So we're going to war again...

What a bizarre week! I was in a hotel in London when I heard the news we were about to launch strikes on Syria… unusually, not through social media but the old fashioned way, through scrolling news on a muted TV screen whilst one tries to work out exactly how much of the vegetarian full English breakfast is vegan (not very much, as it happens). My reaction, like that of most people, was something along the lines of: 'Oh gosh, surely, surely we've learned our lesson by now?'

And like most people, I am apparently far too optimistic. Thankfully, the one thing to be optimistic about is that every time we take this course of action, the number of people enraged seems to multiply and intensify. Since last Thursday, my Facebook feed has had more posts from people condemning this decision on it than on pretty much all other subjects put together. It may seem like a pretty hollow consolation, but there are some really positive effects that social media can have in this situation. Through the platforms of Facebook and Twitter, it's easier to feel brought together with other people who feel the same way you do without attending a rally in person (not that I'm recommending people stop attending rallies of course, I'm going to one later today).

I could talk at length about why I feel this decision is harmful, or about why I feel diplomacy is a more effective means of securing peace in the region, but I'm sure there are people more qualified than I to make those points. What I can say is that I don't feel that peace in the region is the ultimate goal here. If we wanted peace in any parts of the world, we wouldn't have appointed a Foreign Secretary who offends someone every time he opens his mouth. We wouldn't have spent the last fifteen years bombing  various countries, and for the most part, making them many times worse. We wouldn't be constantly supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia and laying out a red carpet for its leaders, when it is currently engaged in using those weapons in Yemen, in one of the most vicious massacres known to human history. We send aid to countries that are being attacked by our own weapons. Think about that.

Instead, all of these decisions are political. I will most likely talk about exactly where the political decisions on this lie in a subsequent blog post, but in the meantime I will talk about what one can do.

• Attend rallies. If you're on social media it should be really easy to find information about what is going on in your local community. There are a lot of emergency demonstrations going on, so please do your research into it. The organisation Stop the War is also a really good one to follow to find out what you can do.
• Write to your MP. Given the amount of democracy-hiding going on these days this may seem a bit redundant, but it is always worth doing. MPs quite often respond to opposition to their principles by pointing out that their constituents don't seem to be complaining. Don't give them that option. The Government is in a very unstable postion, and the more MPs who speak up, the less controversial they're going to want to be.
• Keep campaigning for a vote of no confidence and a General Election. This Government will have to have power plucked from its cold, dead hands, but it does increasingly feel like that day is coming. But it will only come if opportunities like this are taken advantage of (and yes, as horrendous as they are, military decisions are certainly a political opportunity for the left).

That's all for now, though I have no doubt that at some point in the future I'll comment on the political mentality that led to this decision. I need to spend a bit more time reading about that first!

If you're going to criticise someone, at least be honest about it

Since the appointment of Jeremy Corbyn to the position of leader of the Labour Party in 2015, there have been an awful lot of criticisms of him for various different things. Most of these criticisms I am not really qualified to address, but I think it is fair to say that they vary widely, frequently contradict one another, and an outsider could be forgiven for thinking that Jeremy Corbyn is at least in part responsible for everything bad that has happened in the UK since at least the 1980s, if not earlier (and 'bad' is subjective in this sense).

One of the most frequent criticisms, and certainly the most heavy one of the last few weeks, is accusations of Jeremy Corbyn being anti-Semitic (a kinder version of this complaint is that even if he personally is not, there's a wealth of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party that he is doing absolutely nothing about). As I said in the previous paragraph, this isn't something I'm really able to comment on, as I am neither Jewish nor a member of the Labour Party. From what I can make out from various media sources, the majority of anti-Semitic rhetoric seems to come more from the far-right than the left and centre-left - but I'll accept, it may well be that Labour is a hotbed of anti-Semitic hatred that I am completely ignorant of. We all can only go by our own experiences, after all.

