With Polling Day on Thursday 2nd November 2023, this coming Tuesday it’s once more into the Twingo heading for South Kintyre—but this time via Arran. With the winter timetable, there’s a three-way ferry from Lochranza calling at Tarbert and Portavadie, which suits me fine. The plan is to drive down on Wednesday—also known as All Saints Day, or the Feast of All Hallows, hence the famous Eve.
In Scots, and some old dialects of English, the eve is “even” or “e’en” and journeying through the wilds of Argyll and Bute on All Hallows’ Eve has more than a touch of Harry Potter—or at least of Sandy Hoynes, the hero of Kinloch Tales uncannily sensitive to thin places temporarily inhabited by the departed crew of a Viking longboat!
Thinking of things old and new made me consider how old-fashioned my new party is, in comparison to the other 3 trendy old ones on the ballot paper this coming Thursday. Freedom Alliance was dreamed up by a few close friends, in the back room of a Yorkshire pub in 2020, concerned about Government overreach.
Famously (since the French and American Revolutions) a liberal democracy is characterised by the Separation of Powers, those being: the Legislature (the law-making body); the Executive (who carry out the will of the Legislature); and the Judiciary (who interpret law and review the actions of the Executive, in accordance with the will of the Legislature).
As another name for the Legislature is Parliament (especially the House of Commons); the Executive is usually known as the Government; and the Judiciary refers to the Courts, it becomes clear that democracy depends on each Power keeping to its own function and not interfering with that of the others. In other words, MPs and the Lords, Government Ministers, and Judges, should all mind their own business!
In 2020 it became very clear that the Government was trying to take over the functions of Parliament and even illegally shut it down (that’s what all the proroguing business around Brexit was about) and whereas the Courts, in various ways, have done their best to hold the Government to account for overreaching their remit, Parliament—with notable exceptions such as Joanna Cherry KC and now Andrew Bridgen—has been either silent or complicit in this dangerous destabilisation of the constitutional arrangements of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
That, in a nutshell, is why Freedom Alliance is the most democratic choice on Thursday. Now, I’m aware that not everyone running is a party candidate but, while that might seem an advantage, what an Independent lacks is party backing. It’s difficult, in the face of wall-to-wall trendy schemes in a Council meeting, to say (for example):
- No, I don’t agree with imposing a 20 mph speed limit along the length of the A83.
- No, we don’t want a ferry full of electric vehicles going up (or down!) in flames like Luton Airport (because do you really think diesel could cause that much devastation?).
- No, it’s not robust safeguarding to have kids unsupervised in a room with a performer from an adult entertainment venue—even if he is wearing a wig and reading a story.
- No, police should not be arresting Kirk ministers or Catholic priests for preaching their perspective on the Gospel or praying silently in public—even if other Christians may disagree with their views.
The problem we have nowadays is not so much bad people doing bad things but good people being misled (by wolves in sheeps’ clothing) and considering in all conscience that they’re doing the right thing and convinced that anyone in opposition must be crazy!
So we have posh young people fresh out of English “public” (private) schools chucking orange paint over war memorials and being completely unmoved (literally) by the plight of a woman whose waters have just broken trying to get to hospital to give birth! How disrespectful and dangerous is that!
Then, as well as the obvious (and overlooked) dangers of lithium-ion batteries, there’s also the misery endured by the child slaves who mine those conflict minerals—conveniently far away in Central Africa where we don’t have to think about it and can boast about how green we are with a clear conscience.
No-one wants to be either narrow-minded or overly suspicious but, as someone said on Twitter, why is it these people always want contact with kid? If they want to read a story to someone, they could volunteer (and be appropriately vetted) at an old folks home—and wear normal clothing so they don’t cause a cardiac arrest!
As for the Biblical injunction to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger, that’s all well and good—but where is it written in the Good Book that small communities have an ethical obligation to take in large groups of sexually frustrated young men unused to the sight of even a female face? In some towns in England, police are literally advising women not to go out at night and, if they insist on going to the pub, to travel in large groups all dressed as if they’re about to scale the Matterhorn!
I’m being a bit facetious I know but below the humour is the hard fact that people are scared and are not allowed to say so. In many places in England (and Ireland) now, lesbians and gay men can’t hold hands in the street, again; women are afraid to answer back to cat-calling in case it escalates; and no-one can wear the Star of David. What kind of society have we become, to roll back the freedoms that our fathers and grandfathers died to protect? Is Britain now Germany of the late 1930s?
Let me be very clear: as a theologian and RE teacher, I have some knowledge and much respect for Islam. As a proofreader, I often work with clients from Muslim majority countries and I find them friendly, courteous and absolutely ethical in their business arrangements with me. But these are people from stable backgrounds and usually married with a family. In contrast, any large group of foreign young men unfamiliar with the customs of a settled community may cause problems—look at English football fans abroad!
So we need to be wise and when we consider the vulnerable we can’t lose sight of our own women and children—and members of a religion who (despite being thrown out of many European countries, including this one, time and again down through the centuries) have contributed so much to our shared culture.
As for the bloody war currently overwhelming the Holy Land, the response of Freedom Alliance is the same as for the conflict in Ukraine: peace!
See you around Campbeltown and Southend on Wednesday and Thursday—and if anyone wants to give me a hand with leafleting and at polling stations (at a certain distance) get in touch!
(Photos copyright the author may be used—unconnected to commerce and without transformation—with a link to this blogpost)
Promoted by Cath Evans of Freedom Alliance, 83 Ducie Street M1 2JQ.
Last campaign post: Contenders.
Next campaign post: What now for Scotland?
Standing for Freedom in South Kintyre 
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