the community. The weekend itself brings hundreds of thousands of people into the city, spending a vast amount of money with local businesses, both within and without the Preston Park party itself. As a result, the successful governance and running of the festival is monitored by many interested parties across the city, not necessarily just those known for their LGBT rights advocacy.

Unsurprisingly, the cost for running pride continues to rise. In the last year or two a great deal of concern has been raised by the statutory authorities and the Fire Service about public safety at the park event, as attendee numbers have steadily grown. Without agreement to fence the park (at a cost of around £100,000), it was made plain that licenses might not be granted this year. Alongside this additional cost, clean-up costs and community policing are needed to preserve the quality of Preston Park, tackle anti-social behaviour and under-age drinking over the weekend. For the last two years, Pride has operated at a significant loss, meaning that profits haven't been available to plow back into local LGBT organisations, who are now operating in a harsh financial climate and desperate for support.

On a personal note, I'll be honest and say that charging for Pride is something I have always been exceptionally uncomfortable with. During the mid-1990s living in London, I have vivid memories of Pride being the centrepoint of my yearly calendar, a chance to show some visible political muscle against rampant homophobia and a place where we could come together to party, regardless of whether we could afford to pay. When financial problems meant our celebration was taken over and business brought in to run the event, transforming it into a ticketed "Mardi Gras" with a "parade" through central London instead of a march, I walked away aghast. Regardless of the gains we've made legally over the years, I believe more strongly than ever that there is a political element to our experience of being LGBT that we risk losing when commercial realities come to bear in guiding these community events.

Paradoxically though, I find myself angry that in spite of nearly 100 volunteers collecting donations with buckets last year, that it translated to approximately 13p donated per attendee. This means that a majority of people enjoying Pride didn't pay a contribution towards the running costs of the festival last year. I wonder how many of these are amongst those people who are railing against the introduction of a charge. Retaining a "free" festival can only work with contributions from the Council, the businesses who will make a profit out of their participation and from a community prepared to back up their wish for Pride to continue with practical support. Sponsorship monies are declining, especially for local businesses squeezed hard by the recession. The new Green Council, as I've written about elsewhere, is struggling with a diminished central Government grant and needs to prioritise public services for the elderly, vulnerable and children. That they are still contributing a donation, providing soft loans to Pride and stepping in to cover some of the costs of running the St James St after-Pride street party is to be welcomed.

More so than ever at this time of tightened belts, we need as a community (and as a city) to take individual responsibility for making sure Pride remains viable and reflective of it's values of inclusion, campaigning spirit and celebration of diversity. This isn't just in financial terms. In the new climate of the "big society", we need to accept that if we want to retain public goods, it will mean giving our time and political support to protect them.

This isn't to say the new system is perfect. I can already see a number of elements that could be improved upon:

• We need clearer mechanisms to ensure that the low-paid, disabled and students are able to access reduced admissions similar to under-18s and to communicate the ticketing system more clearly.
• A more robust approach is needed to ensure that those businesses (especially the gay bars) who benefit from the festival and the post-Pride drinks in St James St contribute a fairer amount financially and play a role in managing the event.
• After criticisms from the local community, we need to bring a plurality of different voices to the management of Pride, allowing individuals from the black and ethnic minority, youth and disabled LGBT groups more influence in the planning of future events. We must ensure that the voices of private profit do not dominate and that prices are kept as low as possible.
• We need a public demonstration that raising a profit for Brighton & Hove Pride means investment in our struggling community groups all year round, not just fattened the wallets of businesses. The benefits of buying a ticket need to be underlined.

Some voices are calling for a boycott of this year's Brighton & Hove Pride and calling for an alternative celebration on the beach. Whilst I would never argue with someone exercising choice, if anything is going to kill Pride and the benefits it brings to the city, it will be significant numbers staying away. As somebody who has happily contributed a significant donation to the buckets at Brighton Pride for the last 13 years, I'm saddened that it has come to mandatory ticketing - but I will be there on the day, ticket in hand to show my support in Pride's efforts to invest in the essential work being quietly undertaken by community LGBT organisations all year round. I hope I will see some of you there, either passing by the Green Party stall or in the dance-tents.

Why politicizing aid has hidden costs for African LGBT communities

The situation for LGBT people in African states continues to deteriorate at a frightening pace. The frequent scapegoating of homosexuality in public debate means that there is a danger of these communities becoming collateral damage in a number of diplomatic rows between the UK and African governments. Troublingly, growing "aid scepticism" amongst politicians and voters here in the UK has the potential to make matters worse.

