R-A-C-I-S-T, find out what it means to me

A local Standards Committee last week cleared Councillor Gail Kenney of Cambridgeshire of the ‘racial offence’ of ‘offending a group of Muslim girls’. Kenney met with the Soni Kuriz Young Asian Women’s Group last June. She demanded to know why someone would want to wear a headscarf, saying she found burkhas ‘frightening and intimidating’ and that they could be used by terrorists as a disguise (which is true, and has already happened). Kenney also said in response to a request for another mosque that, ‘we’ve got one already – do you want one on every street?’, and suggested that a college drop-out present at the meeting would ‘end up getting married to someone illiterate from back home’. Not the most diplomatic of performances, certainly – but did Kenney’s remarks really deserve a 9-month long investigation?

Article 2 of the Local Authorities Model Code of Conduct (2001) states that councillors should ‘promote equality by not discriminating unlawfully against any person’ and should ‘treat others with respect’, while Article 4 cautions against bringing one’s ‘office or authority into disrepute’. The young Muslim women claimed Kenney had broken these rules.

The danger in submitting elected representatives, or indeed anyone else, to codes of conduct that prescribe ‘respect’ is of course that in today’s censorious climate, almost anything can be (and is) interpreted as disrespectful. Indeed, the Cambridge Campaign Against the Arms Trade has accused another Cambridgeshire councillor of violating the Code of Conduct by calling them ‘pathetic’. Rather than focusing on the issues at stake – say, the right to dress as one pleases, rallying community support to demand the council build a mosque, or take action against the arms trade – groups instead cry foul about the way they are treated and spoken to. The claim is not that Kenney is corrupt, incompetent, or even wrong to hold the views she does, but that her replies conveyed inadequate ‘respect’ for someone else’s point of view.

But whether someone’s view is worthy of respect is contestable, not something to be pre-determined by a Code of Conduct, or indeed by someone's identity. Ideas should be judged on their merits and be debated openly and robustly – that is the only way we can test their validity. The Soni Kuriz group could have responded to Kenney by explaining their desire to wear headscarves, or making the case for additional mosques. If they felt strongly enough, they could have campaigned against her publicly and let the electorate decide her fate. Instead, they threw their hands up and cried foul, attempting to have her removed by a Standards Board comprised of mostly unelected representatives, on the grounds that she was rude to them.

Events like this are increasingly common and show up three troubling trends. The first is the use of unelected authorities to try to get rid of or silence elected representatives – highlighted most memorably by the campaign to have London’s Mayor, Ken Livingstone, removed from office for a supposedly anti-Semitic comment. This degrades public life by allowing a handful of ‘offended’ individuals to pursue a politically-motivated campaign that is not subjected to public involvement.

This is facilitated by the second trend, the rise of speech codes in public life. This gives ammunition to those who want to bring down elected officials without going to the trouble of using democratic means.

This produces a third, and possibly the most dangerous trend: the tendency to suppress all speech on ‘controversial’ racial or religious issues. This simply reinforces the public image of Muslim groups as particularly sensitive to criticism and as unable or unwilling to engage in robust discussion. Indeed, the Soni Kuriz group has now vowed to never invite a councillor to speak again. Speech codes that seem to pander to such groups simply tend to infuriate everyone else. More importantly, they do absolutely nothing to challenge racist or other discriminatory attitudes in society. Councillor Kenney’s views were never countered with better arguments and shown to be wrong. In this case they are not even ruled to be disrespectful. No one has changed their minds after this episode about the nature of burkhas, the socio-economic conditions of young Muslim women, or the need for another mosque in Arbury. Its only outcome is the further retreat of the Soni Kuriz group from public engagement, and a chilling effect on free speech.

Lee Jones