Friday 10th October 2025
Blog Page 370

The misogynist within: calling ourselves out

Flora Dyson
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The misogynist within: calling ourselves out

TW: Mentions of sexual violence

The recent murder of Sarah Everard has sent shock waves through society. It has brought the extent of systemic victim-blaming and internalised misogyny to light, perpetuated by patriarchal ideas still present in our society. Internalised misogyny – the unconscious biases our patriarchal culture enforces upon us – must be examined in ourselves and others to tackle victim-blaming. Once we address, call out, and overcome our own internalised misogynistic attitudes, we can become more open-minded and prepared to support others facing sexual harassment and assault. It is a crisis that currently rages throughout schools and universities which can only be tackled by cultural and systemic change through education.

Sarah Everard’s murder is a gruesome sign that women are still unsafe on the streets. Her killing was not simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is resultative of a misogynistic culture which asserts continued male dominance over women’s bodies and lives, derived from the patriarchal ideas our society is steeped in. Her murder has triggered testimonies from women on social media, previously silent about their experiences of harassment and assault. Instagram account, @everyonesinvited has received over 5,000 testimonies from women and girls who have experienced harassment and assault within schools and universities. 

The continually increasing outpouring of testimonies shows women’s growing confidence to speak up about their experiences, once silenced by a toxic culture of victim-blaming which enforces the precedency of male sexual desire, and stifles women who have been forcibly subjected to it. Social media has exposed the breadth of misogyny within the education system. Though social media is an extremely powerful platform which raises awareness for these issues, meaningful changes must be made to challenge institutionalised chauvinism and misogyny – a power only wielded by education. Social media must also be treated with caution; though it can be used for positive change, it simultaneously provides a platform for misogynistic voices to be heard.  

Twitter is awash with comments about the route Sarah Everard took home, with many criticising her choice to walk across the dark Clapham Common. It seems history has repeated itself, placing a similar sense of responsibility on Amelie Delagrange, 22, who was murdered when she cut across the dark Twickenham Green, London, in 2004. It is as though nothing has changed in 15 years. This continued pattern of victim-blaming shows society must cease finding ways to shift blame from attackers onto their victims, and focus instead on the issue at hand: misogyny still reigns as a woman cannot wear what she wants and walk wherever she wants. 

Women’s clothing is too often used as an excuse for the actions of predators, as some conclude she may have been ‘asking’ for sexual attention. When a woman does assert agency over her body by dressing as she pleases, she is often blamed for the unwanted male attention she may receive. This culture of slut-shaming demonstrates that society still fails to accept women’s ownership over their bodies. Slut-shaming constantly finds a way to critique and control the way women should feel about their appearance. Victim-blaming and slut-shaming protects predators by placing responsibility of harassment on women, demonising them for enticing the male gaze. Society maintains that ‘boys will be boys’, a mentality which holds that predators are unable to control themselves and cannot be made accountable for their actions.  

These recent events have led women to reflect on their experiences of misogyny, including myself. One evening last summer I walked down a quiet lane and saw an older man looking at me from his car. He rolled down his window and asked “what’s your snapchat?” He then strode towards me, repeatedly shouting the same question. I blamed myself for this experience as I had walked alone down quiet roads and considered myself lucky I did not experience worse. I was ashamed to talk about it, as if it was my fault. A year on, I have realised my own internalised misogyny placed blame on myself, rather than this man. 

It is this internalisation of the patriarchy that makes myself, and many others, too afraid and ashamed to discuss their experiences of harassment. However, we must overcome our anxieties about victim-blaming. By refusing to discuss our experiences, the patriarchy continues to dominate women as our silence enforces the idea that cat-calling is something we should be ashamed of. Instead, we must call-out our cat-calls. By speaking up about harassment we draw attention to its extent within society and slowly break down the internalised misogyny which reinforces it.

The patriarchy enforces internalised misogyny which infiltrates almost every area of our lives. It permeates into our minds and becomes unconscious. It is all-pervasive, holding that men have a right to women’s bodies and resultatively makes us believe women are culpable for receiving unwanted attention. A 2017 rape case heard a judge suggest it is a woman’s duty to protect herself from assault when drunk. This behaviour institutionalises misogyny and victim-blaming and deters other women from reporting assault, believing that they will not be taken seriously. 

Instagram accounts such as @whyididntreport document the struggle of women to reveal their experiences of harassment and assault due to fear of violence and victim-blaming. Internalised misogyny is quick to invalidate a woman’s experiences; numerous accounts of how women believed they “did not fight hard enough” to avoid assault prove the shocking extent of victim-blaming within our society. Rather than teaching men that to assault is wrong, society teaches women to do all they can to avoid it. Women must be alert in case of attack. Women must grip their keys between their fingers at night. Women must change their clothes and route. If we do not, then we have not done all we can to protect ourselves. It is our duty to fight victim-blaming tendencies and place sole responsibility where it belongs: on offenders.

We must address such victim-blaming and internalised misogyny through education. Programmes such as the Oxford-based Good Lad Workshop teach university students to respect women through the concept of ‘positive masculinity’ rather than to merely obey the law on assault and harassment.  Environments such as these must be sustained as they create a discussion and challenge misogynist culture within the formative years of our lives.

Schools, universities and workplaces must learn from the testimonies of women and girls, and impose a reformed and rigorous education system surrounding misogyny. As well as education about the importance of respect, women must be assured that their experiences of harassment and assault are valid and resultative of an institutionalised culture of sexism rather than their own actions. Slut-shaming culture and other issues dependent upon internalised misogyny which plague and invalidate the experiences of women and girls must be broken down through education.  

The government’s latest proposals fail to emphasise education to challenge systemic internalised misogyny. The proposed introduction of police into nightclubs and bars, increasing street lighting and CCTV is inadequate in tackling misogyny, harassment and assault. It fails to acknowledge and eradicate institutionalised and internalised sexism – the root of violence against women. Respecting women cannot be immediately enforced in society by greater curbs against harassment and assault. Rather, it needs to be taught. A state based on fear of being found disobeying the law is not a society we should live in, rather education must be used to deconstruct the misogynistic attitudes which drive harassment and assault. Instead, the education system’s power must be wielded to challenge misogyny. 

Cultural and systemic reform brought about by education must take place to solve the inequalities faced by women. Though these inequalities span centuries, they can be gradually challenged when we educate men and women on gender injustice, and hopefully bring about a decline issues such as victim-blaming. In 100 years women in the UK have been transformed from politically voiceless, lacking the right to vote, to politically and financially empowered. The mammoth rate of change seen in the 20th century anticipates greater reform for the position of women to come, will the erosion of internalised misogyny follow?   

Image credit: Tim Dennell via Flickr & Creative Commons.

The continued failure to tackle rape culture within schools

Cleo Murphy-Hogg
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The continued failure to tackle rape culture within schools

TW: sexual assault

As numerous schools face accusations of ‘rape culture’, it is easy to feel shocked – the testimonies are harrowing to say the least. However, reflecting upon my own experiences at school, this shock partly reflects the entrenchment of rape culture. The culture is one in which misogynistic attitudes, thoughts and behaviours are trivialised and normalised. It is commonplace to not realise the violent potential of your ‘normal’.

