Tag: Prevent

“Israel-Hamas conflict”: (misleading and partisan) advice for schools from Ministers

Posted on by urbanramblings19687496

This is an examination and critique of a letter sent by Government Ministers at the Department for Education to school leaders, applying pressure on them to adopt a shamelessly one sided and partisan approach to the war in Israel/Palestine that discards its own impartiality guidance. Their letter is in plain text. My comments are in italics.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, the Minister for Schools and the Minister for Skills have written to schools and colleges (17 October 2023) to provide advice on how to respond to the Israel-Hamas conflict in the classroom.

There are many ways to describe this conflict, and Israeli politicians have not been shy in doing so. Nakba 2 sums up their approach. We have seen the results on our TV screens. We know what is happening in Gaza. Journalists have had to die in unprecedented numbers (53 so far) to get these images and stories to us.

  • We know that Palestinian families are having discussions about whether to sleep in different rooms, so that if they are bombed, some might survive, or all together, so if a bomb drops, they will either all live, or all die together.
  • We know that Palestinian children are having their names written onto their legs or arms, so that if they are killed, and their family with them, the people who collect their bodies will at least know their names.
  • We know that hospitals in Gaza have had to write WCNSF on children’s notes (wounded child, no surviving family).
  • We know, if we read the daily UN reports, that 1.7 million people have been displaced from their homes, that half of those homes have been bombed flat, that health care has collapsed with almost every hospital bombed or shelled, that UN places of refuge, including schools, have been shelled, that people who have tried to find safety in the South have been shelled, that ambulances have been shelled, that water supplies have been cut off, desalination and sewage plants shelled and, overall, one in two hundred people in the Gaza strip have been killed in just five weeks; while far right settlers have carried out 6 attacks a day and, with IDF support killed 201 Palestinians in the West Bank.
  • This is called a genocide on Al Jazeera. The Pope calls it “terrorism”.
  • Calling it “the Israel:Hamas conflict” elides the Palestinian people from the narrative in way that is peculiarly grotesque, given that they are suffering the highest casualties, as they have done in every instance of this conflict since 1948.
  • The UN Secretary General points out that more children have been killed in this Israeli assault on Gaza and more quickly than in any other conflict during his tenure. This is also true of UN workers themselves and journalists.
  • With an attack on such a scale, with so many child casualties, you might think that Ministers of Education would notice and seek an end to it, as a majority of the world has in very clear votes at the UN. Or at least recognise harms on all sides. Not a bit of it. Off they go…

Dear school and college leaders,

Following the barbaric terrorist attacks in Israel, we are writing to provide advice for schools and colleges. The UK unequivocally condemns these terrorist attacks and stands in solidarity with Israel in its hour of need.

Palestinians have been in a continuous hour of need since 1948. Continuous, ongoing, racist oppression, with 50 discriminatory laws, constituting a system of apartheid every bit as repressive as that in South Africa or the Jim Crow US South, ongoing dispossession, settler and army violence and casual murder, house demolitions, olive grove uprootings, children arrested and detained without charge or tried in military courts, having their arms hit with rocks by adult soldiers until they break. No unequivocal condemnation of that, or solidarity with the victims of it from our Education Ministers.

Even when the IDF has invaded Gaza in the recent past and killed more people than Hamas killed in Israel on Oct 7th, 1,400 in 2008, 2,100 in 2014, this does not spark the same level of outrage. I think we are entitled to ask why not?

The response from people on the Right – which is where these Ministers sit politically – to the Black Lives Matter Movement was to deploy the phrase “ALL lives matter” as a self satisfied mantra to cover up the reality that, in the world they run, white lives matter more. Its therefore no contradiction that, as far as they are concerned, Palestinian lives don’t matter in the slightest; certainly not enough to generate solidarity with them or any, let alone unequivocal condemnation of the army and state that is killing them.

The Prime Minister has announced that £3 million of extra funding will be provided to the Community Security Trust to protect schools, colleges, nurseries and synagogues and other Jewish community buildings.

