"That this House notes that
many fathers convicted of no criminal offence have very limited access to their
children as a result of decisions made by the family courts following
separation or divorce; further notes that the family courts operate in
conditions of secrecy in which there is a lack of public accountability for the
decisions they make; believes that mothers, children and fathers all have
rights in relation to family contact and access where there has been family
breakdown; further believes there should not be a presumption that family
breakdown is the primary responsibility of either parent; further believes that
where there is palpably no threat to children from their father in the context
of family breakdown, the courts should try to maximise reasonable access in the
interests of the children; and calls on the Government to review the operation
of the family courts in general and their decision-making in relation to
fathers' access to children in the context of family breakdown in particular,
taking into account the testimony of the many thousands of fathers who feel
their rights are being ignored or abused in relation to their children and in
particular the organisation Fathers4Justice and the 36,000 families it
represents."
This Early Day Motion was proposed by George Galloway. Four of Galloway's five co-sponsors were Labour, and the fifth was from the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.
104 MPs signed it. 49 of those signatories were Labour, including the splendid Pat Glass. One was Plaid Cymru, one was SDLP, one was Green (the only Green MP), and one was Sylvia Hermon. With Galloway, that gave the Left a clear overall majority of the signatories.
Indeed, only 13 Conservatives managed to sign, and they were joined by neither of the then MPs from UKIP. For the benefit of younger readers, UKIP was a saloon bar right-wing populist party that attracted what is now a wholly incomprehensible level of media attention during the 2010 Parliament.
It held on to precisely one seat in 2015, and that was in the person of an MP who has really always been a party in his own right, a status that he will doubtless enjoy in the very near future. You have almost certainly never heard of him.
The last thing that UKIP's activists or core voters wanted was any contact with, or even official knowledge of the existence of, their children from their previous marriages, or their children from their affairs with their coerced employees, or their children from their one-night stands while "away on business".
Like a large proportion of the Conservative Party's activists or core voters, in fact. By no means only outside the House of Commons.
This Early Day Motion was proposed by George Galloway. Four of Galloway's five co-sponsors were Labour, and the fifth was from the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.
104 MPs signed it. 49 of those signatories were Labour, including the splendid Pat Glass. One was Plaid Cymru, one was SDLP, one was Green (the only Green MP), and one was Sylvia Hermon. With Galloway, that gave the Left a clear overall majority of the signatories.
Indeed, only 13 Conservatives managed to sign, and they were joined by neither of the then MPs from UKIP. For the benefit of younger readers, UKIP was a saloon bar right-wing populist party that attracted what is now a wholly incomprehensible level of media attention during the 2010 Parliament.
It held on to precisely one seat in 2015, and that was in the person of an MP who has really always been a party in his own right, a status that he will doubtless enjoy in the very near future. You have almost certainly never heard of him.
The last thing that UKIP's activists or core voters wanted was any contact with, or even official knowledge of the existence of, their children from their previous marriages, or their children from their affairs with their coerced employees, or their children from their one-night stands while "away on business".
Like a large proportion of the Conservative Party's activists or core voters, in fact. By no means only outside the House of Commons.
No comments:
Post a Comment