Shameful sexism and bigotry of Green MP Caroline Lucas and her all-women Remain-supporting anti-Brexit Cabinet – Bill Carmichael

THE latest politician to suffer a severe case of BDS (Brexit Derangement Syndrome) is the Green Party MP Caroline Lucas.
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas.Green Party MP Caroline Lucas.
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas.

This week Ms Lucas came up with a plan to stop Brexit which was so utterly bizarre that initially I thought it must be a spoof.

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She suggested a 10-strong, all white, all middle class, all female group of MPs should seize control of the government by forming an “emergency cabinet” with the sole intention of thwarting the 2016 referendum result to leave the EU.

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott.Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott.
Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott.

It sounded as though she had picked a few of her favourite chums at Westminster to lead this coup d’état, including such luminaries as the Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, Labour’s Yvette Cooper and Anna Soubry, leader of Change UK, or whatever they are calling themselves this week.

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Men were excluded, of course, but there was also no room for any BME politicians and anyone who challenged the establishment orthodoxy on Brexit was naturally not considered.

Boris Johnson has said Britain will leave the EU by October 31.Boris Johnson has said Britain will leave the EU by October 31.
Boris Johnson has said Britain will leave the EU by October 31.

When the lack of diversity was pointed out to Ms Lucas, she spluttered that she had just chosen senior women from each party. But this didn’t wash for a minute. For example Diane Abbott – who was excluded – holds a far more senior role in the Labour party than Ms Cooper who was invited.

Another significant difference between them is one is black and the other white. Perhaps that unconscious racism that Prince Harry is so concerned about is showing its head here?

Either way Ms Lucas was eventually forced to apologise for “overlooking” women of colour. So she’ll survive with her woke credentials intact, although if a Conservative made the same mistake they would be hounded from office by the Twitter mob.

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That’s it as far as the racism goes, but what about the blatant sexism on show in this proposal?

Ms Lucas said she only wanted women to be included in her anti-Brexit putsch because “women tend to be less tribal, they tend to find it easier to establish trust more easily”.

Hold on a minute – she is suggesting here that your gender, and not your attributes as an individual, determines your behaviour. How is this different from saying women are temperamentally unsuited to certain tasks and should leave complicated things like politics and science to the men?

Or that women can’t read maps and men are incapable of loading the dishwasher? Aren’t these precisely the types of antediluvian stereotypes that feminists have been fighting against for decades? Sure, some women are less tribal, but some are definitely more so – er, just like men. It depends on the individual, not the sex.

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I honestly thought this particular battle had been won – that everyone now acknowledged that we should judge people by their character, behaviour and talents, and not by their gender.

But the fact that a so-called progressive, such as Ms Lucas, can openly promote such crass, old-fashioned sexism probably shows that we have a long, long way to go yet.

The irony here is that we are in the current situation regarding Brexit precisely because Remainers like Ms Lucas rejected all compromise and three times voted against Theresa May’s deal agreed with the EU. Indeed, by spurning Mrs May’s common sense, middle ground solution, Remainers proved themselves to be a very tribal lot – both men and women – and if we end up leaving the EU without a deal they will have only themselves to blame.

Instead of dreaming up crackpot fantasies to overthrow the Government, Remainers such as Ms Lucas would be better employed trying to work out why public opinion moved so decisively against EU membership.

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They keep saying that “the public has changed its mind” since the 2016 vote, but there is very little evidence to support this. Indeed a ComRes poll this week found that 44 per cent of those questioned agreed that the Prime Minister needs to deliver Brexit by any means, including suspending Parliament if necessary. Strip out the “don’t knows” and an incredible 54 per cent supported this proposition.

What Remainers have to understand is that they are not battling against Boris Johnson, or the Cabinet or the Government. They are fighting against the British people – and it is a fight they can never win.