The presumption here is that the response here is a straight conflict between communities, but also that, in such a conflict, the protection of one of them has to be prioritised. On the first point, there have been large Jewish contingents calling for a ceasefire and just solution on the Palestine demonstrations. This poses a question about how free to express a contrary opinion Jewish students are in faith schools, which the Ministers don’t consider any more than they notice those contingents, or the independent actions led by Jewish organisations like Naamod. The Ministers seem to have the same surreal mindset as the US Anti Defamation league, that classes sit ins at Railway Stations called by Jewish organisations calling for peace, and attended wholly by Jewish demonstrators, as “antisemitic incidents”. On the second point, since Oct 7th Islamophobic hate crimes have increased by 600% across the country with a tenfold increase in schools and Universities according to ITV. Where is the funding to deal with that?

Schools and colleges offer children, young people and staff a safe environment in which to learn and work.

That applies to ALL students, many of whom will be being traumatised by what they are seeing on the news, and the affect that it is having on their parents and friends. The suppression of strong feelings and anxieties does active damage to mental health and is therefore a safeguarding failure. It is also exclusionary. Schools have to be a safe place for all students to get an accurate picture of what is going on and explore ideas and feelings about it without feeling under threat of being penalised or put on a watch list for doing so.

Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation, and it is illegal to encourage support for them. This would also be contrary to the British values that schools and colleges should promote and embody.

Perhaps the Ministers would like to explain how denying food, medicine, fuel and water to a civilian population is consistent with “the British values that schools and colleges should promote and embody” or, for that matter, international law? While they are at it, they might like to have a go at explaining how blowing over 5,000 children to bits with shells, bombs and missiles is something other than terrorism? At most, on Oct 7th, Hamas killed 1,200 people. Since then, the IDF has killed more than ten times as many. The RAF has been flying arms supply flights into Israel from Cyprus to help them do it. Is this “British values” in action, as the Ministers see them?

To support senior leaders and teachers manage these discussions, there are several reputable organisations that offer resources to teach about this sensitive topic in a balanced way and challenge extreme and hateful narratives. The Department’s Educate Against Hate website provides a range of resources to support with challenging discrimination and intolerance. It also provides advice on how to respond where you have concerns.

This is the profoundly flawed Prevent approach, which is based on a false notion that people who commit violent acts of terror do so as a result of developing “extreme” ideas. The scope of what is “extreme” has been redefined under this current government to play down the growing threat from the far right – because their ideas are uncomfortably close to those of sections of the ruling Party, but, lets not dwell on that…

We know that recent events will result in teachers being put in difficult positions at school, as children understandably ask questions and share their opinions. In some cases, children may have been exposed to false or inappropriate information outside of school, making the role of the teacher in responding to children even harder.  As with other sensitive topics, teachers and staff will of course be using their judgement and expertise to navigate these discussions, in a way that maintains high standards of ethics and behaviour.

A very good guide to dealing with this objectively and in a genuinely non partisan way, not taking the diplomatic imperatives of the UK government’s complicity with Israel’s breaches of international law as a distorting framework, is provided by the National Education Union’s guidance. The NEU guidance is aimed at developing historical understanding, challenging misinformation and media bias, built around a concern for the inclusion and safeguarding of all students and communities; and provides a far more balanced and workable framework than the Ministers seem capable of.

We know that young people may have a strong personal interest in these issues, which could lead to political activity. Schools and colleges should ensure that any political expression is conducted sensitively, meaning that it is not disruptive and does not create an atmosphere of intimidation or fear for their peers and staff. This includes not only where behaviour appears to celebrate or glorify violence, but also any expression of views that feels targeted against specific groups or stigmatises others. The Department has published guidance to help schools navigate teaching about political issues.

It may be that a school decides to ban all symbols associated with the conflict, but this should not be applied in a partisan manner. The Government itself flying Israeli flags on public buildings set a very bad example if they genuinely wanted to reduce tensions. There was a demonstration in the United States last week in which people waving Israeli flags were chanting “no ceasefire”. We will see if the UK demonstration “supporting Israel” this Sunday does the same. That could be interpreted as “glorifying violence”. It certainly wants it to continue. As does the government. The formula “any expression of views that feels targeted against specific groups or stigmatises others” can be, and in some cases is, interpreted very broadly; with the result that students expressing a pro Palestinian view have been put through disciplinary procedures; which is creating “an atmosphere of intimidation or fear” for these students. Put bluntly, they are nervous of expressing their view, and so are many of their parents. How this is compatible with the “Fundamental British Values” of democracy, respect and mutual tolerance is another question that the Ministers might have to wrestle with. The next paragraph shows the mental and organisational mechanics of this atmosphere of fear.