It is overlooked that everyday experiences of sexism are the norm for female students. This normalisation enables sexual assault to be depicted as exceptional – this must be challenged. Rape culture is ingrained within schools and is a systemic issue. This fact has been highlighted recently by the Everyone’s Invited campaign. This initiative was set up to tackle rape culture and sexual violence within the education system and, as of today, there are over 5,800 testimonies of sexual assault and harassment. The campaign has published testimonies that have implicated several prestigious private schools, disrupting the ‘normal’ so many had previously accepted. The testimonies range from students pressured into sharing explicit photographs online to details of assault, rape and ‘stealthing’, the act of non-consensual condom removal. It is clear that schools are, as Ava Vakil put it in her recent open letter to King’s College School in Wimbledon, a “hotbed of sexual violence”. 

The Everyone’s Invited initiative defines rape culture as “when thoughts, behaviours and attitudes in a society or environment have the effect of normalising and trivialising sexual violence”, “behaviours such as misogyny, slut shaming, victim blaming and sexual harassment create an environment where sexual violence and abuse can exist and thrive.” Crucially, all the experiences described above are interconnected: misogyny and sexism cannot go unchallenged in school, as such a normalisation is inherently concerning and violent. 

The recent reckoning induced by the initiative has led many to question, how do institutions tackle rape culture in the long run? Whilst it is imperative that perpetrators of sexual assault and harassment face adequate consequences for their actions, to solve the issue a more profound recognition of rape culture is necessary – reactionary responses are not enough.

There is currently a failure of sex education amongst men. The curriculum is yet to grasp the nuances of consent, and the role technology and social media play in producing rape culture. For a start, the social side of sex must be addressed, this should include discussions around intangible ‘grey areas’ such as pressure and power dynamics. Promisingly, a group of schools in London are now discussing how to revise their PSHE curriculum. This is necessary and should be instituted on a wider level, as The National Education Union (NEU) recommended.

My argument that schools present a micro-culture of sorts in which sexism is rife and reproduced viciously is not to negate the pervasiveness of rape culture within wider society, nor the influence of the media. However, I find certain narratives which have emerged in response to the Everyone’s Invited campaign specifically alarming in the almost absolute abdication of responsibility from the institution of schools themselves. Melanie McDonagh, of The Spectator, interviewed a head of a Catholic school who attributed the problem to ‘internet pornography’. McDonagh herself paused over the impact of ‘the cultural imperative for girls to celebrate their sexuality’, and boys’ ‘inability to interpret confusing signals’. After a moment of despair, and wondering if McDonagh really saw being sexy and safe as mutually exclusive, I realised her response is symptomatic of a wider popular view that schools simply reflect issues prevalent in society at large (that is if, as in this case, sex positivity is to be viewed as an issue of course). 

Rather, schools act as a unique breeding ground for rape culture. This issue, as highlighted in the past month, is not novel. The NEU reported in 2017 that a third of girls had been sexually harassed at mixed-sex schools. The report equally stresses the direct correlation between sexist ideas and violent behaviour. Once again, the ideas which often remain unchallenged are violent: we must reassess what we deem trivial. 

I find the vehement refutation that schools play an active role in producing rape culture to be confusing, to say the least, considering it is generally accepted that schools are incredibly formative for everything else and play an active role in the development of young people. So, why are institutions so reluctant to admit their role and agency when it comes to rape culture? Within the education system, man is considered the default, it is thus hardly surprising that misogynistic behaviour is the norm.

Simone De Beauvoir theorised that women are fundamentally oppressed by men, as they are characterised as the Other. Man occupies the role of the self; woman is the object. The school curriculum exemplifies Beauvoir’s thesis by reinforcing the idea of men as essential and predominant. In 2018, Mary Bousted, the joint secretary of the NEU, criticised the national curriculum for failing to include enough black and female writers. The English curriculum is arguably disproportionately dominated by men, and much of the sexist male behaviour and violence within key texts are also not adequately addressed. Accepting men as the default is dangerous because it facilitates the objectification of women; as they are ‘othered’ they are defined in relation to men and their worth is diminished.

In considering why many of the reports published on the Everyone’s Invited website were initially from private schools, particularly in London, it is important to address how the concept of reputational prestige can perpetuate rape culture. Many schools’ lauding of their legacy and reputation is potentially damaging in that it frames a culture of abuse as implausible. Schools often describe themselves as creating future leaders, good citizens, or more generally as the vanguard of society. This is reminiscent of the traditional concept of the ‘gentleman’; students are moral, honourable and respectable. Gentlemanliness functions as a shield for misogyny by producing the false paradox of the impossibility of a respectable being, of fine character, behaving unacceptably, violating others’ rights. This incredulity is deliberate and manufactured by our culture and institutions, it immunises certain individuals.

What must be recognised is that the construct of the ‘gentleman’ relies equally upon prestige, hierarchy and a sense of superiority. Misogyny is intertwined with the subordination inherent within the elevation of the ‘gentleman’. This is relevant to the present day, and is awfully reminiscent of the time, in my own experience at school, that a girl reported a boy for verbally harassing and slut-shaming her, to be told the boy’s school did not believe her. How could a smart, lovely boy who plays in the sports teams also harass someone? It is entirely reductive, but unfortunately incredibly effective, to create this false binary between good and bad. Schools, the history of male greatness and individuals can have an ugly, traumatic history. As schools seek to preserve reputational prestige, by suppressing this ugliness, there is a denial of the complexity of rape culture and an undermining of the credibility of victims. 

The responses of certain high-profile schools to the Everyone’s Invited campaign have been promising. It is reassuring to see schools report all cases to the police, reaffirming their zero-tolerance policy to sexual harassment. However, I can’t help but feel that the focus on accountability is partly a publicity exercise. By treating the problem on a case-by-case basis it once again frames the problem as one of individuals, rather than the institution itself. Institutions must admit the pervasiveness of rape culture, rather than, as one headteacher recently stated in an email, attributing the problem to ‘a small minority of students’ who have got ‘things wrong at some time during their adolescent years’.

To deal with this reactively and separate the school from the problem is a non-solution. Many schools seek to maintain the status quo and hope that by dealing with a few ‘bad apples’ quietly, the issues of sexual assault and misogyny will all go away: sadly this is naive, will the same tree not continue to produce ‘bad apples’? Such an approach entirely disregards how disturbing and harmful the present situation is: our ‘normal’ is violent, unsustainable, and thorough disruptive change is needed.

The reality of rape culture is not only pervasive but also complex. With the benefit of hindsight it is unnervingly easy to think of personal instances of misogyny at school. This is commonplace. Equally unnerving is the extent to which I realise now that I was an active bystander at times to this culture of misogyny. Despite at times feeling a discomfort, I never properly called out my own, nor my friends, casual objectification. Accepting the status quo had its merits: I wanted to date the boys who called me pretty; I wanted to go to the parties; I even, I can admit now, saw some of the comments as compliments. Whilst it is easy to excuse such instances with the insecurity of adolescence I find it more useful to consider whether this is how rape culture functions within schools. It was, and often still is, socially profitable to not make a scene. As a status quo, which remains relatively unchallenged, all are responsible. 