However, what can be proven is that since Jeremy Corbyn entered Parliament in 1983, he is one of only 8% of MPs to have consistently signed motions against anti-semitism, as well as the following:

• 1990 - signed a motion condemning the publication of anti-Semitic materials in the UK
• 2003 - signed a motion condemning an attack on two synagogues
• 2009 - signed a motion condemning anti-Semitic material on the Internet
• 2010 - signed a motion congratulating the Jewish newspaper and website Jewish News for its investigations into anti-Semitism on social media; also signed a motion praising former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's attempts to secure peace within the region
• 2012 - signed a motion condemning the BBC for cancelling the radio show Jewish Citizen Manchester, which was made by the Jewish community for the Jewish community
• 2013 - signed a Parliamentary motion condemning anti-Semitic abuse within football and other sports
• 2014 - signed a motion commemorating the importance of Holocaust Memorial Day
• 2015 - signed an almost identical motion to the one above, with the significance that it was the 70th anniversary; also signed a motion praising the Jewish community of Golders Green for their solidarity in the face of racist marches

However, much as I've generally been a supporter of his incarnation of the Labour Party, this blog is not really about praise for Jeremy Corbyn. I may personally like a lot of his policies and him as a character, but if other people don't it doesn't really bother me. We all have a right to express our own opinions, provided that that opinion is coherent and backed up by logical argument.

That last bit is in bold, because these claims of Jeremy Corbyn supposedly promoting anti-Semitism within Labour (despite inexplicably having voted in the way he did on the examples above) is not even comprehensible to his political opponents. This has all come to a head within the last week or so, when Corbyn celebrated a Passover feast with a group called Jewdas. Jewdas describes itself as 'radical voices for the alternative diaspora' (the word 'diaspora' here means 'the dispersal of Jews beyond Israel', which in the interests of multiculturalism I needless to say approve of). Jewdas is staunchly opposed to the occupation of Palestine by Israel (as am I). Beyond this, I will confess I knew nothing about this organisation until a week ago - so just as with the levels of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, it's not something I can comment on.

The Cambridge dictionary definition of 'antisemitic' is as follows:

'having or showing a strong dislike of Jewish people, or treating them in a cruel and unfair way'

There admittedly is a strong case for the word to have a broader meaning as 'Semitic' does not by its origins refer exclusively to Jewish people, but I shan't dwell on that. But my point here is this. If someone objects to the actions of a person or a society as being anti-Semitic, using the above definition, the Jewishness of the alleged victim must be the determining factor in decrying an alleged perpetrator's actions as being anti-Semitic. If you just dislike someone, or disagree with someone, who happens to be Jewish, it isn't by default anti-Semitic unless the other person's Jewish status is the reason for it. And the reaction from certain wings of the Labour Party to Jeremy Corbyn's attendance of Jewdas' Passover feast pretty much demonstrates that this is not about anti-Semitism, and never has been. This is about Corbyn's political opinions. It is not anti-Semitic to support Palestine, or to condemn Israel - in fact, I know many Jews who do just that.

Frankly, I actually find this reaction to be vastly more anti-Semitic than what Corbyn has been condemned for doing. It is a pretty blatant exploitation of the Jewish community to paint the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition as being something he isn't. At what point is exploitation of a marginalised group to score a cheap political point not offensive? But this feeds into a wider point about honesty in our expression of political viewpoints. I think of myself as being very honest - I may not always make points that people agree with (no one does), but I always endeavour to be upfront about the reasons why I hold them. I think everyone should do that. So bearing that in mind, why not just be honest if you disagree with someone?

When you stop and think about it, you realise that this form of dishonesty extends beyond just this issue, particularly where Jeremy Corbyn is concerned but I imagine across the political spectrum. The example that springs to mind is the furore last year about how Labour had supposedly let down graduates by claiming that they'd cancel their University debts. Now whether or not Jeremy Corbyn made that promise is a discussion for another time (hint: he didn't), but there is quite an important point about it that was rarely brought up in the discussion. And it's this: Look at this situation from the most cynical perspective, which is that Jeremy Corbyn made a promise that he had no intention of fulfilling to win votes, and then backtracked after the election. This is what a lot of politicians do, after all - we're used to it, aren't we? Well, yes, except for one thing: Labour didn't win the election. That is a pretty significant hole in this theory. If you'd made an empty promise and then didn't win the election, why on earth would you admit it was an empty promise? Tactically, it would be far more savvy to continue pretending that that was what you were going to do. For some reason, I saw very few people make this counterpoint, but I think it completely destroys the argument that Corbyn was somehow being deceitful in its tracks. And again, it's something that no one ever really believed - there was no honesty in it. It was all just a means of discrediting.

