Defending
her political secretary, Stephen Parkinson, in Parliament on Monday, the prime
minister, when asked about the Brexit whistle-blower Shahmir Sanni, being outed
as gay, by Parkinson, trotted out the most trite of replies.
Sanni, who
is of Pakistani origin told
the Guardian he had the “most awful weekends” after revealing details of
the Vote Leave campaign getting around spending limits at the 2016 EU
referendum. Money was channelled through a separate campaigning group BeLeave,
who have links to Cambridge Analytica, the company accused of misusing personal
data gathered by Facebook, for the referendum campaign. Sanni was forced to
admit to his family still living in Pakistan that he is gay.
Being gay in
Pakistan is a much bigger deal than in Britain, and this news could well
endanger Sanni’s family. Why Parkinson decided to make public the fact he and
Sanni had had an eighteen month relationship, is not entirely clear, but it
certainly looks like an attempt to smear Sanni’s revelations in some way as
unreliable.
In response
to a question from Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, who highlighted the danger posed to
Sanni and his family and concluded by saying:
“It’s a
disgrace, prime minister, you need to do something about it.”
The prime
minister intends to do nothing about it, it appears:
May said: “I
of course recognise the importance of ensuring that we do recognise that for
some being outed as gay is difficult because of their family circumstances.
What I want to see is a world where everybody is able to be confident in their
sexuality and doesn’t have to worry about such things.”
Well we all
want to see that, but how is this going to be achieved? Not by mere wishful
thinking that is for sure, or outing gay people with family connections outside the UK. Surely May bears some responsibility for what her
political secretary puts into the public domain, especially on such a sensitive
and potentially life threatening issue like this?
May seems
completely incapable of thinking on her feet, and has become infamous for her
robotic standard line responses to questions in Parliament and from journalists
alike. I can’t ever really remember her giving a straight answer to a straight
question, preferring instead to say something which is vacuous, often baffling
and seemingly designed to put her audience to sleep.
I expect
May’s defence of Parkinson, who worked at the Vote Leave campaign, where he met
Sanni, like everything else May does, is designed to appease the hard Brexiters
in her Cabinet and Parliamentary party. To sack Parkinson would likely stir
unrest, amongst an increasingly worried Eurosceptic faction in the Tory party.
The
accusations of breaking electoral law by Vote Leave and its association with
the dubious behaviour, to say the least, of Cambridge Analytica threatens to
undermine the legitimacy of the referendum result, and so to make it less
likely that we will leave the EU. It does seem that almost everyday some news
comes out that is unsupportive at best, and often quite damning about Brexit
itself.
The wheels
appear to be falling off the Brexit wagon, one by one, and there aren’t too
many left now. Maybe, the momentum is with remaining in the EU now, or to take
the softest of Brexits, anyway. Time will tell.
For this slide
in public perception on Brexit to be used as a motive for possibly putting
lives in danger is truly outrageous and disgraceful. What was the purpose of
Parkinson outing Sanni? I can see no other motivation, other than to try and
muddy the waters around the actions of the Vote Leave campaign. The fact we
haven’t been offered a suitable explanation, from the prime minister or anyone
else does lead people to draw their own conclusions.
Will you
give us a straight answer to the question of why Sanni was outed for being gay,
Mrs May? I won’t hold my breath, I don’t think May is likely to change the
habit of a political lifetime, so you will have to make your own minds up.
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