In the past, we have seen how events in the Middle East are used as an excuse to stir up hatred against communities, including in schools and colleges. It is of the utmost importance that schools and colleges tackle this head on and ensure that where behaviour extends into antisemitism or other discriminatory bullying, it is responded to with all due seriousness. There is also support through the Prevent programme if teachers consider that abusive or discriminatory views indicate a wider vulnerability to radicalisation. There is guidance available on GOV.UK on how to assess risk of radicalisation and make a referral.

Such a creative use of language to obscure realities. Perhaps this letter could be used in an English lesson to examine how the manipulation of language can be used to create a desired impression that subverts the truth, with a special emphasis on the strategic deployment of the passive voice. “Events in the Middle East”. What a passive phrase for such active violence; “provides an excuse to stir up hatred against communities”. Which communities? Only antisemitism is mentioned. Islamophobia isn’t mentioned. Why not? All bullying should be dealt with seriously, especially that coming from the top. The way that the former Home Secretary described people marching for peace and a ceasefire – a demand supported by 76% of the population, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd and 120 countries at the UN – as “hate marchers” indicates how out of step with most of the world this government is, but also how they want schools to become complicit in policing their own political view – that the IDF should be allowed to carry on this war until they have “rooted out Hamas”, which it is evident that they can’t do without a wholesale slaughter of the population in Gaza; as even a mass expulsion into Egypt or beyond would not prevent Hamas, or a formation like it, reemerging from the ashes with even more fuel for vengeance than they have had hitherto. This is a kind of insanity. You might even describe its stance as extreme and radicalised. It certainly isn’t mainstream.

There are trusted external bodies, which can provide support:

  • To assist, the Community Security Trust have published several educational resources, including those that support understanding and identifying antisemitism. For concerns regarding antisemitism, the Community Security Trust provide a national emergency number which should be used to report antisemitic attacks, alongside calling 999: 0800 032 3263.
  • For anti-Muslim hatred, Tell Mama provides a confidential support service, with their website providing a number of different ways to report anti-Muslim incidents.
  • The DfE has a Counter-Extremism online referral form, which allows for extremism concerns to be reported directly to the Department. Report Extremism in Education – Start.
  • For anyone in the UK who feels impacted by the ongoing conflict, Victim Support is available online on 0808 168 9111 (free and available 24/7).

Given that calling for peace has been interpreted by the former Home Secretary, and current prime Minister, as “hate”, it goes without saying here that the students that might be referred to Prevent are those that feel and express a solidarity with the Palestinians – constructively reinterpreted as “support for Hamas” as it so often is in our less scrupulous newspapers – but not students who express a desire for the IDF to “finish the job” in Gaza” or possibly sing songs like this. I double checked to see if this clip is real and, heart sinkingly enough, it is.

We ask that you do whatever you can to actively provide Jewish and all young people with the reassurance they need and respond swiftly to any incidents. We know that you will work to ensure that your schools and colleges remain calm, safe and supportive environments, where everyone can thrive in safety and respect.

If schools are proactive and allow a safe space for all students to express their views and feelings, in a “calm, safe and supporting environment” knowing that their school cares for them, and those that disagree with them, there will be fewer incidents where unexpressed and underexplored ideas come out under pressure of feeling suppressed and outlawed, not least through the partisan and deeply immoral promotion of state violence by our current Education Ministers who list themselves below.

The Rt Hon Gillian Keegan MP, Secretary of State for Education

The Rt Hon Nick Gibb MP, Minister for Schools

The Rt Hon Robert Halfon MP, Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education

How dare you Priti Patel?

Posted on by urbanramblings19687496

The blog below was written before Home Secretary* Priti Patel’s interview on LBC in which she defended the reporting of climate change protesters to the Prevent programme on the grounds that police have to look at “a range of security risks.” This inability to tell the difference between high explosive and superglue reveals Prevent to be a vehicle for criminalising dissent more than safeguarding society from violence. The subsequent revelation that a counter terrorism policing guide from June 2019 included logos from Greenpeace, PETA, Stop the War, CND, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Anti Fascist and Anti Racist groups underlines the point.