As Soma Sara, the founder of Everyone’s Invited, argues, this is not about cancel culture, nor individuals. The Everyone’s Invited testimonies are anonymised to stress this point: the testimonies are individually striking but together compellingly demonstrate how sexual abuse thrives within an educational environment. This is a systemic issue, and there is a collective responsibility to call it out. Complicity normalises the behaviours and thoughts of rape culture and further socialises young people into believing certain actions are ‘acceptable’, if simply because of their frequency and regularity. 

There has also been a general sense of shock across the media in response to the Everyone’s Invited campaign. This shock appeared to be especially centred around the implication of certain prestigious private schools. For me, this reflects a shock that sexual assault happens here too. Whilst this focus on an institution’s reputation and prestige entirely misses the point, in some ways it also proves how effective privilege and grandeur can be in masking the ugly. Once again it purports the false dichotomy between the good and the bad. It also pinpoints a current wider problem in discourses surrounding sexual assault, a perceived need to categorise and mark out who the typical abuser is. Rape culture is pervasive and transcends many boundaries within society, including class. There is also an irony to this shock: male entitlement is an integral component of rape culture; of course, this entitlement is present at schools where boys are taught that they are God’s gift.

The mass reaction of shock, however, is damaging in that it again risks presenting this culture of violence as exceptional – this is not only an issue rooted within prestigious schools but all schools. The experience of one subsection of society is valid and worth discussing but should not subsume the voices of others. For example, the testimonies originating from state schools have garnered substantially less attention.

Equally, in the reporting of sexual harassment within schools the intersections of being a survivor and a part of a minority group have hardly been mentioned. The NEU report in 2017 revealed the lack of a national government-led response to rape culture within schools. Despite this, recent public opinion seems to have been galvanized around the institutional indifference of a small number of schools. Whilst it is promising to see certain schools finally begin to take adequate steps in addressing the problem, the problem is not limited to the top fifty schools in the country. As the NEU states, it is disappointing that the Department for Education is yet to take a “stronger lead”, the national curriculum should be redesigned to deal with the issue. Firstly, the scope and severity of the issue need to be acknowledged if we are to tackle rape culture within all schools. The recent announcement of an immediate review into sexual abuse in schools by the Department for Education is a step in the right direction; I can only hope that this review signals the continuation of a crucial conversation.

Essentially, schools must admit the extent of the problem and seek a new future. Hindsight and reactive solutions are not enough. We must all consider the role we play in the normalisation of misogyny. We cannot see cases of assault as anomalous, sadly sexual assault is incredibly common: to disregard this fact, is to not gauge the severity and complexity of the problem. Our culture actively manufactures this crime. Schools must understand rape culture. Seeking clean testimonies; perpetuating a false dichotomy between good and bad; using morality as a metric, predisposes schools to inadequately deal with sexual assault.

As Jia Tolentino wrote in Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, currently ”the best-case scenario for a rape victim in terms of adjudication is the worst-case scenario in terms of experience: for people to believe you deserve justice, you have to be destroyed.” Grimly, this holds true if the kaleidoscope of behaviours and thoughts which constitute rape culture within schools is considered: the trivial is boys being confused, the normal is a minority being ‘bad apples’. Such an outlook enables the status quo to prevail, it is integral to properly address rape culture. 

Image Credit: Creative Commons – “Red River High School”, by senatorheitkamp, marked with CC PDM 1.0.

Donnie Darko: more than an average coming of age story

Ella Myers
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Donnie Darko: more than an average coming of age story

In many ways, Donnie Darko is just another film about an angsty teenager with ideas he feels nobody else understands. He lives in a typical suburban neighbourhood, goes to an overly strict Catholic school and rages against the repressive world that surrounds him. This is the same basic premise as 2017’s Lady Bird, but with hallucinatory rabbits, alternate universes, and discussions about the physics of time travel thrown in for good measure. It is this supernatural, pseudo-science-fiction element, along with the portrayal of teenage angst, that has made Donnie Darko a cult classic that has remained in the popular imagination ever since its initial release twenty years ago.

Anyone who’s watched the film has been left dazed and confused by its ending. As many critics have pointed out over the years, the time travel magic that ultimately leaves Donnie dead is hard to wrap your head around. But that lack of clarity means that viewers can try to piece together the chain of events themselves. Writer and director Richard Kelly has littered hints throughout the film, making a re-watch gratifyingly worthwhile. However, the supernatural elements of the film haven’t just been included to perplex the audience and present them with an enticing puzzle to solve—they reflect Donnie’s inner turmoil and his questions about the world around him.

Donnie himself admits that he is a “troubled” teenager, grappling with a fear of loneliness and hallucinatory compulsions that make him burn down houses and flood his school. Kelly takes Donnie’s existential questions seriously, allowing his characters to have protracted conversations about fate and death. This is what sets Donnie Darko apart from other films about adolescence. Donnie’s problems in his school and home life are discussed as part of a much larger questioning of the world around him and how it works. This existential bent to the film works because the teenage angst that we so often see portrayed is often philosophical in nature. Adolescent questioning is not brushed off as pointless and overdramatic but embraced as something meaningful.

The supernatural aspects of the film only help to make the more typical critique of 1980s American suburbia sharper. When Donnie is dealing with existential dread and fear of whatever crime Frank is going to make him do next, the school’s obsession with morality and fear of anything different seems all the more ridiculous. Kelly still manages to make his satire funny, however, with a ridiculous Patrick Swayze playing a motivational speaker who makes instructional videos complete with chintzy music and PowerPoint effects. This film’s funny moments keep it from becoming too dark and depressing and are definitely part of why this is a cult classic. Donnie’s monologue on Smurfette and the “overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life” can probably be quoted in entirety by quite a few fans.

Despite Donnie’s death, which is punctuated by Gary Jules’ haunting cover of ‘Mad World’, this is still an uplifting film full of funny moments and assurances that there are kind people in the world to counteract the hostility of some of the adults in the town. Donnie’s family is a caring one, he is influenced by two more open-minded teachers at school, and he has a loving and honest relationship with his girlfriend Gretchen. It is, after all, his love for his girlfriend that seems to motivate Donnie to travel back in time and sacrifice himself, thereby undoing her own death. Kelly’s message is a positive one, asserting that even those that society sees as ‘wackos’, like Donnie and oft-bullied Cherita, can love and be loved. As Donnie says to Cherita in their last interaction, “I promise that one day everything’s going to be better for you.”

Donnie Darko is a film about the difficulties of growing up, but one that embraces the darker, more philosophical aspects of this more fully than many others of its kind. Whether or not you can figure out the ending or fully understand the logic of the time travel, this is a film with a meaningful message. There is a little bit of Donnie in all of us—confused and angry about the world around us, and hoping we can do something to make life a bit easier for the people we love. For a film about a teenager and an imaginary bunny, Donnie Darko has a lot to say.

Artwork by Rachel Jung

Ghosts in the Attic

Ellie-Jai Williams
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Ghosts in the Attic

Nearing the 3pm slump. (The clock is always 2:52 when you glance at it). Taunting synchronicity, eternal afternoon. 

Unpack-repack. That recurring dream that you only ever have in your Home Bed. Packing a suitcase, frantic. Hands moving too slow, oppressive air. Viscous temporal soup. You miss the flight by a fraction of a second. Unpack. Back Home. 