If you disagree with Jeremy Corbyn's position on Israel, say so - but don't try to paint it as opposition to Judaism generally. If you do that, it undermines your own argument, slanders the person you're criticising, and worst of all, exploits the Jewish community, which doesn't need to be exploited for such purposes. Whether you are Jewish or not, you do not have the right to determine whether or not someone is the right kind of Jew, based on their political opinions or anything else.

Release the remaining IPP prisoners

'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime', so says the old aphorism. But what if the time has already been done?

In 2003, Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences (IPP sentences) were introduced by the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett. These sentences were for an indeterminate amount of time beyond their tariff, and were intended to protect the public from serious criminals - people whose crimes were not serious enough to warrant a life sentence, but were still considered a danger to the public; therefore, they could be kept in custody until the threat had been reduced enough for them to re-enter society (based on reports from periodical assessments by psychiatrists and prison guards). Initially the Home Office expected to impose this sentence on only around 900 people.

However, it transpired that over ten times this estimate were actually given these sentences. In 2012, these sentences were abolished under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. However, this did not apply retrospectively, and there are still around 3,500 prisoners serving indeterminate sentences, 81% of whom have passed their tariff. Many of these prisoners are serving time for fairly minor convictions when compared to the crimes these sentences were introduced for, and many that have been released have be called back for things that pose little or no threat to the public, such as arriving back at a hostel drunk.

There is currently a major campaign going by the families of remaining prisoners to release them, and I feel as though the most effective way to emphasise this point is to share with you this ten-minute film:

As you will see if you have watched it, this is not so much about a malicious plot against anyone, as much as it is a significantly large group of people who have slipped through the cracks and been forgotten about by the establishment.

But there is an ever-growing movement against it, and I've really written this blog to try to get more people onside. Firstly, I recommend signing this petition if you have not already done so. Secondly, on 23 May there is a protest in London, marching from Parliament to the Ministry of Justice. I intend to go to this if I can, and I'd encourage others to as well. Unfortunately the protest doesn't seem to have a Facebook event page, but you can RSVP on the 38 Degrees website and put yourself forward for regular updates on this.

It must be stressed that this is not about defending any of the actions that may have been committed by these prisoners in the past. It is more an objection to the clumsy sentencing of people to life through the backdoor. Any reasonable person should see that no matter what someone has done, a sentence should be reflective, determinate and not subject to change arbitrarily. Let's all come together and make a positive change through pressure on the powers that be to end the plight of these prisoners for good.

Link to official campaign blog:
http://ippfanilycampaign.blogspot.co.uk

Confessions of a male, feminist, sexually divergent, mentally ill charity fundraiser

What has happened to this blog? Well, what happened to it was that I just collapsed. I started last year intending to update it every week, but towards the end of February my mental health just dropped like a stone. I didn't feel about to write, or to function, or to do anything much except run and run. I have improved, in many ways, but in many ways I am also still very unwell. I fluctuate, but I hope to update this blog a lot more frequently this year than I did last year. The advantage I have this year is that I actually have a clear idea of where I am and what I'm planning in the future, which is an important thing.

So I've been trying to think what my first blog back should be about. I have so many things to write about that it's difficult to know where to begin, but since October I've been working as a door-to-door charity cold caller. Doing this job gave me some energy and the ability to plan for my future again, which is what I needed. It's a fun job to do, you get the knowledge that you're doing something great for charity, and you work alongside some fantastic people. I had an idea yesterday that I should write about a couple of fascinating social scenarios I've come across with some of my colleagues, because think they betray some very interesting societal attitudes that we could all do with talking about more. I shall protect the innocent as much as possible.

