We know that Nick Clegg has spoken out against discriminatory LGBT laws across the Commonwealth. He’s done so again in an interview with Gay Times magazine. He called them after his visit to Pride House i(where the picture was taken) n Glasgow.
Shortly before he took his place in the stalls for the opening ceremony, the Deputy PM gave GT Towers a ring. “This is the Downing Street switchboard. We have the Deputy Prime Minister on the line for you,” came the call. Well, that was rather more notable than the usual mix of drag queens and old women we get calling in.
The British Government is hardly in a position to dictate to the likes of Uganda what laws it can and can’t have, but Nick said it was important to keep the pressure on, asking for change when discrimination is taking place:
The Commonwealth isn’t one organisation which can rewrite the laws of its members. So, I don’t think we can somehow ask the Commonwealth to do things that it is not empowered to do.” A fact that’s true, if not highly frustrating. We are meant to hold great influence with such countries, after all. “What I do think is important is just as we come together as a Commonwealth to celebrate sporting excellence, we mustn’t forget that we do so as a group of countries who are united, not just by history and affinity but by shared values.
“There is a commitment to non-discrimination and to to tackle discrimination of all kinds, yet the fact of course is not remotely conforming to the promise, and that is why it is right that people like me politely but firmly, respectfully but consistently point out that if the Commonwealth is going to live up to its values, it must call a spade a spade and say that where there is discrimination taking place – and in some countries it is taking place on a greater scale against LGBT communities – and we as representatives of these Commonwealth countries want that changed.
He went on to talk about some of the LGBT athletes whose openness gives hope to the next generation:
Ian Thorpe is a hero to many many young people around the world who have followed his extraordinary feats as an athlete. When he [Ian Thorpe] said ‘I’ve been living a lie, I felt so intimidated and ashamed to come out to people and wrote a biography about myself I didn’t really be honest about myself and now I must’ I just think that’s a really powerful example of searing honesty from someone who is a role model to many people around the world.
Nicola Adams and Tom Daley, these are people who many many youngsters look up to so when they say ‘Look we are gay and we are comfortable about it now’ that really helps moralise young people around the world.
Here are a couple of other photos of Nick at Pride House. First signing in and then a group photo.
Photo Credit: S Mustapha
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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23 Comments
“…it’s values…” What values? The commonwealth is just an outdated relic of empire and it’s an embarassment that it still exists. We should leave.
isn’t it exactly the kind of liberal internationalist cause that lib-dem’s should be cheering on?
why do you object so fiercely? is it because you see it as a distraction from our true destiny in the EU…
Are LGBT issues really the most important ones to highlight in the Commonwealth? There is atrocious behaviour of men towards women still in many commonwealth countries, most recently India (rapes) and some African nations (FGM). Democracy itself seems shaky in several countries, and there are urgent issues of security in several, notably Nigeria and Cameroon where Boko Haram operate. There is the continuing legacy of Sri Lanka’s civil war. And perhaps above all else, populations in many of these commonwealth nations are poor, and have poor sanitation, education, and health systems.
Richard
Given that – according to Wikipedia – homosexual behaviour is illegal in 42 Commonwealth countries – and punishable by imprisonment in 22 and death in 2, yes – I think it is an important issue to highlight.
Why would you want to minimise that kind of oppression, compared to the others you mention? It’s not unimportant to the people who suffer it.
I assume jedibeeftrix’s comment about “our true destiny in the EU” is meant in an ironical sense, but when it comes to “shared values”, the UK actually has infinitely more in common with the vast majority of societies and governments in the EU than, as Richard makes clear, with huge stretches of the Commonwealth , which now contains countries like Mozambique with which the UK has no historical links at all. Such countries obviously see the Commonwealth as a world-wide association of nations which hold regular meetings and organise Games etc in which they can participate and, given its smaller numbers, can feel slightly bigger fish in a smaller pond than in UNO or general world-wide events. This is fine; it is always good to talk (e.g. about FGM and Zimbabe’s progress towards democracy and LGBT policies) and the Games are a great summer distraction and a smashing advert for Scotland in general and Glasgow, in particular, but we need to be very wary of certain sections of British politics which are keen to boost up the Commonwealth as something it is not, particularly even in terms of trade, where the UK is still way behind other countries due to the systematic erosion of our manufacturing and goods exporting base over the last thirty years: “The likes of India and China now account for about 10% of German exports. We only sell 5% of our exports to these economies, and France doesn’t do much better at 6%. (Consolation prize: the Netherlands, Spain and the Republic of Ireland do even worse.)” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21127037)
lol, charles, how quaint is your view of commonwealth as some sort of geriatric sports club.
in reality, it represents an area of enormous economic potential:
http://www.worldeconomics.com/papers/Commonwealth_Growth_Monitor_0e53b963-bce5-4ba1-9cab-333cedaab048.paper
from which e currently make very poor use of our shared common law and regulatory tradition, shared language and family ties.