Grey skies greet your eyes in the morning, rain hitting the window. Washed out Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday. Trip to the shop to get milk for mum. You slip back into the paranoid notion that everyone must be staring at you. Leering, laughing. Back home, half-empty fridge shelves stare back at you apathetically. A bitter-meets-guilty, guilty-meets-angry feeling sits in your stomach, undigested, when you think of how you eat in The Other Place where The Other Half live. 

You hide in your AirPods, perfume and fur just for a walk to the shop. Imposter. 

Sunken eyes of little girls outside Tesco. School shirt half in half out, one sock up one sock down. Clinging to a rain-washed bear. The bear looks tired but compliant, no energy left to protest about the rough way he is held. 

For a brief moment you feel that you-girl-bear connect, an unlikely triad formed on King Street. United as allies  avoiding the eyes of a fed-up Mum. Eyes framed by half-moons. Limp ponytail, tired air. 

You smile at the girl to show solidarity. She stares blankly back at you. 

You’re sitting in a silent house. Hair unwashed, the musty smell of sleep still lingering in the afternoon. You think about the sound of your nan’s voice on the voicemail she left for your 20th birthday. Husky from all her years of smoking, but unchanged and as warm as ever. You and her in your alliance, when you were little and the world was smaller: swapping between school-nan’s house-dad’s house(s)-mum’s house(s). A world full of suitcases. Unpack-repack. Change without progress. 

Weekends with nan on the couch. EastEnders playing on the telly, reruns of the same show. You loved the coziness of it until one day it bored you – no one prepared you for that. Losing your favourite toys in the attic when you had to leave the house in a hurry. 

In a dream you were small and in the attic with the toys, hidden behind them, scared. A lady was angrily tearing down the wall they’d formed, one by one. You thought please don’t find me please don’t find me, not yet not yet. 

You think of the toys now laying abandoned on the attic floor, cast aside and dust-covered, unloved. Roaming the dark spaces of the house(s) like ghosts. 

You and nan walking back from the chippy arm-in-arm. (She always held you close, and tightly). Sharing a cone of chips in the cold and laughing. That gorgeous sound of a little girl’s laughter. Salt rim on your lip, warm feeling in your belly, toothy eight-year-old smile. 

She loved you fiercely and without reservation. You could see it in her eyes from the beginning. 

Guilt rises in your stomach because you haven’t returned her call. 

And that other recurring dream you have no matter where you are. You’re eight again. 

Dark spiral staircase. Curious to know what’s at the bottom, you descend the stairs. Something terrible lies waiting but it will free you to know what. Sometimes a man is waiting for you, hidden face, leering smile. Sometimes he isn’t. But always a fraction of a second before your foot leaves the final stair, you change your mind and run back to the top, terrified. 

Descend-ascend. 

Where do I go when I run away?

“If a book is well written, I always find it too short”: Our Ongoing Love Affair with Pride and Prejudice

Beth Proctor
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“If a book is well written, I always find it too short”: Our Ongoing Love Affair with Pride and Prejudice

Every Austen fan has a favourite Mr Darcy. For me, it will always be Mathew MacFadyen and that hand scene in the 2005 film. For others, Colin Firth may be the one who made longing stares and social awkwardness sexy, or even Martin Henderson, who plays Darcy in the (seriously underrated) Bollywood film.

Each adaptation of Pride and Prejudice has its own take on Austen’s famous romantic hero, yet the most recent retelling has done away with the main man altogether. Instead, the character taking centre stage in the new one-man play is none other than Mr George Wickham.

Written by Adrian Lukis and Catherine Curzon, Being Mr Wickham is set to stream to audiences on 30th April to 1st May. After debuting at the Jane Austen Festival in 2019, the performance will now be broadcast to viewers around the country with Lukis reprising his original role from the 1995 BBC series. It is promised that the soldier turned scoundrel will sit down to “set the record straight” on the evening of his sixtieth birthday, discussing everything from his childhood at Pemberley to his experiences at the battle of Waterloo.

Being Mr Wickham is the latest in a long line of retellings of Pride and Prejudice. Previous adaptations include several films, and TV series, a Bollywood and even a YouTube spin-off. There are also several slightly more left-field additions such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Aspects of these adaptations have become famous in their own right. In the 1995 BBC series, for example, the sight of Colin Firth emerging from a lake in a dripping wet shirt and breeches caused the British public to collectively swoon.

The clip has been watched over 9 million times on the BBC YouTube channel. Titled “The Lake Scene (Colin Firth Strips Off)”, it seems that someone in the marketing department was a fan of more than just Colin’s acting. The scene has been parodied in several other films Firth has starred in, including St Trinian’s 2 and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Both see his characters floundering in fountains in a gentle mockery of the original scene.

As someone who has seen most of the spin-offs, I can understand why we keep coming back to Pride and Prejudice. It’s always comforting to return to an old favourite, and fun to see it redone in different ways. Yet some may wonder whether we need another adaptation of this particular classic. Arguably, there are hundreds of other important and slightly more topical stories that could do with screen time.

In an attempt to appear fresh and exciting, new adaptions are straying further and further from the original story. In Pride and Prejudice and Zombies the knife-wielding Bennett sisters must try and secure a suitable match whilst sporadically fighting off hordes of the undead. The film (adapted from Seth Grahame-Smith’s 2009 book of the same name) received lukewarm reviews when it was released in 2016, with Variety’s Andrew Barker describing it as “awkward and unsatisfying”.

Satisfying an audience is a challenge for any adaptation. People arrive with a preconceived idea of what they’re going to see, and some don’t like to be contradicted. In Being Mr Wickham, Lukis and Curzon have had relatively free reign to develop the titular character, given that Austen doesn’t reveal much about Wickham’s past other than his involvement with Darcy. For all we know, he could have abandoned Lydia, moved to the Bahamas and taken up knitting.

This is the beauty of adaptations. They can take an old story and make it new in unexpected ways. They also allow us to return to the books we love and approach them from a different angle, challenging our preferences and preconceptions at every turn. It remains to be seen, however, whether a new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is really necessary. Being Mr Wickham may prove popular, but perhaps it’s time to turn elsewhere for inspiration?

Image Credit: Elizabeth Jamieson via Unplash.

A View Into Both Worlds: Being Mixed-Race in Oxford

Ruth Scharff-Hansen
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A View Into Both Worlds: Being Mixed-Race in Oxford

CW: Racism, mentions of violence

The first time I ever visited Oxford, I went with my mom. Two tourists far away from home, we spent the afternoon taking blurry pictures by the RadCam, staring at the Harry Potter tree at New College, and wandering around Westgate. At one point in the afternoon, we popped into a bakery to buy a quick snack (dreaming about the future is hungry work!) and as per usual, we struck up a polite conversation with the lady selling the croissants. 

“Wow!” said the blonde lady, blinking at my mom in amazement. “Your English is so good!”

I visibly cringed. There stood my mom, a proud Asian woman, who spoke better English than any other person I knew. There stood my mom, a philosophy major with an affinity for literature, who could talk circles around the rest of my family. There stood my mom, who practised my debate speeches with me and encouraged me to read law at the very same university we were touring. And yet, based on the colour of her skin, the darkness of her hair, the evidence of her race, she was presumed to be different. 

