Equality is an easy word to comprehend but sometimes not an easy word to live-by. Treating people equally should be something that is second nature but the truth is that we fail to do this in every day life. Many of us think we succeed in this but the reality is we only succeed in this to varying degrees.
On Saturday night Layla Moran tweeted out a story about how she’d once been charged with domestic abuse for slapping her then partner. The charges were subsequently dropped. You can read the full version of events in this embedded tweet.
Hi everyone. I have a story I want to share…. pic.twitter.com/iy9uKOCKau— Layla Moran (@LaylaMoran) March 23, 2019
Everyone can have their own opinions on what happened based on reading the above. I have mine and if I’m being 100% honest, I don’t think it is right or fair of me to air my own personal views on what I do think is a private matter. However I will blog about the response and the tone of the statement, which I think is fair game.
Firstly this statement went out at 6:52PM on a Saturday night after the People’s Vote March in London. If you are cynically going to bury what is clearly at best, embarrassing news then this is exactly when to do it. In the middle of the night is too brazen but people aren’t on social media as much on Saturday evening’s. Add to that the media are all over the Punch & Judy show that is the cabinet playing with our futures that the dealings of a Lib Dem MP is not uppermost in their minds.
Also she makes it very clear that this statement is in response to rumours that have been bandied about. So this is all about getting in front of a story. Clearly someone or some publisher had it and it was coming out. The MP for Oxford West & Abingdon did the right thing to address it head on, no question about that. However all the responses calling her brave are to be frank, disgusting. It isn’t brave to come out and admit to being a domestic abuser if the story is going to come out anyway.
It isn’t brave just to come out to the public and admit to your faults. If she’d said this years ago or if this Mea culpa had come out organically then it would garner more sympathy. For it to come about just because the story was coming out anyway is anything but brave or courageous, it is just trying to control the narrative.
Reading some of the tweets from prominent Lib Dems in response to her tweet embedded above just blows my mind. It is like she is being treated with kid gloves and I’m trying to work out why that is. Could it be because she was the most articulate and impressive woman currently in the position of MP within the party? Could it be because by coming out and addressing her faults, it shows she is human? Could it be because many people don’t truly understand domestic abuse or could it be because many believe domestic abuse is different when handed out by a woman instead of by a man?
I’ll address that last question first, if say this was Ed Davey (another potential leadership candidate) who tweeted out exactly the same story, would the responses have been the same? Hell no. There would be very loud calls coming from within the party membership to strip him of the whip and be kicked out of the party. We all know this and isn’t that just fucking hypocritical? Why should we treat two people differently just because they have contrasting sexual reproductive organs? Isn’t that the very definition of sexism?
Domestic abuse happens in this world and it is abhorrent to its core. Whether it is a man to a woman, a woman to a man, a man to a man, a woman to a woman, our perception of what is bad about hitting another person should not change.
Getting out in front of the story does show media savvy and the art of crisis management but brave, oh come on, give me fucking strength. We are all human and all flawed, every single one of us. Facing up to those flaws is part of humanity but doing so only when being strong-armed doesn’t show me much.
I’ve read the statement several times this morning and there is one little word missing, ‘sorry.’
It may seem like a trivial thing but Layla has to understand that she has let people down. The vast majority of survivors of domestic abuse don’t just move on with their lives. Richard may well of done and it may have been an isolated incident but for others it leaves deep psychological scaring that never goes away.
The statement itself comes across as a non apology apology and also comes across as victim-blaming. Saying the relationship was under stress and you felt threatened is not an excuse to ever hit somebody.
My disappointment with Layla is pretty severe but my anger is not. Being flawed isn’t anything new and recognising those said flaws isn’t a bad thing. However not once did she address her sorrow for hitting another person nor once did she say what she learnt from this incident and how she deals with losses of temper these days.
This should not completely derail her career. This one incident doesn’t mean that she’s not the most articulate and impressive woman currently earning their pay check as an MP for the Liberal Democrats. However whilst she’s placated many within the party, who are shamefully happy to sweep it under the carpet as it doesn’t fit with their narrative, the wider public rightly or wrongly expect Lib Dems to be squeaky clean. People are desperate not to vote LD and will find any reason not to do so. We saw in 2017 that Tim Farron’s position on gay sex in relation to it being a sin in the eyes of God cost the party plenty of votes from people who could’ve voted our way.
To get people to overcome the past nine years of Lib Dem dislike is tough and whilst it is patently unfair, the general public hold Lib Dems to a higher standard than those of Labour or the Tories. Sadly that is just the way it is and no amount of moaning about unreasonable that is, that is the reality. A potential leader who has admitted she slapped a partner in the heat of the moment will not play well out there.
So yes disappointment with her is flooding through my veins and I can to some degree understand this should be a private matter. People don’t deserve to know about every little detail in their elected officials personals lives. Yet just because criminal charges were dropped doesn’t alter the fact the incident happened.
As a party who purports to be on the side of domestic abuse victims, letting this slide doesn’t seem to send out the right message. Congratulating her and telling her how brave she is though takes it to another level for me. I saw the statement for the first time 14 hours ago and I’m still shaking my head at some of the replies.
If I were on the outside looking in, I’d say that the Lib Dems are against domestic abuse against men but women who partake in it should be applauded for being honest and brave about it. Just re-read that sentence and if it doesn’t blow your mind then I wonder whether your mind is open at all.
Lib Dems shouldn’t stand for double standards but in this instance, it seems like we do.
There are no winners from this revelation, only more reasons to not vote Lib Dem. What a tough start to the week…
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