I used to be very enthusiastic about the potential of the Commonwealth for driving positive social changes in its members as well as promoting economic development there. I even used to have the vague, ill-defined notion that if the developed members got their collective acts together, they could form an economic and political bloc that could exist alongside or apart from the European Union and the United States, depending on how we ended up voting.
But, the reality of the situation simply doesn’t bear it out. The fact is that the Commonwealth exists now, at a point at least fifty years too late for it to become a bloc formed around the political and economic ideas of Britain, and at least fifty years too early for it to be turned into a bloc surrounding an emerging India.
As a political idea, I’m sorry, but it belongs in the 1920s with the dreamers of Imperial Federation. It is an idea whose time has passed, more suitable for exercising the imaginations of speculative fiction writers than of political reformers.
Supporters of the Commonwealth need to explain how these nebulous ideas of ‘shared common law and regulatory traditions’ can be made into something meaningful. I don’t think they can, though – I’ve come to the view that the Commonwealth is a powerless talking shop, and more to the point, that it is unempowerable. Why? Because as the last vestige of British imperial power, it has no legitimacy to be anything else.
I’ll grant you, it maybe makes it easier for British multinationals to make the sorts of arms deals we’ve been seeing the controversy over recently. And it certainly lends a veneer of legitimacy and respectability to the various borderline dictators who shelter under it. But any social agenda it tries to push will inevitably run up against frankly justified accusations of neocolonialism, and any economic agenda it tries to pursue will inevitably fail as the interests of G7 members like the UK and Canada crash headlong against the needs of some of the world’s poorest countries. You think its a challenge trying to balance the UK against Romania or Bulgaria? You haven’t seen anything until you try to make the numbers work with the UK against Nigeria or Bangladesh.
In my view, relationships between countries on the model of the EU or what used to be proposed for the Commonwealth back in the 20s need to be relationships between equals, with a two-way exchange of ideas and attitudes. In Europe, each member has something to offer the others, and wants something the others offer. Put very bluntly, the western half offers rule of law and access to markets, while the eastern half offers geopolitical realism and a younger demographic.
In the Commonwealth, its very hard to see what social or political ideas either side has that the other wants, and frankly, there is no economic case to make for it because political opposition will stop any demographic benefits in their tracks and the gap of wealth and infrastructure simply makes it impossible to create a single Commonwealth economy.
First, a big thank you to Nick Clegg for his continued support of LGBTs and his statement on what the Commonwealth should consider its culture to be based upon – values of tolerance and equality amongst others. No other leader has so consistently shown such support, including against the voices of some people in our liberal party.
Sadly, the majority of countries in the Commonwealth support the doctrines they were taught by homophobes from Britain 50 to 100 years ago – who incidentally thought nothing of adding to the population via women with whom they had no relationship. While modern philosophies moved towards respect and tolerance, in sexual orientation as well as voting rights and human rights in general, the old Victorian resistance held fast to the homophobia and corruption of the past. It’s actually easier to be negative about people who are different to you – than to be positive and to show respect. All LDs do show respect don’t they! Or do they delight in mixing one thread with another as many in the Commonwealth also delight in doing? e.g mixing being gay with paedophilia as it’s easier to make laws by distraction!
I see that colonialism is alive and well, and is being continued and propagated in the idea that the attitudes of peoples in the commonwealth are not their own, but were taught to them by the Victorians!
In fact, most of the commonwealth countries had civilizations and cultures that existed before the Brits came, and which continue today. Much of the attitudes to LGBT issues in Africa and in Islamic parts of the commonwealth probably comes from those earlier traditions.
Here is an example of today’s reality. Did the British Victorians really teach them this?
http://news.sky.com/story/1309036/pakistan-mob-kills-three-over-blasphemy
Richard Dean, whatever the modern attitudes of those societies, it is a point of historical fact that for the Commonwealth countries in question here, prior to England’s 1533 Buggery Act being transposed into local law by the British Empire they had no legal instrumentation banning homosexuality. None of this ‘probably’ business, thank you very much.