Growing up with a Singaporean-Chinese mom and a Swiss-Danish dad, I’ve been mistaken for every nationality under the sun. For eighteen years in Hong Kong, I was pinned as the foreigner and the “white girl”. However, as soon as I moved across the world, the way people perceived my race shifted to the other end of the spectrum. This reflection could very easily turn into a miscellany of identity crises; I grew up speaking the wrong languages, bungling cultural traditions, and floating between two different worlds, in which I wholly belonged to neither. But whilst I’m sure that would be a relatable read for all the mixed kids who stumble across this article, it’s not the point I’m trying to make, for now. If there is anything that my confusing duality has allowed me, it’s perspective. And that is what I feel the need to share, as the distressing hostility towards the Asian community grows by the day. 

There has always been a difference in how people treat me, based on which parent I’m with. Even though my dad did not grow up speaking English, no one has ever congratulated him on his linguistic competence. And as minor as this example of good faith may seem, it’s part of a broader issue that I am ashamed to have witnessed. With my dad, the bus stops for us when we’re a little late. Strangers smile and wave. No one has ever stretched their eyes and screamed “ni hao” at me when I’m with my dad. My dad has never been called racial slurs and thrown out of a London cab at 6am on his way to work. 

Before Covid, the world looked at Asians differently. And growing up in Hong Kong, I was fortunate to be raised in an environment where people are proud of their Asian heritage and the strength it carries. The discriminatory culture that I am attempting to describe, though, has always permeated my double-life. It’s weird to be mixed-race in an extremely racial world. And since vicious dialogue spread about the “Chinese virus”, I have felt, quite honestly, scared. Family friends, preceding my move to Oxford, recommended that I dye my hair a lighter colour. News articles about attacks on Asians implied that I should avoid China-town. Throughout my time in Oxford, people have blindly made jokes about the food I eat, my various foreign mannerisms, and other misplaced snubs at the expense of the Asian community. Maybe they thought I’d find them 50% funny. 

Maybe they didn’t care to realise they were not. 

I have held my tongue about discrimination against Asians since arriving, not only because I love Oxford, but because, to a certain extent, I have never felt like the best advocate for this cause. But the urgency of this rising hatred means that we cannot stay silent any longer. In March, six Asian women were murdered in Georgia. And this abhorrent behaviour is not confined to America. At the beginning of the pandemic, a 23-year-old Singaporean student was attacked on Oxford Street. In late February, a lecturer at the University of Southampton was savagely beaten in a racist attack. An advocacy group, ‘End the Virus of Racism’, has reported a 300% increase in Covid-related hate crimes towards Asians in the UK since the pandemic started. Yet I still hear rumours of students at Oxford casually throwing around the word “ch*nk”, and headlines in major newspapers, following the lead of former President Donald Trump, continue to paint the pandemic as a peculiarly Asian problem. In the absence of a supportive stance in the media, you and I need to be the voices for this movement. So here is mine. 

Part of me has always known that my divided heritage was not only split by culture, but separated by a gulf of privilege. On the face of things, though, discrimination against Asians has always been masked by excuses. Excuses about how stereotyping isn’t harmful if it isn’t explicitly offensive (cue the jokes about Asians being good at maths); excuses about how Asian cities have major financial power and hence cannot be subjected to racism; excuses along the lines of the “model minority myth”. The latest excuse, wrapped in fear and cloaked in hate, has been to vilify Asians for Covid-19. We should be done making excuses. 

This is supposed to be the best university in the world. I think it’s high time we focus less on our “really good English”, and more on the power our words can carry. Spread kindness, educate yourselves, and address problematic behaviour when you see it.

On behalf of all Asians, we are tired of being treated like the virus. 

Image Credit: Creative Commons – “Oxford Postcard” by anataman is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Review: ‘Klara and the Sun’ by Kazuo Ishiguro

Hari Bravery
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Review: ‘Klara and the Sun’ by Kazuo Ishiguro

For as long as artificial intelligence has existed in the public consciousness, it has been interwoven with an anxiety over its misuse.  That such a sentiment perseveres is clear. From entrepreneur-cum-provocateur Elon Musk’s claims that AI will supersede human intelligence ‘in less than five years’, to Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s announcement that the British armies’ troop capacity will be slashed in favour of funding automated drones and cyberwarfare, the narrative that technological advancement in robotics is synonymous with violence and human redundancy has become commonplace.  Yet, Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel Klara and the Sun throws a spanner in the proverbial machine of this narrative, presenting a world in which artificial intelligence has been used with largely positive effects. The AIs of Ishiguro’s novel pose no existential threat to humanity, and aside from a cleaner’s brief moment of perplexity over whether to treat one like a guest or ‘like a vacuum cleaner,’ they are treated just as humans are.

The eponymous Klara is an AF, an ‘Artificial Friend’ constructed for the purpose of alleviating teenage loneliness in a time when children take their lessons from ‘screen professors’ on ‘oblongs’; landing in our current lockdown state, this hits rather close to home. We follow her from her days awaiting sale in a metropolitan store to her assimilation into the family of Josie, a young girl with a serious — possibly fatal — illness, for which her mother bears an odd sense of responsibility. The world Ishiguro crafts in Klara and the Sun has a comfortable ambiguity, one that evokes a future facing the same issues as our own present. Pollution that blacks out the sky, increased mechanisation and a pandemic of loneliness; if the novel can be considered dystopian, it is due to its presentation of a hyperbolic present.

In Klara, Ishiguro crafts a memorable first-person narrative voice, simultaneously robotic and infantile, scrupulous yet naïve. Ishiguro never allows Klara to fall into the uncanny valley, refusing to refer to her – or any other of the AFs’ – physical appearances, instead merely stating that she has short, dark hair and appears somewhat ‘French’. This is not to say that Klara’s robotic status is forgotten; frequently throughout the novel Klara’s visual processing is overwhelmed, as her ocular field breaks down into a cubist fracturing of the landscape, with elements becoming either hyper-focussed (such as the minute expression of a woman’s eye) whilst others clip in and out of each other, the world reduced to a series of blank ‘cones’. Such narrative quirks work a treat, drawing attention to the juxtaposition of Klara’s spiritual self with her mechanical body. 

This juxtaposition of the natural and the engineered is furthered in Klara’s worship of ‘the Sun’. Originally stemming from the fact that AFs are solar powered, Klara’s relationship with the sun becomes spiritual as the novel progresses, leading to her beginning to pray for the sun to heal Josie’s malady. For me, it is this juxtaposition that is the novel’s most striking feature, something that Ishiguro appears to be well aware of, making it the titular focus. This paganistic worship of the sun, nearly to the level of deification, by a purely mechanical vessel is certainly a striking image, one that Ishiguro revels in depicting. In that Klara is programmed for self-sacrifice for the benefit of humans, the self-abnegation of religious worship seems like a logical step. The plethora of descriptions of light within the novel border on fetishism on Klara’s part; they are sumptuous and rich, reifying through language the depth of Klara’s devotion for a star that she never truly understands. At one point Klara’s mechanical vision mingles with her discovery of natural beauty as she recalls how: ‘The red glow inside the barn was still dense, but now had an almost gentle aspect – so much so that the various segments into which my surroundings were partitioned appeared to be drifting amidst the Sun’s last rays.’