Casual heteronormativity
The first one involves two people who I work with very frequently, both of whom have become my good friends and who I love spending time with. They think I'm a bit odd really... (They're probably right… I do have a tendency to correct everyone's grammar and break into song at random intervals, after all…) Anyway, a few months back I ended up telling the story of how I gave up drinking alcohol after my first year at Uni. It's an embarrassing story that I won't go into detail about (I can laugh at it now!), but it did involve me making a very obvious pass at a male friend. When I told this story, my colleagues found it very funny. Colleague 1 said, 'Gay!' Colleague 2 quickly said to Colleague 1, 'You know George is gay, right?' Now, I have never given much indication as to my sexual orientation to either of these guys, or to anyone else. They were both working with the same amount of evidence, one of them assumed I was straight and the other one assumed I was gay - they can't both be right, and actually both are wrong. But the really interesting thing is that these respective assumptions led each of them to a conclusion of what it was and wasn't appropriate to say to me. Colleague 1, assuming I was straight, teased me about doing something that suggested I was gay, in a way he never would had he thought I was actually gay. Colleague 2, believing I was actually gay, gave Colleague 1 a minor rebuke to spare my feelings, in a way that would have seemed unnecessary if he'd thought I was straight. This may get slightly awkward if they read this, which they may do; I can honestly say I was not offended by either of these things, but I did find it quite a revelation to see the differences in how each of them would speak to a gay colleague as opposed to a straight one.

Casual sexism
My second anecdote is really a couple of things rolled into one. I am a feminist. When you're a male feminist working predominantly with other men, you tend to feel a bit more compelled to call out casual sexism when you see it than you would otherwise. I've heard it said that the #notallmen hashtag is counter-productive because all it is for (supposedly) is for men to tell women that they aren't what they (the women) are complaining about. I completely disagree with this, because I think it's important that men use this with each other. I'm not sure women always realise how different it is to be in an all-male group to being in a mixed group; I vastly prefer having at least one woman on my team, because on an all-male team it seems I am expected to go along with the male banter, which isn't something that normally makes me feel comfortable. For the most part I can handle it, but sometimes it's tricky. When I first joined the company, I had a colleague who, after I stepped off a door with a woman, would try to engage me in conversations that tended to go as follows:

Him: 'Was she sexy?'
Me: 'I'm not going to answer that question.'
Him: 'Honestly George, you need to lighten up!'
Me: 'Actually, no I don't, I'm completely happy as I am without objectifying people we're dealing with.'

I no longer work with that person, and thankfully now that people have got to know me they rarely try to involve me so blatantly in that sort of thing. But it does still come up, and I notice the way that on the doors men are often referred to as 'mate' and women as 'love'. The other week, there was a slight altercation where I called this out. I probably wouldn't have brought it up, but for the fact that someone was talking about how he'd started saying 'All right, love?' and then realised the person was a man. I said, quite truthfully, that if he'd been treating everyone with equal terminology this wouldn't have been an issue. His response implied that in the region of the country he comes from it's very natural, which I actually thought was pathetic; having done something in the past does not by itself make it fine to carry on doing it. The conversation didn't last that long, but on a later occasion a different colleague who had been present (a much closer friend) made a tactful suggestion that maybe calling him sexist had been going a bit far - there was an indication that theoretically, he could have been sacked as a result of me calling that out. I see that point, and I have spent hours afterwards questioning whether I was wrong, but on the whole I don't think so somehow. At what point do you decide to call someone out? Is it when someone's behaviour is actually violent, or is it before that? I think with women in particular, we tend to assume an intimacy we haven't earned; I would never consider calling someone 'love' unless I knew them well. If this isn't called out when it is witnessed, even if it isn't doing any harm by itself, that suggestion that we treat people differently depending on their gender is left to fester, and that is quite disturbing to me. It also completely alientates gender-neutral/non-binary people (I'm aware that I've used the terms 'male' and 'female' fairly loosely here, and apologies if this offends anyone - it's for want of better terms, I don't think I could tell these anecdotes without them). Moreover, if someone was sacked for saying something like that, that is the fault of the perpetrator, not the witness. If I point something out to someone, that gives them the opportunity to stop doing it; if they don't and get into trouble for it, I don't see how that is my responsibility at all. It's going down that route that leads to the turning of blind eyes to distasteful things.