Indeed, in the African examples that you don’t cite, the pre-existing cultures had an entirely accepting attitude to it, until the introduction of foreign legal codes by the Caliphate imposing hardline Islam in the north and by European colonialism imposing equally hardline Christianity in the south and west.
The British Empire isn’t to blame for all the ills plaguing its former members, but the inability of the British to let any critique pass without trying to pass the buck, as Richard Dean attempts to do so here by pointing the finger at radical Islamism in Pakistan today, is one of the other reasons why I don’t see the Commonwealth as a potential vehicle for British policy. If we can’t face up to our past in those areas of the world, we have no business trying to build a future there.
@T-J. Respect is often lacking when colonisers talk of colonies. But a traveller to those countries receives a different impression of the equal levels of intelligence, independence, and cultural traditions of colonised peoples, compared to someone who stays at home.
@ T-J – “Supporters of the Commonwealth need to explain how these nebulous ideas of ‘shared common law and regulatory traditions’ can be made into something meaningful. I don’t think they can, though”
It lowers the cost of doing business by about 20%.
In an economic area that is already bigger than EU and is growing at about three times the rate.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21589887-unreformed-commonwealth-deserves-die-improved-it-could-be-rather-useful-what-it
@Jedibeeftrix
The Economist is basically saying that ‘if a thing that can never happen would only happen, the organisation could be useful’. Well, great, and if wishes were eagles blind men would ride, or whatever.
Unreformed, they rightly say it deserves to die. Now, where is the campaign to reform the Commonwealth? Who has proposed it? Which parties argue for it? In what countries do they operate?
On economics, the 20% estimate – and make no mistake, its an estimate – is largely down to the Commonwealth countries being those that largely speak English. No legal, regulatory or institutional connection, just the historical accident of speaking English as a majority language. Now, you may well try to make big cultural sauce out of that, but realists have to face facts – outside of the UK and its settler colonies, English language proficiency is an economic tool, not a cultural asset. And its an economic tool whose adoption by the rest of the developing world is speeding up rapidly. The Commonwealth dividend will stop paying entirely as the rest of Africa, Asia, China and South America get up to speed with the anglophonic business model. As I say, its an idea whose time has passed.
Also, the economic area of the Commonwealth is only bigger than the EU in terms of geography. One might as well say that Canada has a larger economy than the USA, because it is bigger on the map. In actual economic terms, the entire Commonwealth glued together manages to be about half a Eurozone in terms of size, slightly more if you use purchasing power parity adjusted figures. But you’re ignoring the point about the infrastructural impossibility of gluing that economy together, and the point about how immense the disparity of wealth is between its members.
@T-J.
It looks like the Economist proposed it!
Which is fine, every initiative has to start somewhere, and if we adopted the attitude that “if wishes were eagles blind men would ride, or whatever”, then we’d be going nowhere fast.
Which reminds me of the LibDems. for some puzzling reason.
Richard Dean, there is a big difference between saying ‘if this thing happened, it would be good’, and coming up with an actual programme of reform.
You can’t just say ‘we should reform X!’, and then sit down for a well earned cup of tea having made your contribution.
What does the Commonwealth need to do to reform? What economic reforms does it need? What political structures does it need? How should the intergovernmental process work? Should there be a full-scale secretariat or commission to administer the single market it creates, should it even attempt to create such a market?
All those questions and so many more would be brought up in a proposal for reform, and not one is answered by the Economist. They are commentating, not calling for reform.
Basically and long story short, the remaining supporters of the Commonwealth are looking at a glorious, wonderful sunset and thinking to yourselves, in half an hour, this lovely morning is going to be so bright and wonderful, I can hardly wait!
But, its a sunset.
Britain has no legitimacy to lead the Commonwealth, the other wealthy members no longer see any of their interests protected by taking full part, India doesn’t care and the rest of them are just in it for the veneer of respectability it offers. It had a moment, a swansong in the 1990s when it led the charge against South African apartheid. Perhaps, as a colonial relic of an organisation, it was the only thing that could effectively play that role against a white minority rule state. But that was then, and this is now.
@T-J.
Well done. Those are some of the questions that need to be raised. Why not be on the side of raising them, instead of the side that complains because no-one else does?
I’m not complaining. I already asked myself those questions and found the answers pointing in a different direction. Like I say, I used to be really enthusiastic about the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, the organisation simply isn’t what we need and isn’t heading in any direction at all, really, let alone the right one.
It can’t or won’t speak with any authority on human rights, which robs it of credibility in that sphere. Without that credibility, it loses the ability to influence governments in its member states. Without that influence, it cannot marshal any economic strength and without that, it loses any ability to steer developments towards the common good.
