David Thompson: The mad, bad and dangerous laws some of our MLAs are pushing like there's no tomorrow
As this Assembly heads off into the sunset, MLAs are at risk of repeating the mistakes of the past by rushing through ill-thought-out and unnecessary legislation – seemingly with little regard for the consequences.
Last time round it was unworkable climate legislation, free parking at hospitals and free period products passed in the mouth of an election. The climate change act has caused havoc for road projects, free parking hasn’t happened and sanitary products are largely being dispensed in libraries.
This time, the legislative brainwaves of some of our MLAs ranges from the mad to the dangerous – and risks serious consequences for the day to day lives of ordinary people.
Just this week, grinning MLAs signed a broad pledge to end foodbanks. You might think they asked themselves, given that it’s their job, ‘how are we going to do that’?
The Trussell Trust, the charity whose pledge they signed while posing for photos, is clear about how it should be done – by raising benefits. Yet none of the Executive parties would commit to that publicly on this occasion.
Some of them have been more explicit in the past. In their 2024 manifesto the DUP backed the group’s ‘Essentials Guarantee’ – which is essentially a call for a raise in Universal Credit. The SDLP and Alliance made the same pledge.
Yet, when asked this week, none of the Executive parties would commit to a benefits hike, with an election looming. The TUV said ending food banks required a government plan to get people back to work and cut taxes, not by “providing more free money”.
Among the MLAs signing this pledge was the Alliance Party’s Paula Bradshaw, whose private members bill to put the stretched Department of Infrastructure in charge of regulating flags could best be described as mad. Unlike many of the laws emanating from her party, Ms Bradshaw’s bill isn’t inspired by some lobby group or other, and is something she has campaigned on for years.
That doesn’t make it sensible. Lumbering a department which is already struggling to do its day job of building roads and filling potholes with so much responsibility for the contentious issue of flags is just bonkers.
However, Ms Bradshaw may not be worrying just yet about the future ramifications of the law. She’s previously argued that MLAs could create local equality legislation – and then have its legality clarified by the courts after the fact.
Then there’s the bad. The hunting with dogs bill has long been presented by Alliance as a law which will stop fox-hunting. It is much more than that. In its current form, it would clearly inhibit currently legal activities related to shooting and other country pursuits.
Despite that, Sinn Fein and the UUP – both of whom are sceptical – gave it the benefit of the doubt, rather than killing it off.
That was, in large part, because neither wanted to be accused of supporting foxes being ripped apart. The upshot is that the anti-blood sports MLA John Blair’s fox bill limps on, ever closer to the hen house that is country life as we know it.
Letting the fox into the hen house is bad, but the Alliance Party’s wily plan to interfere in how people raise their children is truly dangerous.
Nobody sane wants gay children, or adults for that matter, tortured or given quack “therapy” to change who they are. Therefore, many people will be convinced Alliance’s plan to end “conversion practices” is a good thing. They should read it.
Similar legislation has been floating around in most western democracies for a decade. All of it serves two of the fundamental aims of queer ideologues.
Firstly, to curtail religious freedom by creating a chill factor around prayer or talking therapies for people who seek it. There is no evidence people can freely change their sexuality – but for those adults who want to try, that must be their choice. It cannot become a criminal matter.
Secondly, these bills all seek to introduce the utterly nebulous concept of gender identity into the law. Speaking to the BBC’s Sarah Brett this week, Mr Tennyson admitted the concept doesn’t currently exist in law.
Asked how it would be defined, he claimed the “ordinary meaning would carry a lot of weight”. That is, he said, the person’s “sense of belonging to a particular gender”. In other words, undefinable.
The BBC itself has claimed there are over 100 genders. These range, in some people’s heads, from the unimaginable Trigender to the unspeakable Genderf***.
Woe betide any parent who seeks to stop their child being a Genderf*** if Mr Tennyson’s bill passes into law.
He claims it’s really about quack therapies and not criminalising parents or anyone else for “acceptable conversation”. But is so broadly drafted, it’s inconceivable that malicious complaints wouldn’t be brought against ordinary people for ordinary parenting.
Having the police at the door over rejecting a child’s delusion about their gender would be an outrageous intrusion by the criminal justice system into family life. Whether they’re actually convicted or not for prohibiting their child from being a Genderf*** is another matter.
Executive parties should get on with setting a budget and bringing forward a coherent legislative agenda of their own.
The cultural crusade waged by the Alliance Party may fill that vacuum and distract from those failures, but their mad, bad and dangerous ideas will have consequences for us all.