Casual mental health stigma
Out of everything here, this is the only one that deeply offended me, though I did my best not to show it. During a training session, my boss became very upset with me when it came out that in a couple of my pitches I had mentioned the mental health problems I have with people on doors. He categorically told me not to do that, and I find this completely unacceptable. Mental health is something we're all becoming more aware of; it is becoming less of a taboo subject, and this is incredibly important, but there is still a stigma around it. The only way we can remove that is by feeling comfortable to talk about it, the same way we would about something like dyslexia. I'm not dyslexic, but I have a mild learning difficulty which means I get baffled about spatial things - I get my left and right confused occasionally, but the only major problem it causes in my life is that I find it inordinately difficult to tie my own shoelaces. This has come up occasionally on a door - someone will mention that my shoelaces have come untied, I'll laugh and explain. I haven't actually told my boss that I've done this, but I would be willing to place a bet on the fact that he wouldn't object at all - why would he? There isn't a stigma around that. I have the humility to see that there are exceptions to this - if I was using my struggles as a sob story to manipulate the person into signing up to charity, that would be taking it too far - but this isn't what I do. A charity pitch is not supposed to be a lecture, it's supposed to be like a passionate conversation with a friend, and if you can use a personal example whilst still maintaining your professionalism, I'd actually say no one has the right to tell you not to do that. The only criteria that need to be considered when determining if it's appropriate to talk about what you've been through is whether you would feel comfortable to do so; no one else is qualified to make that judgement.

Anyway… welcome back to my blog! I'm not sure my employer would be happy that I've written this, but needs must. I have done my best to protect my sources, but the point is that even if I had named and shamed everyone, there isn't really anything to shame them for. None of these things are particularly incriminating - they're actually things we all do, every minute of the day. That doesn't mean we shouldn't call them out.

Remember that when they come up in your own lives.

A response to a great article about veganism

This is a slightly different type of blog to the sort of thing I normally write, but still worthwhile, I hope!

The inspiration came from an article by Jack Rear on Pretty52 concerning 'Why we should all be vegan from the perspective of a non-vegan' (actually the author is someone who though I've never met, has been a reasonably close acquaintance of mine for quite a few years and I tend to take a look out for his articles as they are always engaging and thought-provoking). You will probably get more out of this blog having read that first, but I will say that generally I found that the article made me feel very optimistic about the future of our dietary habits. As someone on the cusp of going vegan, and having experienced all of the narrow-minded attitudes of our culture, it does occasionally feel as though I'm part of a vegan echo chamber. Reading and agreeing with articles encouraging veganism is one thing, but the authors of these are normally 'staunch vegan activists' such as the woman interviewed in the article. People like this have taken on all of the same values that I have over an extended period of time, and thus are not as reflective of wider society as I would like. This article stood out to me as something written by someone who for the most part has not been as close to it, yet was still geared very much towards veganism being the way to go. Seeing someone logically weighing up all the data from an outsider's perspective and reaching that conclusion is refreshing, if anything.

A bit about my own background on this… I'm not quite a full-time vegan yet, but I am well on my way to it. I became vegetarian when I was about 15 - I was studying Food Tech for GCSE and it was as simple as the fact that the vegetarian module appealed to me more than I expected it to and I decided to give it a go. This was before I was as politically aware as I would later become, but I suppose in a way the decision was a pre-curser to that - I don't think I could ever do the work that I do on my campaigns whilst eating meat. Becoming a vegan is more a political decision. Last year I decided to take part in Veganuary, and it was an awful struggle. This was partly due to the fact that at the time I was living in Colchester, which is not known for the forward-thinking viewpoints of its residents. There was very little I could substitute for animal products, so I ended up just having a very limited diet. There was no way that I could keep it up full-time, but it did lead to me making a decision for how I would go vegan: every year I spend a successive number of months following a vegan diet, until either I'm doing it all year (which won't happen until I'm 34) or until I don't want to stop at the end of my cycle (which is a lot more likely to happen). I have had quite a lot of people laugh at me for this, but to me it's a very logical approach - I don't like cutting down gradually because I think you just end up compromising more and more until you're as bad as you were to start with, so spending increasing amounts of time being vegan seems like a better way of handling it. Plus, during my cycles I learn more about different substitutes for animal products, which I continue to use when I'm not on a cycle. It's nearly the end of my 2017 cycle, but when I stop I will be eating fewer animal products than I was before - who knows, maybe next year I'll be doing it for good.

I'm not going to talk about the reasons why everyone should be vegan because the vast majority of it is talked about at length in the article I've linked to. I'll just go through a few things that people don't always realise, though it is of course all my subjective experience:

• Becoming vegetarian is markedly easier than becoming vegan.