Last week, the UK Government cut £19M of it's £90M aid programme to Malawi in response to ongoing issues with governmental corruption and a deteriorating human rights record. We aren't alone - the European Union, World Bank and several other European countries have curtailed their support in Malawi. Concern over the effectiveness of aid and the disconnect between the desperately poor population and the governmental elite is widespread in the international community. There is genuine cause for concern that taxpayers money is going into the pockets of politicians and business whilst dissent and civil liberties are curtailed. This particular aid cut is newsworthy because the UK has traditionally been Malawi's greatest donor and in recent months an increasingly fractious relationship has developed between our country and President Bingu wa Mutharika.

Secretary of State Andre Mitchell's decision on Malawi is consistent with the new doctrine promoted by the Department for International Development (DFID) since the last election. Whilst international aid remains the only government department aside from Health protected from austerity cuts, a stringent new regime of transparency and accountability has taken root that insists upon measurable value for money in our spending. Even this hasn't been enough to ward off the increasingly shrill calls for cuts. Backbench Conservative MPs and increasing numbers of voters argue that we should be putting public services in the UK first before lending assistance abroad.

As I commented upon a few weeks ago, David Cameron has been keen to draw the connection between our commitment to international aid and making the moral case for LGBT rights internationally. Malawi has a particularly bad record on the human rights of gay citizens, with homosexuality criminalised and the arrest last year of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chumbalanga, who were freed and pardoned after an enormous amount of pressure, both within Malawi and from international solidarity and political leaders. Accusations that foreign organisations are trying to promote homosexuality by stealth are regularly reported in the local media.

Unfortunately, the UK's unilateral withdrawal of aid has caused an uproar within Malawi and our government's stance on LGBT rights has given President Mutharika an opening to blame the cut on a western gay agenda. This has neatly taken the heat off the accusations of corruption and bad governance leveled at him. According to LGBT Asylum News, the government has been publicly accusing opposition protest marches of being gay and funded by homosexual paymasters, something that is gaining traction after being reported on state television. This view plays into wider public concerns around western imperialism, worsened by the realities that this loss of money will mean for a country still struggling with widespread poverty.

I don't pretend to have all the answers, but there are things we can consider. Work is needed to gain a clearer understanding of where resources are used effectively on the ground and working with in-country civil society organisations with strong reputations to ensure aid gets through to those who need it. If this means working around the Government, then so be it. We also need to tackle the politically-damaging argument that western donors are funding NGOs that promote homosexuality. This toxic narrative will continue to proliferate unless we can effectively counter it . And as I've said before, we need to bring the LGBT communities into our deliberations - above all, they know the political context much better than we do - and are directly in the firing line in this crisis.

The situation in Malawi clearly illustrates the political complexity involved in international aid. It is obvious that we need to take a more nuanced approach to promoting LGBT rights in African states, ensuring that aid gets through to those most in need, whilst building capacity within developing countries and tackling corruption. By that measure, the UK Government's approach in Malawi last week has failed on all four counts that matter.

Feedback on Brighton & Hove Pride: What do the community think?

As the countdown continues to this summer's Brighton & Hove Pride, I am in the process of looking at the recent history of the festival and writing a blog post that tackles the controversial decision to charge for entrance to the Preston Park party for the first time.

Due to the substantial amount of visitors from London and the South-East on the day, this is one of the crucial community events of the year for the city and a massive boost to the local tourist trade. Considering the scale of this shake-up to the format, all eyes are on the organisers to ensure that Brighton & Hove Pride does not experience any permanent reputational risk. In the current financial climate, a successful Pride Festival is essential for the continued viability of many LGBT community groups in the city.

I am keen to hear from anyone who has strong views on either side of this debate. For those with any intelligence on both the background history and the current state of play, I'd be keen to hear from you. Naturally, anything said confidentially will be respected and non-attributed. My aim is to constructively report on this controversial issue and the final article will endeavour to strike a balance between all views expressed.

Feel free to email me directly at stephen_a_wood@yahoo.co.uk

The dangerous vacuum at the heart of Cameron's international LGBT strategy

Yesterday, David Cameron held his second reception at Downing St for the LGBT community, inviting many well-known faces working to promote equality, as well as thanking a number of volunteers and activists for their tireless work. In his speech, the biggest headlines sprang from his commitment to do more in using his position to apply moral pressure to foreign governments (notably African) to improve their records on LGBT rights. He specifically held up his commitment to retaining the 0.7% GDP spent on international aid as a concrete sign of his engagement.