Klara’s discovery and gradual decoding of human love is depicted with beautiful simplicity by Ishiguro, and the treatment of the consciousness of artificial intelligence throughout is excellent.  Yet, Ishiguro’s treatment of genetic editing is slightly less compelling. In order to combat the ‘savage meritocracy’ (to quote from Ishiguro’s 2017 Nobel Prize Lecture) of the world, the parents in the novel have resorted to genetically editing their children to grant them specific worldly advantages, a process termed ‘lifting’. Such a process creates a demarcated caste system within the world of Klara and the Sun, with those who remain ‘unlifted’ becoming an acknowledged underclass, barred from both education and employment. The continued awareness of this system is made clear in Klara’s constant references to clothes, furniture and any physical belonging as ‘high-status’, as opposed to describing any physical quality. Such a binary class system enforced by technological advancements will be familiar to readers of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. The experience of the ‘unlifted’ underclass is depicted in the character of Rick, Josie’s friend and love interest within the novel, who seeks to scale this genetic barrier by making a special case to Atlas Brookings, a college known to be particularly generous to ‘unlifted’ youths. As the novel progresses, it becomes apparent that gene editing is not only a social, but also a physical evil: both Josie’s illness and the previous death of her sister Sal are a result of this process of ‘lifting’, demonstrating it to be little more than a mortal lottery. However, this subject is rendered merely a backdrop against which questions of AI sentience are presented and explored far more extensively. When combined with Klara’s childish perspective, the presentation of gene editing within the novel is left overly vague (it is not clear whether such a process is pre or postpartum, for example), lacking the requisite specificity to become wholly compelling. Perhaps the gene editing sub-plot could have been allowed a bit more time to stew – it is certainly interesting enough to warrant a novel by itself.

Whilst Klara and the Sun is undoubtedly a strong work – Ishiguro has led us to expect nothing less – it is not the Nobel Prize recipient’s best. It lacks the emotional intensity of The Buried Giant, the meticulous narrative drive of Never Let Me Go and the masterful commingling of both that is The Remains of the Day. One shouldn’t approach Klara and the Sun expecting the minute sci-fi world building of Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov or Ian M. Banks. And yet this is not to turn people off Ishiguro’s novel. It is a fascinating study of whether a machine can fully become human, and whether there truly is a such a thing as a soul, one that ‘our modern tools can’t excavate, copy, [or] transfer’. After all, what can be more human than Klara’s closing remark that ‘I have my memories to go through and place in the right order’?  Even the fact that a Nobel Laureate is writing a novel that is through-and-through sci-fi is a massive victory for the legitimisation of science fiction scholarship. If there are moments in which the novel’s narrative minimalism can leave it feeling slightly hollow, these are outshone by the familiar lucidity of Ishiguro’s prose and the conceptual strength of Klara as a narrator. Klara and the Sun is a novel of elegance and poise, and with Sony 3000 recently acquiring the novel’s film rights, it doesn’t seem as though Klara’s bond with the Sun will be sundered any time soon. 

Image Credit: Frankie Fouganthin /CC by.SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Both Oxford crews lose to Cambridge in The Gemini Boat Race 2021

Maurício Alencar
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Both Oxford crews lose to Cambridge in The Gemini Boat Race 2021

OUBC and OUWBC failed to beat Cambridge in The Gemini Boat Race this Easter Sunday, the 166th of its kind for men and the 75th for women. With the race moved from London and done “behind closed doors”, Cambridge were on home territories on the River Great Ouse in Ely. Oxford gave the Tabs strong competition in both races, with the women’s and men’s crew sharing the same fate in only losing by a single boat length. 

Cambridge women’s started on the railway side for better wind protection, which gave them a slight advantage before the race got underway. Once the race had begun, they built an early lead, but Oxford hit back and were level with Cambridge 3 minutes and a half in. They managed to build a strong rhythm and also maintained a safe distance from Cambridge, but the Tabs raised their stroke rate 8 minutes in and pushed away from Oxford towards the finish line. In the later race, the men’s crew for Cambridge also pulled ahead of Oxford early on but had loud calls from the umpire to give space for the Oxford crew. Jesse Oberst, the cox for Oxford at age 38, steered Oxford’s boat with less of the stream over the course of the race, while Cambridge’s crew maintained their pace down the river. 

For the first time in its history, both the women’s and men’s event were umpired by women. The men’s event was umpired by Sarah Winckless MBE, an Olympic bronze medallist, and the women’s by Judith Packer, an umpire with 20 years experience and alumnus of St Peter’s College, Oxford. All crews wore a white ribbon in support of victims of sexual assault, following reports in the national press this week of allegations made by a member of OUWBC.

Last year’s race was unfortunately cancelled due to the outbreak of the pandemic, and 2019 saw the Tabs beat Oxford in both races as well. The last time the crews raced in Ely saw OUBC win by 3 quarters boat length in 1944 after the stroke from Cambridge men’s crew collapsed. The straighter and shorter course at 4.9km in Ely, as opposed to the 6.8km race on the Tideway in London, benefitted the crew with the superior muscle-power and greater know-how on the course and its nuances. 

Oxford’s training has perhaps been hampered by stricter conditions than Cambridge: the University prevented a quick return to training in December after the second lockdown and Oxford’s crews only moved to Ely on the 31st March, whereas Cambridge have been training on home waters for some time longer. The women’s crew were at a particular disadvantage as Julia Lindsay, who rowed at 7 for Oxford, only trained with her crewmates for 4 weeks due to isolation. 

The Oxford men’s crew will hope to win The Boat Race for the 81st time next year, and the women’s crew will look for their 31st win in hopefully more normal conditions. 

Oxford’s crews:

Men’sCollegeWomen’sCollege
coxJesse OberstPembrokecoxCosti LevyExeter
8- strokeAugustin WambersieSt Catherine’s8- strokeKatherine MaitlandSt Hughs
7Joshua Bowesman-JonesKeble7Julia LindsaySt Cross
6Jean-Philippe DufourLincoln6Georgina GrantHarris Manchester
5Tobias SchröderMagdalen5Martha BirtlesMansfield
4Felix DrinkallLady Margaret Hall4Amelia StandingSt Anne’s
3Martin BaraksoKellogg3Megan StokerSt Peter’s
2Alex BebbSt Peter’s2Anja ZehfussGreen Templeton
1- bowJames ForwardPembroke1- bowKatie AndersonBrasenose

Cambridge’s crews:

Men’sCollegeWomen’sCollege
coxCharlie MarcusTrinitycoxDylan WhittakerKing’s
8- strokeDrew TaylorClare8- strokeSarah TisdallLucy Cavendish
7Callum SullivanPeterhouse7Bronya SykesGonville & Caius
6Ollie ParishPeterhouse6Sophie PaineGirton
5Garth HoldenSt Edmund’s5Anouschka FenleyLucy Cavendish
4Quinten RichardsonFitzwilliam4Caoimhe DempseyNewnham
3Seb BenzecryJesus3Abba ParkerEmmanuel
2Ben DyerGonville & Caius2Sarah PortsmouthNewnham
1- bowTheo WeinbergerSt John’s1- bowAdriana Perez RotondoNewnham

Artwork by Zoe Rhoades

New day support venue for the homeless and vulnerably-housed opening in Oxford

Anvee Bhutani
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New day support venue for the homeless and vulnerably-housed opening in Oxford

The Oxford Winter Night Shelter will be working with St Clement’s Parish Property to set up a new day support centre to offer respite, hospitality and encouragement to those who are homeless and vulnerably housed.