I love being vegetarian. It's a lot more than just something that is fuelled by a political belief, it's a lifestyle that I get an immense amount of enjoyment and satisfaction from. I do not miss meat at all, and whilst I remember the taste I cannot remember what it was I ever liked about it. Yes, I do frequently get the 'But bacon!' response from people, and it really doesn't mean anything. It's probably not something that a non-vegetarian can understand, but once you're doing it you come to notice a host of flavours that you were never aware of before. I think a lot of the time meat is overpowering enough to drown out the flavours of other things you're eating. Becoming vegan is different. Whilst this cycle has been a lot easier than last year, it varies from day to day. Sometimes I feel great about it, sometimes I'll get a lot of cravings for things, most commonly cheese and chocolate. The bottom line is, I believe passionately in veganism and I think if I wasn't doing it I'd be a total hypocrite, so it is going to happen. I guess you can get used to anything and I'm getting used to this - who knows, perhaps one day it will give me as much pleasure as vegetarianism does. It's just a harder road.

• If you're vegan, people will feel threatened and take offence.

I read a Facebook meme recently that made me chortle: 'Today I saw a dietician. Well... actually they weren't a dietician before, but when I told them I was vegan they immediately became one.' It's sad, but true. From the scepticism of 'You can't possibly be getting enough protein!' to the downright bizarre 'Oh, you think you're better than everyone else, don't you?' being vegan seems to be something that really gets on people's wick. Jack talks a bit about this in the article, how being vegan is associated with moral righteousness. I'm really not sure where this comes from. There are of course quite militant vegans, just as there are militant people representing every social movement (and these people tend to shout the loudest); but I tend to feel that people see you as being militant even if you're not being. I don't think I'm militant with anything except possibly smoking, but I know that I'm thoroughly irritating when I talk about my beliefs, be that diet or anything else. Being irritating is not something I set out to do, but it's quite evident that this moral righteousness is something that is associated with me. It can be a little bewildering at times, but I tend to feel that if you know you are talking sense, that shouldn't matter.  If someone tells you that you think you're better than them, it's probably because they are insecure about themselves - even if you do think you're better than them, what's so terrible about that? You're allowed to think things about yourself in relation to other people, that's how human beings are. Ultimately, I think that everyone should do their research and form their opinions accordingly, and dissenting opinions are only worth listening to if they are coming from a place of reason and logic, as opposed to personal threat.

• Veganism is not a religion.

This is particularly important. Another meme I recently came across detailed the following exchange:

'I would be vegan, but I couldn't give up cheese.'

'Then GO VEGAN EXCEPT FOR CHEESE!'

The way the world is right now, it is not physically possible to live a 100% vegan lifestyle, as so many things are made using animal products - the new £5 note being a topical example. I can talk until the cows come home about how most of the so-called health detriments to being vegan are nonsense, but ultimately everyone is different, and some people are more suited to adopt a vegan diet than others. The bottom line is that everyone should be as ecological as they are physically able. This goes beyond just animal products - there are a huge number of food brands that I boycott because they do something which goes against my own causes. The list could by rights be a lot longer, had I not as a consumer stepped in and pointed out to myself that in order to live, I have to make compromises. If I boycotted everything I had something against, I'd never eat, drink or wear anything at all, and there comes a point where you need to prioritise yourself. Having accepted that, you can then start to decide where you are going to start. As I have detailed above, I don't feel able to completely convert to veganism right now, but I am well on the way and I have a clear system for how this is going to work. I think everyone should have some kind of moral standard that they live up to, but this should be something that they set themselves. Once we have accepted that, we can sit back and feel content in the knowledge that, whilst we may disagree on exactly what form this takes, ethical eating is here to stay.

The importance of whistleblowing

Again, I haven't written in a while…

Shortly before leaving office, Barack Obama announced that Chelsea Manning would be released from jail after three and a half years (though realistically quite a bit longer than that if we're including the amount of time she spent in detention leading up to and during the trial). For those who don't know, Manning released the very disturbing Collateral Murder video, as well as numerous other classified military documents, to Wikileaks, exposing some quite significant material concerning airstrikes in the Iraq War. She was recently described by President Trump as an 'ungrateful traitor' who should 'never have been released' in the wake of the announcement of her commute. She will be released from jail in May.