In his favour, this is a positive move for someone who had a patchy record on LGBT issues before the election. I'm pleased to see he has a strategy moving forward, but I remain to be convinced by how robust this will prove to be beyond an encouraging speech. In recent years, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has built a strong record on promoting and monitoring LGBT rights in-country and even under the new coalition government, continues to improve it's support for LGBT communities.

However, the Department for International Development (DFID), whilst doing some amazing work generally, has a long way to go before it matches this record. The new Secretary of State, Andrew Mitchell, has shifted much of their focus to explicitly support development outcomes amongst women and girls. In itself, this isn't a terrible thing, but it results in making LGBT people almost as invisible as heterosexual men in their work and boxes women into a particular conception of femininity. Funding for explicitly-LGBT human rights work is exceptionally rare in DFID's funding portfolio.

So, DFID needs to improve it's record on LGBT rights through the provision of aid and the conditions attached upon it. Yet we also need to remember that withholding aid to countries criminalising LGBT people gives credence to the view being pushed by our opponents in those countries that gay rights is imported cultural imperialism. We have to tread a very thin line here. Even amongst LGBT activists in western countries, in the past there has been a danger in publicly denouncing the behaviour of foreign governments in a manner that can aggravate the danger LGBT people experience in those countries. For our opponents, this strident approach is as offensive as the strategy used by fundamentalist US christian groups when they visit Africa and finance anti-gay campaigns.

More than ever before, we have to give voice to southern activists in these situations to decide their own country-specific strategies. The British Government (and LGBT activists) need to be listening and learning from their particular political contexts and letting that determine what assistance we can give. Cameron's promise to use his moral authority is one useful element in our armoury in this, but I'm concerned that he needs to back this up with concrete resources from DFID for those struggling civil society groups on the ground. Because in the end, it is authentic voices located in grass-roots communities that will create real change, not a Downing Street speech. He needs to put his 0.7% GDP where his mouth is.

Why equalities and diversity are more important to the Green Party than ever

Of all the issues facing the UK right now, the cuts agenda of the Coalition Government is clearly the most pressing. As the enormity of what this means for the public has sunk in, it's been encouraging to see that the Green Party (and Caroline Lucas in particular) are being listened to more than ever before as a voice of reason and moderation.

Research is already showing that the loss of public services are disproportionately affecting women, black and ethnic minority communities, disabled people and the working classes. More now than ever, we need to be directly addressing the hopes and fears of these groups in society and articulating an inclusive vision directed at standing up for their priorities.

Yet, right now it is clear that authentic voices from these communities remain a minority in the Green Party. The stark truth is that whilst we have made some strides forward in broadening our electorate platform, the overall view the public have of the Green Party is that we are are a white, male and middle-class organisation. This view may feel unfair and doesn't account for the concern we have for all of our society, but it remains an impediment to being taken seriously.

We need to urgently review our strategy in encouraging talented people from under-represented groups to take leading roles in the party, as well as more intensive engagement with communities outside our comfort zones. We need to be hearing hard truths from those who feel under-represented in the party. They should be provided with support to capacity-build and have a more prominent voice in shaping our future.

Within our party, we need dedicated people working to facilitate the breaking down of barriers to access for all members and to ensure that a plurality of voices are heard - in both our policy making and in how we operate as an organisation. Diversity also means regional too - I'm keen that whilst we retain strong voices from London and Brighton, we make space for voices represented from different regions, each wrestling with rich political traditions and challenges not heard enough in the UK political scene.

I have previously written about the opportunities and challenges facing those of us within the Green Party working on LGBT issues too. We should nurture good work like this, but ensure it becomes more transparent and inclusive so that individuals feel able to contribute and develop their confidence. We should learn from the successes of other groups in coalition-building outside the party, such as the work undertaken by Green Women.

We need voices that articulate our core principles in terms that make sense to a diversity of differing communities and speak to the pressing concerns of as many people as possible. I'm keen that we have a conversation as a Party as to how we can best achieve this and urge strong leadership at the highest parts of the party to ensure this happens.

In the longer term, if we are to succeed electorally and move from the political margins, the Green Party needs to nurture fresh voices that inspire and act as a glue to bring together the rich and varied communities within the UK. Championing equalities and diversity in this party isn't a "bolt on" concern, it must be at the heart of our work if we are to truly represent the hopes of our fellow citizens.