The new day centre, known as the “Living Room”, will provide support in a small and friendly environment to its guests, specially targeting those who may feel more able to engage in this setting. The Living Room is to be based in the St Clement’s area in a property owned by St Clement’s Parish Property, with its purpose being providing relief to those in need within the local community. The next few months will be spent in refurbishing the venue and finalising the operations and it is hoped that the Living Room will be able to open its doors during the summer 2021.

Through discussions with partner agencies, the Oxford Winter Night Shelter has established that there is a real need to provide support and companionship to members of the community, as the feelings of isolation and loneliness have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Living Room will operate with high staff to guest ratios in order that the guests can be given the attention that they need to ensure a positive experience. The Oxford Winter Night Shelter will work closely with agencies to obtain referrals to the centre and to provide joint support.

The Oxford Winter Night Shelter was set up three years ago to provide overnight accommodation to the homeless and rough sleepers of Oxford during the winter months. Due to restrictions imposed by the Coronavirus pandemic it has not been able to operate the shelters this winter and rough sleepers are instead being given temporary accommodation under the “Everyone In” initiative. However, when it is possible to do so, the Oxford Winter Night Shelter intends to reopen its doors, whilst continuing the Living Room operation. The Oxford Winter Night Shelter operates through the support of its volunteers, donors and churches across central Oxford and wider afield.

Mary Gurr, Founder and Chair of the Oxford Winter Night Shelter and Chaplain to the Homeless said: “I am delighted the OWNS is able to work in partnership with St Clements and with our partner organisations. It is hoped this new initiative will address issues of loneliness and isolation and provide sanctuary and practical help to some of the most vulnerable and needy people in our community.”

Reverend Rachel Gibson, Chair of St Clements Parish Property further added: “St Clement’s Parish Property Trustees have been delighted to work with OWNS and its other partner churches and organisations since it began. We’re really pleased that we’re now also able to help in setting up the new day centre, which we hope will provide a warm welcome, companionship and support to its guests.”

Image Credit: Motacilla / CC BY-SA 3.0

The Conservatives’ attack on the ECHR: A Long Time Coming

Ciara Garcha
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The Conservatives’ attack on the ECHR: A Long Time Coming

In 1951, the Parliament of the United Kingdom became the first nation to ratify the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The Council of Europe had drafted the document in Strasbourg in 1949, and two years later the UK became the first European country to formally commit itself to the embryonic concept of human rights.

A leaked recording, however of the Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, stating that the UK will not limit itself to striking trade deals with countries that have the ECHR as a minimum standard of human rights has exposed the strain under which the UK’s commitment to the principle European framework for human rights is. Proposals for the UK to withdraw from the ECHR and replace it with a ‘British Bill of Rights’, composed by the government alone, have arisen. But, in a more unstable and uncertain world than ever, it is clear that the UK must remain committed to the ECHR. 

In the recording, leaked to the Huff Post UK and published on 16th March, Raab can be heard advocating for Britain to trade “liberally around the world”. He goes on to add that if Britain should “restrict its (trade deals) to countries with ECHR-level standards of human rights”; the country would not be able to make “many trade deals with the growth markets of the future”. These comments followed a report by The Times that Britain was looking into doing a trade deal with China, to replace trade between the EU and China, worth $709 billion in 2020. Concerns were raised about the UK entering into a new economic partnership with China, given the latter’s poor human rights record, including claims of appalling human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslims and severe limits on the freedom of expression. Shadow Foreign Secretary, Lisa Nandy, declared the comments to be proof that the government was “entirely devoid of a moral compass and riddled with inconsistencies” and Amnesty International UK commented that Raab’s remarks would “send a chill down the spine of embattled human rights activists across the globe”.

Yet, only a matter of days later on 22 March, the UK imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials over the “appalling violations” of human rights against the Uighur people. Rather than talking up a trade deal with China, Raab described the mistreatment of Uighur Muslims as “one of the worst human rights crises of our time” and declared that the world “cannot simply look the other way”. China responded by placing retaliatory sanctions on a selection of British officials – including five Conservative MPs – whom Boris Johnson described, in a tweet condemning the sanctions, as “performing a vital role shining a light on the gross human rights violations being perpetrated against Uyghur Muslims”. 

Within the space of a few days, the government seemed both to undermine the importance of human rights, expressing disinterest in adhering to ECHR standards, and then staunchly defend them, following a tide of other European and western leaders to speak out against the genocide of the Uighur people. The Conservatives’ relationship with human rights seems more difficult to unpick and understand than ever.

In a British context, human rights have emerged in the years since World War Two as a European project. Though first drawn up by the United Nations into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) in 1948, the Council of Europe was assembled in 1949 to draw up a comparable European framework. Created by the Treaty of London and eventually centred in Strasbourg, the Council initially brought ten European states together to work for democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It was separate from the European Coal and Steel Community (founded in 1951) that would later morph into the European Union, and has continued to maintain its own distinct agenda and membership up to the present. 

The principles of the UNDHR agreed in 1948 were translated into a European context with the drafting of the ECHR the following year. The prohibition of torture, the right to liberty and freedom of expression were all included in the new charter. But these were not merely words; these human rights would be enforceable by the European Court of Human Rights. Established in Strasbourg, 1959, Article 19 of the Convention charged the court with ensuring “the observance of the engagements” undertaken by signatories of the ECHR. This distinct legal mechanism has continued to function in ensuring that signatories “secure to everyone within their jurisdiction, the rights and freedoms” set out in the Convention, though the 1998 Human Rights Act made it possible to bring a case involving the ECHR to a UK court, rather than Strasbourg. 

Even whilst it is separate from the EU, the ECHR and the European Court of Human Rights have both fallen victim to the rising tide of anti-European sentiment that culminated in the UK’s vote to leave the EU in 2016 and its eventual exit in January 2020. The ECHR and the very concept of Human Rights have become casualties of Brexit. It was David Cameron who first floated the idea of scrapping the ECHR and replacing it with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ back in 2015 in the same manifesto that contained his pledge to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU by 2017.

Whilst a ‘British Bill of Rights’ may bolster the importance of human rights within domestic politics, Cameron’s proposals represented an attempt to tap into the Eurosceptic sentiments swelling amongst many in his party and the population. Though a supporter of EU membership and the leader of the ‘Remain’ campaign, perhaps Cameron believed that a symbolic liberation from a different European legal structure would be enough to subdue the angry shouts for Britain to “take back control” by leaving the EU. In any case, ECHR and EU were merged in the creation of a powerful European adversary whom Europhobes could rail against in the bitter and hateful debates leading up to and following the 2016 Referendum.

On the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta in 2015, Cameron vowed to “restore the reputation” of human rights in Britain, as “the place where those ideas were first set out”. Celebrations in Runnymede Surrey, the location of the signing of the iconic English document in 1215, became a platform for Cameron to articulate his desire to repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act and introduce British-specific legislation. The occasion and the terribly distorted legacy of the Magna Carta that Cameron appealed to helped underline the British Bill of Rights as a nationalist project that would protect and reassert a mythical British (or English) legacy of liberty.