Given that they are often so keen to tell us that it is the first duty of government to keep its citizens safe, perhaps Patel should heed the warnings of the Ministry of Defence, which is planning for a more unstable world up to 2040 as a result of the impact of climate change, or, the recent US Army report on the security impact of climate change which predicts severe water shortages, increased incidence of “natural” disasters, floods, fires, hurricanes of unprecedented scope and scale, global pandemics, and a break down in vital infrastructure and state functions, including a possible collapse of the army itself – and conclude that the “unco-operative crusties” and, indeed, school students, taking to the streets calling for action to avert this might have a point.

If she can’t do that, and recognise that safeguarding our future is a government responsibility, she should resign or be sacked.

*”Home Secretary” sounds very cosy. Other countries, that don’t do official euphemisms, refer to Patel’s role as the Ministry of the Interior.

Criminalising dissent

The decision by “counter terrorism” police in the South East to include climate change activists who speak in “strong or emotive terms about environmental issues like climate change, ecology, species extinction, fracking, airport expansion or pollution” or “neglect to attend school” or “participate in planned school walkouts” or took part in “writing environmentally themed graffiti” in their list of  “extremists” who should be reported to Prevent by their teachers is very revealing about the way these people think.

There is a very revealing use of the word “or” in this description of what the guide was for. “This document is designed to help you recognise when young people or adults may be vulnerable to extreme or violent ideologies.” The safeguarding concern of Prevent is supposed to be about violence, but the term “extreme” is put in here as an equivalent concern of equal weight.

This is elaborated further, again in a very revealing way in which climate change activism is defined as arising from an “Anti-establishment philosophy that seeks system change…”  Given that the “establishment” and “system” that we have is heading for a global temperature rise of 3-4 C by the end of the century – with everything that flows from that (not least melted ice caps) – that we are in the middle of the 6th mass extinction, that we can see the effects of climate change around us now and the future is closing in like a trap; why is it the “system” and the “establishment” that they instinctively seek to safeguard – not the futures of everyone threatened by it? This is of a piece with the use of public money to pay for under cover police officers to infiltrate non violent environmental campaigns under assumed identities; sometimes forming relationships and fathering children with unsuspecting women activists – in a way that is never held to account by any values at all – let even “fundamental”, “British” ones.

The rapid retreat from this classification shows that they can’t get away with this kind of labeling as a way to inhibit the climate change movement as yet. But it also raises concerns about the Prevent approach in general.

Guilt by association

During a Prevent INSET at a school somewhere in North London a couple of years ago – one of those after school staff meetings at which a course that is supposed to take a whole day is rushed through in a one hour “death by” power point presentation for a room full of teachers who are in that fresh, receptive, alert state of mind always in evidence after a day’s teaching – the trainer, who was quite good as these people go and put a lot of emphasis on the growing threat from the far right, noted that in some parts of the country the biggest terror threat was from “vegans.” What he meant to refer to was the physical force wing of the animal rights movement, but the verbal slip indicates two things.

  1. That the issues involved in generating people prepared to take violent action to force change are only seen as the context for the actions, not as issues of wider concern that mostly DON’T lead to people taking violent actions. Vivisection. Animal rights. Invasions of other countries. Military violence. Discrimination. Unequal rights. Racism. All are issues that demand and deserve open argument. Feeding back from the actions to the ideas, and putting those ideas solely in the context of “safeguarding”, freezes necessary debate and argument, making them a matter for enforcement and suppression ; which is more likely to bottle up people at risk than allow the exploration of worries, concerns and fears in a safe context with trusted people.
  2. That a term that includes a wide set of people – in this case “vegans” – can be used as a short hand term for “terrorists” and thereby implicitly brands the whole lot of them. The trainer was very clear about this in the case of violent Jihadis, often referred to simply as “Muslims”. A nudge on this to a small group of public sector workers is all very well, but this usage is common in the media, which frames the discourse of most people. The far right are usually correctly referred to as fascists or racists. Never as “white people”; which would be the equivalent. In their cases of course, they are often individualised, or seen as individuals with mental health problems not part of a movement: especially by newspapers that have encouraged their fears and hatreds and could be seen to be complicit in their actions.

Fundamental? British? Values?

Napoleon’s Foreign Minister, Tallyrand, once remarked that the chief characteristics of the Holy Roman Empire were that it was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.  “Fundamental British Values”  can equally be characterised as neither British, nor Fundamental, nor Values.

These – central to Government’s Prevent Strategy – require a closer examination because there is a statutory duty on public bodies not simply to respect them, but to promote them, and somehow quantify the impact of doing so.