Messed-up morality: Conservatives fall "Back to Basics"

It must be dreadfully frustrating for David Cameron. He spent years (and a fair proportion of Lord Ashcroft's tax-free millions) trying desperately to detoxify the Tory brand and make their policies seem more palatable and human. However, now his colleagues are back in power, an unattractive tone of moral judgement and reactionary social engineering has crept back into public discourse around women and sexuality. Even if we were able to set aside Cameron's own recent patronising display of contempt to Angela Eagle when he told her to "calm down, dear" at Prime Ministers Questions, there are many other signs that there are unmistakable signs of a regressive social agenda bubbling under the surface of many of the Coalition's policies which infantilizes women and wants to draw a firm line under the successful gay legislative programme of the Labour Government.

Ken Clarke's comments about some rapes being less serious than others was a clumsy slip under fire whilst defending a wider cost-cutting approach to justice - but it still betrayed an unbelievably dismissive attitude towards the victims of sexual violence by the Justice Secretary.

Backbencher Nadine Dorries' 10 minute bill pushing for young girls to be taught abstinence (you read correctly -girls, not boys), leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth as it puts female sexuality in the dock as the cause of all lapses in sexual morality. This is at a time of diminishing budgets for HIV prevention and the tightening of health spending around sexual health. Nonetheless, this week it was announced that the well-respected British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) has been removed from the government advisory group on sexual health and replaced by Life, a conservative organisation that takes a hard-line stance against abortion and is strenuously pushing for abstinence programmes, even though they are known to be counter-productive in fighting sexually-transmitted diseases.

You would think on the positive side, that this is the sort of issue where having a coalition Government would put the brakes on these excesses. Right now (the argument goes), keeping the Liberal Democrats onside has meant that the Conservatives are working hard to ensure this remains a series of isolated incidents and does not become a larger narrative behind Government policy. Memories on the front bench are also short enough to remember John Major's ill-fated Back to Basics campaign, which crystallized the public's views of his party's hypocrisy around morality and sex.

Within the Home Office, Liberal Democrat Lynne Featherstone MP represents a trusted pair of hands as the current Equalities Minister. She is interviewed in this month's issue of Total Politics and hints that she clashes at times with her Secretary of State, Theresa May, over this agenda. That said, the article gives her a fairly gentle ride as she talks about ensuring the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is supported to deliver on equalities protection. The truth however, is that the remit for the EHRC has been severely restricted so that it works on the barest minimum needed to deliver it's core aims. Unsurprisingly, this has been accompanied with a significant funding cut.

You may also remember that I posted about the Government's Red Tape Challenge, which is currently consulting on whether we should scrap every law and regulation on the statute books. The presumption is that everything is marked for abolition to "reduce bureaucracy" unless a strong enough argument is given to retain them (or sufficient people can marshall a public stink enough to stop them). After years of campaigning by minority communities, the ink was not yet dry on the Equality Act before it fell into the firing line.

Until this attack, these policies and the funding that underpinned them were in the front line of ensuring that in a country where inequality has steadily increased over the last thirty years, we had an independent voice arguing for concrete changes to close this gap. They ensured that people were able to make adult choices around their health and were treated with dignity in their dealings with the state.

Gender and sexual equality is under more sustained attack than ever before. Cameron's rebranding campaign is over. The Conservatives have learnt a lesson - they are moving back to basics, but aside from the odd slip, this time they aren't making the mistake of telling us.

Gay political representations in the Green Party: the next phase

In one of my recent blog posts, I talked about the challenges those of us interested in LGBT rights within political parties need to wrestle with in the next couple of years. After thirteen years of unprecedented change in both legal and social terms, coming to terms with your sexuality has become a little easier for most young people. There is still a great deal more to do for these changes to be grounded permanently in the fabric of national life.

For me, the struggles that we need to confront in the coming years are four-fold:

1. Transforming the education system to protect LGBT students from bullying, whilst becoming more comfortable in educating all students clearly about sexuality.
2. Working closely with LGBT communities across the globe to support their struggles for equality in ways that make sense for them, rather than imposing Western cultural values or strategies.
3. Binding the solidarity between lesbian and gay men to truly embrace transgender and bi equality and to renew the links between the LGBT movement and those striving towards gender equality.
4. Breaking through the barriers of representation in every walk of life.

The final of these has a resonance within the Green Party. We've been rightly proud of being the most progressive, consistent and uncompromising on the equality agenda and those within the party who have worked on this deserve our profound thanks. Their work has kept our political opponents feet to the fire on these issues and contributed to the political consensus that shaped the Blair government's legislative programme for LGBT citizens.