Cameron went on to tell The Sun that the Strasbourg court had given human rights a “bad name” and that he would fix the “complete mess” of human rights laws. Comments like this have served to divorce the UK from the ECHR, the very framework it helped to create and of which it was was at the forefront. Attacks on the ECHR were a crude way for the Cameron-led Remain campaign to score points: a measured form of anti-Europeanism, attacking various non-EU European institutions as a sign of their nationalist commitment, to help minimise and divert hatred from the EU to other European ventures. 

Yet, even as the ‘Remain’ campaign failed and the UK voted to leave the EU, the nationalist, anti-European narrative around the ECHR that the Cameron government had carefully cultivated and fed into would go on to take on a life of its own. Anti-European sentiment has not abated since the 2016 vote to leave the EU. The difficulties that successive governments have had over the past five years in extracting the UK from the EU has meant that Euroscepticism has become a powerful force in politics. Cameron exposed the vulnerability of the Human Rights Act and the ECHR in British politics, priming the topic of human rights to be seized on and weaponised by others.

Boris Johnson’s government has leapt on this opportunity, since winning a sizable majority in 2019, by ordering a review of the Human Rights Act and its use in UK courts in December 2020. Director of Amnesty International UK, Kate Allen, expressed fear at the review, arguing: “Tearing up the Human Rights Act would be a giant leap backwards. It would be the single biggest reduction in rights in the history of the UK”.  

In both standing against human rights perpetrated by China and dismissing ECHR standards, the government has put out a highly confusing message on human rights. However, the key variant in their attitude does seem to be the involvement and presence of Europe. Raab’s comments that the UK will not be bound by the standards of human rights set out in the ECHR in a post-Brexit era, seem to be a continuation of the nationalist rhetoric constructed around the EU that has since infused discussion over the ECHR and human rights. However, in coming out against China, the UK seems to be indicating that it still foresees a commitment to human rights in its future; albeit a commitment on its own terms and to a concept that it defines. The proposal of the creation of a ‘British Bill of Rights’, its contents dictated by the government, has once again arisen.

Recent events have shown us the folly of letting the government, and government alone, define the concept of human rights. The Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill show this anti-ECHR anti-human rights agenda in action. The bill would criminalise protests that create “disorder” and “serious disruption”, as well as placing severe limitations on the ‘noise levels’ and locations at which demonstrations can be held. Despite the Conservative’s assertions to the contrary, it is in direct violation of Articles 10, protecting freedom of expression, and 11, the right to freedom of association, of the 1998 Human Rights Act.

Grace Bradley, the director of civil liberties group, Liberty, warned: “parts of this Bill will facilitate discrimination and undermine protest, which is the lifeblood of a healthy democracy”. Bradley went on to add that the Bill risks “stifling dissent and making it harder for us to hold the powerful to account”. If the Conservative government, with a sizable parliamentary majority, was given free rein to determine what classified as human rights and what would make up a ‘British Bill of Rights’, it is not hard to believe that similar attacks on our existing rights and freedoms would be made.

Other issues on which the UK government has previously clashed with the European Court of Human Rights would likely be ironed out in any potential ‘British Bill of Rights’. Brexit-style attempts to “take back control” of human rights can be observed in the response to the issue of prisoner rights, an area where the UK takes a fundamentally different view to its European counterparts. The issue flared up in the 2005 European Court of Human Rights case, Hirst vs. United Kingdom, in which the UK was found to have violated the ECHR in denying convicted prisoners, serving a custodial sentence, the right to vote.

The ruling and suggestion that the UK should re-examine the state of prisoner rights was met with fierce resistance with many sections of parliament, marking the beginning of a lengthy and drawn-out confrontation with the European Court of Human Rights and Council of Europe. Significantly, the debate around the ruling largely ranged beyond the actual question at hand: whether prisoners should be enfranchised, and widened to represent, and instead became a question of sovereignty and where power lay.

A motion, passed by parliament in 2011, argued that the UK should flout the court’s judgment on the issue of prisoner enfranchisement. The text of the motion highlighted that such legislative decisions “should be a matter for democratically-elected law makers”, in keeping with the concept of parliamentary sovereignty that dictates parliament should be all-powerful and should not be subordinated to any other body. 

Dominic Raab, then serving as a backbench MP and one of the proposers of the motion, urged for the UK to send a “very clear message back” to the court, that parliament and only parliament would “decide whether prisoners get the right to vote”. Though he assured his parliamentary colleagues that the UK would not be “kicked out of the Council of Europe” for passing a dissenting motion, Raab was clearly employing the rhetoric of taking back control and bolstering parliamentary sovereignty that was synonymous with the debates around the EU referendum. His remarks that “this House will decide… and this House makes the laws of the land” (despite the fact that the UK parliament had used its sovereignty to ratify the Convention in 1951 and to pass the 1998 Human Rights Act) could be applied to numerous conversations held around the UK’s membership of the EU. From fishing to free trade, the sentiment of Parliament and parliament alone being able to “decide” and make “the laws of the land” ring true with much of what was and has been discussed.

Though the idea of a ‘British Bill of Rights’ was never fully fleshed out in the discourse around the 2015 election and 2016 referendum, the very concept of the UK being able to independently define what was and was not acceptable seems to have been, in itself, alluring. Even the epithet ‘British’ marks the Bill, and the rights protected in it out, as a nationalistic attempt at the ‘British exceptionalism’ that often placed the country at odds with the EU. Such a Bill would ‘return’ full symbolic sovereignty to parliament (some have questioned whether it was ever really lost, given that the UK incorporated the ECHR into law in 1998) and clauses that the UK has historically taken issue with would be modified, for example Article 3 of Protocol 1 of the ECHR, requiring “free elections” and “free expression of the freedom of the people” would be qualified. Scrapping the ECHR and starting afresh with a ‘British Bill of Rights’ would embolden the government with both symbolic and literal power.

The strength of the ECHR and the Council of Europe is rooted in the institution’s history and framework. After centuries of European warfare and the devastation of World War Two, which saw some of the worst human rights abuses in modern history, European nations came together in an attempt to forge a better future. In creating an alliance such as the Council of Europe, this better future was staked on continued cooperation between nation-states, binding them into a common organisation to combat the divisive and hateful forces that had led to war and suffering.

And though issue has been taken with the European Court of Human Rights impinging on parliament, the very effectiveness of the ECHR lies in having an institution in place to enforce the high ideas and eloquent words that made up the Convention. The creation of the Court was a continuation of the post-war desire for mutual cooperation and bonds, ensuring that protection of these liberties was a constant. 

In his ‘Message to Europeans’ drawn up at The Hague in May 1948, Swiss politician, Denis de Rougemont appealed to a brighter shared European future. “Europe is threatened, Europe is divided and the greatest danger comes from her divisions”. He went on to articulate the desire for “a Charter of Human Rights…(and) a Court of Justice with adequate sanctions for the implementation of this Charter” in order to create a “united Europe”. If the UK were to create a ‘British Bill of Rights’ and withdraw from the ECHR, the Europe that de Rougemont appealed to, united by a respect for fundamental human rights, would be lost.

Image Credits: Creative Commons – “Dominic Raab attends a remote G7 meeting during Covid-19” by UK Prime Minister is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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