When initially asked to define the sorts of things that might be considered “Fundamental British  Values”, then government Ministers like Eric Pickles came up with things like “the queen and red buses”; which are not values at all; more images from tourist postcards.  The real concern of government – it seems from this -was nothing to do with “values” at all, but just to draw on emotional signifiers of loyalty to a creaking established order.

Nevertheless, the values specifically listed (and for which public servants are accountable by law rather than ministerial prejudice) are

  • democracy,
  • the rule of law,
  • individual liberty,
  • mutual respect
  • and tolerance for those of different faiths or beliefs.

Most sets of values that emerge from genuine historic events come in threes (with only one of them as a phrase) whether its France’s Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, the US constitution’s Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, or, indeed, Superman’s Truth, Justice and the American Way. These have the advantage of being memorable and with a historical resonance. They tell a story. There is something rather stodgy, bland and committee like about this list of one word and four phrases; and an ambiguity in the last two points. The need to include “tolerance” as a bottom line indicating that “respect” might be too much to ask for in some cases.

Nevertheless, lukewarm as they are, these five points are presented as timeless, unchanging and unquestionable truths.  Set in stone just like the 10 commandments… or possibly the Asda price promise. So it was, is, and shall be. Permanently, forever.

Historically they are not “fundamental” at all – in the sense of being built into the foundation of the state. They were not truths that were held to be self evident in 1707 when the Act of Union  absorbed the independent Scottish Parliament into Westminster. This was not a foundation on any kind of liberating ideals. It was a deal to set up England and Scotland as a joint colonising enterprise – after the failure of the Darien expedition convinced the Scottish ruling class that they couldn’t build an Empire on their own.

  • Empires are not founded on mutual respect, and tolerance is often is short supply too. The 100 years after the establishment of Britain were the peak of the Slave trade and the colonisation of India. The state brought into being by that Act had religious discrimination against Catholics built into its foundation.
  • Democracy had nothing to do with it. It was an oligarchic monarchy with no popular sovereignty.
  • Individual liberties and the use of the law to defend them had began to be established with the 1679 Habeus Corpus Act, but as a general principle had to be fought for in tumultuous struggles throughout the ensuing century and the laws that ruled hung the poor in great number for crimes born of poverty.

The point here is that none of these are inherent or single edged- “the birthright of free born Englishmen (sic)” as conservatives would have us believe – all are the result of struggles. Nor is the current settlement either perfect or fixed. Nor are these struggles over. As they say in France “La lutte continue!”

Setting up a set of officially sanctioned values  seeks to freeze society in their image. Thus far and no further. The government would like us to treat them as articles of faith; and boxes to be ticked with no further thought; especially given that the “training” is a rushed online exercise carried out by frazzled people with too many other things to think about to properly reflect on what they are skimming.

However, if we are to keep faith with History,  we have to look at them as a living and necessarily malleable partial settlement of unresolved political conflicts.

Its probably best not to ask all of these questions to a trainer if you want to avoid being referred yourself, but obvious questions that can be asked of each of them should be borne in mind by anyone having to be trained.

  • to what extent they are actually characteristic of contemporary British society and do they apply to everyone equally?
  • how fundamental they are to it?
  • to what extent are any of them are qualified, and if so what by?
  • and sometimes to what extent do they contradict each other?

Democracy.

“And it’s through that there Magna Charter,  As were signed by the Barons of old,

That in England to-day we can do what we like,  So long as we do what we’re told.”

Marriott Edgar

Taking it for granted that democracy, rule of the people for the people by the people (Abraham Lincoln, unfortunately an American but no one from Britain has put it better) is a good thing, to what extent can this be considered fundamental to the British state (or the states that currently make up the UK) today, in their domestic history and history of overseas Empire? Those who argue that democracy is essential to its character at least have the obligation to tell us

  • At what point did we become democratic enough for the idea to be considered fundamental? 1215 when the Magna Carta was signed? 1649 when Charles 1 was overthrown and executed? 1688 when James II was overthrown? 1832 when Parliament was reformed? 1867 when the vote was extended to (some) working men? 1928 when the vote was extended to women?
  • Was democracy fundamental to ANY of the Acts of Union that formed the UK?
  • How did this democracy come about?
  • Who was fighting for it?
  • Who was opposing it?
  •  Do we currently have a fully realised democracy (both in constitutional terms and more broadly to what extent are the decisions made reflective of popular will or needs and to what extent to they reflect imbalances of power or wealth)?
  • Can we be more democratic than we are? If so, how?
  • Are the current forms of the British state the last word in democratic participation and to what extent to they embody – and to what extent deny – popular sovereignty?
  • Is not the right to have an argument about both the history and the current reality a hard earned democratic right?