Since I started blogging in 2010, I have written quite a lot about Manning, and ordinarily the announcement of her release would have prompted me to write a full blog, but so much else was happening at the time that this had to be put on the sidelines a little. Manning's situation to me underlines a really important thing within our society; the concept of whistleblowing. A whistleblower is defined as 'a person who informs on someone engaged in an illicit activity'. It is something that has become increasingly significant within the world over the last few years, notably due to the widespread use of social media. Besides Manning, the most infamous whistleblower is probably Edward Snowden, who in 2013 copied and leaked information from the National Security Agency revealing numerous global surveillance programmes around the world, including within the UK. As an activist, I tend to believe that as little information as possible should be kept from the public, as I think that the proper way to run a community is through openness, honesty and transparency. I will accept that there are certain areas in which it is appropriate for exceptions to be made to these principles, but they should be exceptions and not the rule. In short, I believe that if something that a Government or a corporation does is scandalous enough for someone to blow the whistle, this is something that should be taken extremely seriously, and the consequences should be felt by the initial perpetrator, not by the person who exposed it.

This last thing is something which I feel we all seem to have lost sight of. If we are to live in a society that is accountable to its citizens, the ability to air the establishment's dirty laundry is public is surely essential for our political health. For the most part, whistleblowing is not only a good thing, but a necessary thing. Yet it seems that action taken by the establishment to address instances of whistleblowing focus more on the problem of the whistle having been blown than on actually sorting out anything that has been exposed. For example, after Snowden's exposures of the UK's illegal surveillance programmes, the then Home Secretary Theresa May introduced the Investigatory Powers Bill (commonly known as the Snoopers' Charter) which passed into law shortly after her ascension to Downing Street in 2016. I shall say that one more time to make sure we are completely clear - after revelations that the Government was spying on its citizens illegally, the immediate reaction from the Government was to pass legislation to make such spying legal and official Government policy. This seems to me duplicitous and underhand, to be pursuing the ability to continue such tactics after their existence has been exposed, rather than tightening reins and examining the reasons why such tactics were illegal in the first place.

I first became aware of the term 'whistleblowing' in a documentary that I saw as a teenager in 2007 concerning reporters going undercover within supermarkets to expose public health risks such as faked expiry dates on food products. This struck me as being a public service, and as it is we have a Public Interest Disclosure Act in order to protect whistleblowers in such circumstances. What concerns me at the moment is the draft recommendations for the new Espionage Act, which is all part of the review of the Official Secrets Act. This Act would effectively criminalise all means of releasing sensitive Government information to the public, and a defence of 'public interest' would not be submissible. The Law Commission recommends up to 14 years in prison. Most disturbing of all, whilst the Official Secrets Act currently applies only to UK citizens, the recommendations extend beyond the whistleblower themselves to journalists or anyone else who received the information, anywhere in the world.

Take a moment to digest this. There are a great number of negotiations and discussions going on right now, in the UK and in the world at large, which potentially could fall under the banner of 'sensitive information'. Theresa May's plans for Brexit, for example. The details of the trade deals she is attempting with various world leaders (which in many cases seem to equate mostly to agreeing to whatever dodgy deals the UK is given). Potential cases of fraud in elections, which is still something which has not reached a conclusion where the present Government is concerned. Our involvement in wars in the middle-east. The list goes on. We live in very divided and turbulent times - no one, on any part of the political spectrum, would deny that. And in such times, it is vital for journalists, and indeed anyone else, to be able to report on the truth of what is going on behind closed doors, and to be able to prove that information. Enacting legislation that criminalises not the people who are actually breaking the law, but the people who expose that information, is more than merely protecting national security; it simply screams of not having the honesty and integrity to be able to justify our own position in the world.  'If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear': that is a tedious phrase which we all hear very frequently, and I normally scoff at it because it is merely a cover-up for unnecessary and unethical surveillance of each one of us. I find it incredibly ironic that such an establishment would go to such extreme lengths to cover up its own doing. After all, 'nothing to hide', right?

The Espionage Act is still at the consultation stage, so please feel free to contact the Law Commission and let it know what you think of the proposals.

Refugee status in the UK