However, looking at the work being undertaken by other political parties, we are slipping behind on building up our capacity in this area. In structural terms, the LGBT Greens group has relied upon the over-stretched time of a very small core of committed people. Without a constitution, terms of reference or even job descriptions for the officers, it is unsurprising that nobody new is coming forward to get involved. Elections for these positions are very informal and therefore not as transparent as they should be. With the massive influx of new members to the Green Party, this isn't conducive to harnessing fresh energy.

I am really keen that at this year's LGBT Greens AGM at the GP Annual Conference, we bring more clarity and take the time to fix the foundations of the group so that it can achieve even more. We should be using the opportunities afforded by the Green Party members site, Green Activist magazine, other publications and websites and conference fringe events to publicise membership more frequently. We should be identifying prominent LGBT champions within the national party to speak on our behalf. We should work to mentor or twin younger or newer activists with more experienced role models so that we can build upon the successes of electing LGBT representatives to date. (The new crop of councillors in Brighton & Hove are an excellent example!) And we should be undertaking modest fundraising from our supporters to give us the resources to do so, in much the same way as the Young Greens are beginning to translate their energy into concrete achievements and a stronger profile with non-political campaign organisations. We have so much untapped potential in the party.

Finally, and possibly controversially, we should seek to work with our counterpart LGBT groups in the other political parties where possible on joint campaign work. Half the battle is changing the mood music on political issues and a united front across the board would assist this. I am a firm believer that there are bigger issues than party political advantage.

This is a considerable programme of action - and I am personally happy to put my money where my mouth is and put myself forward to help deliver on some of this. I'll be speaking up for this at the September Conference and I hope others will join me in striving for an energised group, orientated once more to become leaders in the equality debate as it enters a new chapter.

When politics gets in the way of reform: lessons from Student Pride

Now the royal wedding has passed, it feels like the national conversation is turning squarely to the local elections and AV referendum later this week. In line with the temperature rise outdoors, this debate is becoming increasingly heated.

I’m quite enjoying a flurry of Green Party activity: canvassing voters, press-ganging my loved ones to help me stuff piles of direct-mail envelopes and yesterday, manning a stall here in Brighton with LGBT Green colleagues at Student Pride 2011

I confess it was my first visit to Student Pride and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. First impressions were worrying: the VIP-only champagne lounge that most people seemed to have access into (I never saw the delights), free slices of pizza handed out faster than club flyers and streams of staff from event sponsor Ernst & Young dashing around trying to look busy.

But then the students arrived and I have to say how impressed I was with them. Whilst everyone was obviously enjoying their weekend away meeting new people, there was a tremendous appetite for political action. Caroline Lucas drew the loudest cheer from the audience for her introductory address and she succeeding in marrying some of the fiercest concerns of the audience to the wider political issues facing the UK.

Of the other speakers, John Amaechi, the ex-NBA sports star cum political commentator definitely proved himself worth following more closely. When talking about homophobia within the school system, he struck a challenging yet mature stance. He argued that we need to understand the motivations behind children’s fear of difference and work to problematise casual homophobia as thoroughly as we have with racism. He pointedly resisted the urge to demonise anyone. At an event where the need for positive LGBT role-models was frequently cited, his involvement was a sound choice.

Of the main political parties, only ourselves and the Liberal Democrats made a decision to attend and speak directly with students. In quite a savvy move, I noticed that the Lib Dems were eager to detoxify their brand, as their display consisted of around 90% Yes to AV material. Whilst we gamely offered to help with selling the AV campaign and had some considerable success in changing minds, I have to confess they were less respectful to us as we were to them!

What clues did our experience hold for the election? Mainly, that the Green Party enjoyed a deepening level of support amongst the students here. Yet this was tempered by the realisation that many of these same students rejected AV vigorously. When we talked about how AV would benefit the smaller parties, it became apparent that a great deal of people still didn’t know much about the issues. Comparing AV to X-Factor voting works wonders, however!

Most concerning was that nearly all the students we spoke to who came out automatically against a “yes” vote argued that it was because the Liberal Democrats were championing it. That was the most shocking part of my experience - how visceral the sense of betrayal and subsequent hatred has become towards them. I honestly don’t see how this level of toxicity towards the key architects of this referendum can be defused before Thursday. In the short term, this rejection of the Liberal Democrats can reap us some political dividends, but the loss of momentum towards electoral reform threatens our longer-term prospects much more. Things are about to get much harder.