And without that, well, what’s left?
Credibility in the human rights sphere has never been a significant determinant of credibility in business and trade.
But what’s this about “steering”? Maybe more colonial thinking? A surely important aspect of the commonwealth is as a club that is not “steered” by Britain at all, but by all its members acting together and in some form of equality.
I’d have thought that would be very attractive to LibDems, but I must admit I’m not at all sure any more that LibDems are LibDems at all!
Credibility in human rights isn’t needed for credibility in business, no. But credibility on the rule of law is. And if the law on whether or not its illegal to beat people into a pulp for being gay can just be chucked in the bin, where then contract law, where then the guarantees on being able to do business on equal footing with local traders?
The credibility an international organisation loses when it fails to take a stand on its own principles is poisonous to that organisation, and trickles into every aspect of what it does.
On ‘steering’, no, I wasn’t saying Britain must do the steering, I was saying that if it is to have any point in existing, the Commonwealth must itself steer its members in a direction that delivers mutual benefit, it would need a structure that gave it a life independent of whatever Britain wanted and it would need the courage of its convictions to chart a course for the whole Commonwealth heading in that direction. I personally don’t see such a direction though – when one group wants to go north and the other wants to go south, what compromise is there but to part ways?
And back to rights – This vision I’m detecting of Britain’s new Commonwealth is one of a bloc where human rights are optional, the rule of law a pleasant bonus but by no means necessary and where anything to do with either issue is simply a member state expressing its equality and independence. It is frankly not attractive at all. If you were trying to sell me the Commonwealth, then based on that pitch, I’m out. I’m not really interested in being a member of some neo-colonial outfit where business credibility is the be all and end all, overriding the other concerns.
And I hope you don’t, but if you really do see rights and the rule of law as being so unimportant, then who exactly are you to lecture anyone on what it means to be a Liberal Democrat?
@T-J.
There are issues, certainly, but it would be foolish to throw away opportunities that the commonwealth provides, including the 20% that jedibeeftrix mentioned. And business opportunities and relations generally lead to transfers of information and changed expectations, and so to improvements in human rights.
But human rights are seen differently by different members of that organization, and there is no reason to suppose that Britain’s concepts are necessarily the best ones for all cultures: pushing our views is fine, claiming they are the only possible ones is just colonialism all over again.
For instance, whatever you may think of the African Charter on Rights, which includes duties as well as rights, what ever you may think, that charter is likely to be more relevant to Africa than a European one, simply because it was created by Africans and is organized and written in a way that is likely to have more meaning to Africans.
http://www.achpr.org/files/instruments/achpr/banjul_charter.pdf
it is an odd argument to hear from a lib-dem in the context of human rights in Commonwealth, when i would use the same argument in the context of the ECHR to howls of anger from those self same people.
i’m pretty sure the link i provided above, using IMF figures, makes a convincing case for the relative size of the EU/eurozone/commonwealth economies?
No, jedi, it really doesn’t. Its comparing the Commonwealth with the subset of the European Union that was a member in 1973. For some reason. And of course what possible reason would anyone have to cherrypick the data like that?
If you take the Commonwealth data and split it into two categories, developed and developing countries, you’ll see two separate trends – slow growth with declining world share among the four rich members, just like you see with Europe if you only look at the wealthier core, and strong growth from a baseline of absolute poverty for everyone else.
When you look at what sectors are important to these two groups and when you consider the relative advantages, it makes more sense for wealthy Commonwealth countries to make trading agreements with the European Union than to focus on the Commonwealth. As Canada has been doing with its Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement this year.
I’m not sure what you are implying with your ECHR comment, though. Its record can’t seriously be compared to the failure of the Commonwealth to act on so many issues throughout its membership area.
@Richard Dean
So much for all men being created equal, I suppose. Still, if the same African leaders who this year voted themselves immunity from prosecution for war crimes want to write up a bill of conditional rights, that’s their call. I would argue that the Banjul charter has been a failure, looking at how many basic infringements on it the states involved are making without objection from it, but that’s for them to discuss.
And that’s the whole point – any attempt to use the Commonwealth in that part of the world is going to be neocolonial. What you and jedi don’t appreciate is that going ahead anyway and choosing not to press the issues on rights and law so that the UK can reap the alleged economic benefits is also neocolonial. Well, no, its actually old colonial. Oppressive regimes granted legitimacy and protection to allow for economic exploitation. That’s where your Commonwealth idea leads, and frankly I’d rather not follow.