An unhappy Englishman writes…
This is a cross post from Liberal Conspiracy, commenting on a response to my article about St. George’s Day. Anyone think I should bung this guy my address? It begins:
“Dear Mr Semple
Re: Distorting St George’s day
I observe that you lack the candour to disclose YOUR interest in this subject of St George’s Day.
In short, do you regard yourself first and foremost as anything other than English?
You say: “That England celebrates St. George’s Day as its national day has always struck me as somewhat absurd, bearing in mind the number of eminent Saints who graced these shores: the healing St. Cuthbert, the humble St. Thomas Becket who stood up to autocracy, or the learned humanist, Thomas More.” when this disparaging remark could be applied also to Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
However, you have presumed to single out England and the English for this and other insulting and humiliating public remarks and, in doing so, you breach the Race Relations Act 1976 which includes nationality, national origins and ethnic origins in its definition of “racial grounds”.
Anti-English institutional racism seems to be rampant throughout the Labour Party.
Please send me a postal address where the issue of anti-English racism can be pursued and settled in court if necessary.
Yours sincerely
Alan England
Director
English Lobby”
What is particularly interesting is that in two separate places in the original article, I discuss my experiences growing up between two different nationalist camps in Northern Ireland. One might think he’d have taken the hint.
Same reply I gave on Sunny’s post:
==
I’ve had similar from someone claiming to be the Chair of the English Democrats in the past, it was from an AOL address and had no corroborating contact details, so I filed it under ignore, especially given they’ve demonstrated complete lack of understanding of the law.
There are two parts that could be relevent to the RRA, the first is the requirement of a public body in receipt of public funds to not discriminate on racial grounds (it was this part that got the Leeds Royal Armouries into trouble when they refused a room booking from the EDs). But neither David nor myself (or indeed others I know who’ve received similar) are subject to this provision as we’re private individuals stating an opinion.
The other part is the racially motivated bit that is used on other crimes to increase sentences and similar.
David has committed no crime.
Inform the individual that there is no case to answer, they’ve got no reason to contact you further, and to forward any further correspondence through a lawyer—between us we could probably rustle up more than a few practising lawyers who’d give a work postal address for such correspondence I suspect.
They’re resorting to the law as they can’t actually debate effectively (the post got linked to by the Crossers a few days back), yet they don’t actually understand how the law works and are clutching at straws.
==
Ignore it, or ask them to correspond through a lawyer stating what specifically they think you’ve done, and under what specific clause you’ve breached the Act.
As far as I can see, you haven’t, and neither did I.
A happy Englishman writes…
No, there’s no grounds for effective legal action by our unhappy friend.
For furtehr information on the work of the English Lobby please contact Alan England, Devondale, Carr Lane, Sutton-on-the-Forest, York, YO61 1EB.