Crossroads: Gay rights in the UK

Last week, the Sunday Times reported that if a general election was called right now, a majority of gay men would vote Conservative. The story piqued enough interest to make it around Twitter and the gay press. My natural instinct was to raise a slightly arch eyebrow and ask to see the data that back it up, but then realised that the article was prompting the wrong discussion.

Before I get to that, I should reflect upon the original story. Unsurprisingly, the data becomes unreliable even on the most superficial examination. The story stemmed from 1,100 gay men responding to a poll on a social networking site called Jake. This site is specifically targeted at LGBT career professionals. It is extremely business-orientated, going as far to sell itself as an ideal platform for corporations to raise their profile and ability to influence in the marketplace. I’m not arguing that this is problematic. It is heartening to see figures within the business world striving to capacity-build success amongst LGBT individuals within their ranks. That said, it isn’t a stretch to argue that this particular niche might be a tad more sympathetic to the Conservatives than your average poll of gay men.

For those with longer memories, the site is also owned and run by Ivan Massow, a gay entrepreneur who enjoys a rather interesting past with the Conservative Party. His most notable claims to fame are that he used to be a flatmate of Michael Gove, the current Education Secretary and also famously acted as Margaret Thatcher’s escort to the 1999 Conservative Party conference! He remains, after a brief flirtation with Labour, an active member of the Conservatives.

Finally, and probably most significantly, the vote actually showed that in an election called now, 36% of the respondents would vote Conservative, 34% would vote Labour and 22% would vote Liberal Democrat. Hardly the ringing endorsement it first appears. I’ll say nothing about the fact that the Greens don’t even appear in the poll!

But the discussion we should be having isn’t which political party is most popular with gay men. Debating the merits of each party platform towards gay equality can only get us so far. Instead, I believe those of us campaigning for LGBT rights within political parties should acknowledge that we stand at a crossroads. In the last decade, the Labour Government legislated for equality and removed the vast majority of discriminatory laws on the statute books. These successes have taken the wind out of the sails of political parties’ courting of the gay vote, because by and large, they are now all singing largely from the same hymn sheet in tackling the remaining discriminatory laws and practices.

So here is the real debate. How should the political agenda now evolve between the LGBT community and political parties? What should the Green Party be doing? That is a discussion for another day...

The New Paternalism: Legislating through the back door

You have to give the Coalition Government some credit. They aren’t letting the grass grow under their feet. Whilst in presentational terms, they come across as dis-organised, arrogant and amateur – they are actually achieving a significant amount of their policy aims in record time.

Whilst their “red tape challenge” had slipped quietly under the radar, the ramifications for what it actually entails for good Government are now becoming shockingly clear. Aside from Tory favourites such as taxation policy and national security, every other regulation in the country is now under the microscope and in danger of abolition. In his own words, Cameron is arguing that all regulations should be scrapped unless a good enough rationale is given to retain them. Open season has now commenced for the public to comment, with the emphasis upon "irrelevant until proven useful". And guess who will be the final arbiter in whether regulations have proven their worth during this exercise?

In fact, there is something rather smart about Cameron’s Red Tape Challenge. It looks cost effective, appears inclusive and seems common sense. Unfortunately, buried amongst the easily-mocked regulations offered up as examples of bad practice to the right-wing press, whole swathes of essential legislation are under threat. The accusation levelled against these regulations are that they constrain business efficiency and cost the tax-payer valuable money we cannot afford.

We are talking about the newly-minted Climate Change Act that Cameron supported prior to the General Election, the Wildlife and Countryside Act and the National Park Act. We need to put pressure upon him to respond to organisations such as Greenpeace or 38 Degrees, who are insisting that he comes out unequivocally against attacks upon these core environmental protections. Never mind the environmental costs, these don’t even make long-term economic sense.

The vultures are also circling around the Equality Act, which if repealed would strip away anti-discrimination legislation. Most notably, this includes the protections now available to the LGBT community which have been fought for over the last 25 years. We must not lose sight that some of these regulations enshrine principles more precious than can be calculated on a business ledger.

The real scandal here is that the Coalition Government is neatly circumventing democracy under the pretence of opening up Government to public scrutiny. This exercise is tacitly giving them permission to remove those regulations that they don’t agree with. This can now be done without the inconvenience of full public debate or having to stand on an electoral platform that explicitly argues for repeal of this legislation. The ease with which these laws could be swept away horrifies me.

Whilst there is merit in taking a fresh eye to how Government functions and accounts for our taxes, we have to fight for open scrutiny and to start bringing this 21st century-branded paternalism out from under the radar.