The Rule of Law and individual liberty

“What you’re saying is that there’s one law for the rich…”

“Oh no! There’s FAR more than ONE law for the rich.”

Peter Cook 

These also look smooth on the surface, but when you examine them there are a lot of interesting questions which make them more problematic and therefore more alive.

  • To what extent does the rule of law conflict with the notion of individual liberty?
  • What are the constraints on individual liberty, and are these primarily codified by law?
  • To what extent is there are shared set of social mores and accepted ways of getting along without recourse to law; and if so what are they and where do they come from?
  • Who makes the laws, and who enforces them?
  • Is our current legal system equally accessible to all individuals and if not why not?
  • Is there a right of conscience to act “criminally” for the greater good? What might the parameters of that be? Anti-war protesters have been known to break into BAE factories to smash up fighter bombers about to be sold to dictatorships. Their defence was that they were committing criminal damage to save lives. They were acquitted by a jury. On the other hand, a recent City of London Police anti-terrorist exercise bracketed terrorists with Occupy and Environmental protesters; which is another way to look at it and could be where this legislation is leading us.
  • Isn’t part of living in a democracy that people argue about what laws are right or just?
  • Isn’t part of the rule of law the recognition that people will sometimes feel oppressed by specific laws, or the people who enforce them, and have a right to argue and organise to change them?
  • Are all liberties individual, or do some apply to collective groups (Companies, unions, protected groups in equalities legislation etc)?
  • Is it compatible with individual liberty for the state to define ideas as criminal or pre-criminal, or would it not be better simply to apply John Stuart Mill’s principle that people are free to think, speak or do as they wish, so long as by so doing they are causing no harm to someone else?

Mutual respect and tolerance for those of different faiths or beliefs.

This is a very desirable value – that we can see implemented in practice every day on the front pages of tabloid newspapers and for thirty years in the journalistic scribblings of our current Prime Minister – which have never been less than respectful to women, gays, ethnic or religious minorities. Although this has been promoted in UK public sector since the Race Relations Amendment Act of 2002; after 2010 the coalition government removed virtually all equalities guidance from the DFE website within months of coming into office,  which shows what they thought of it.

Indeed, David Cameron argued in 2014 that “multi-culturalism has failed”, then in the 2015 general election, the Conservative Party attracted the votes of high caste, well to do Hindus with a promise to take caste discrimination out of equalities legislation, so it seems that some discriminatory practices are more tolerable than others; even those that do not “unite us”.

This value is presented as though it is the norm. Looking at statistics for discriminatory patterns in housing, unemployment, employment prospects, employment by sector, school exclusions, stop and search, deaths in police custody, rates of imprisonment and poverty it’s clear that “mutual respect and tolerance” is little more than a self regarding denial of yawning cracks of inequality and injustice; which creates “a sense of grievance” and a “desire to change things”, that is entirely reasonable and justified; and therefore the Prevent guidance warns against it.

The giveaway here, which is itself an expression of the reality described in the last paragraph, is that the allocation of funding  for the Prevent strategy is based on the proportion of Muslims in a given area. This puts a paradox at the heart of this value. Although there is mention of “far right extremism” as also an area of concern, funding is not based on proportion of votes for far right parties in any given area. Now that Tommy Robinson has joined the Conservative Party, along with the entire membership of “Britain First”, and Priti Patel is in the Home Office, we should not hold our breath that this might change any time soon.

British Values? When will Britain live up to them?

There is a further purpose in describing these as British values even though – as described above – they are not actually applied in Britain in any consistent way as lived realities.

A desire for democratic rights, mutual respect, individual liberty and the rule of law (in the sense of putting limitations on arbitrary power) is widespread across the world, and they are embodied (to a greater or lesser extent) in many countries. They are not specifically British as values. Posing them as if they were is to take them out of a  human rights framework – which has to be struggled for – and to put them instead as a privilege of citizenship and a reward for loyalty. They take what we have fought for and they resisted, and shamelessly present them as though they were gifts from them to us.

How dare they?