I wrote an opinion piece the other day, surrounding the detention of David Miranda – the partner of The Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
There are always two sides to every story, with those including leading figures believing the stop under UK Anti-Terror Legislation was not right whilst the Police and Home Office saying it was.
Whatever turns out to be the truth and probably decided by the courts no doubt, this term ‘National Security‘ is banded about so much that it actually undermines National Security.
I mean, in my Employment Appeal Tribunal hearing this year Counsel for the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police told the High Court Judge (sitting at the employment court) that ‘I’ was a threat to National Security.
I mean, me?
I was a Counter Terrorism Detective with over a decade of police service in Manchester and London, whose only crime was challenging racial and sexual orientation discrimination within the workplace followed by the leaking of my private data to News Corp.
I must have forgotten the bit where racism, homophobia and data breaches by police officers came under National Security. A National Scandal, yes.
Most Britons want the police and security services to protect them, but not to the detriment of their liberty.
I was recruited into Special Branch, which wasn’t any easy task, to fight terrorism regardless of the fact I am a mixed-race gay Scouser – and because I stood up to discrimination, I then automatically became a threat.
I’m as much a threat to national security as my white British mother is, and she’s dead.
Part of my evidence to the UK Parliament Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry into Leadership and Standards in the Police is that the police leaders need to get their house in order, and get the service back to one which is ‘relatively’ regarded as being for the good by all the people it serves – not just the privileged few.
When you hear a statement by the Home Secretary’s Office that opponents of Miranda’s detention are ‘condoning terrorism’, it makes your blood boil. When was the last time they were on the anti-terrorism frontline?
Without sounding paranoid (that’s for another blog), I’m not naïve with the comment that was made at the Employment Appeal Tribunal that I am being monitored. In fact, my memoir Broken details how.
I’ve nothing to hide though, and they know it. I mean, they vetted me. They are just worried about the truth of my discriminatory challenges, which undermines their public relations spin. I have a duty to stop that. We all do.
I was subject of homophobia, and to counter this the Met places adverts like this only this week …
Gay people should be in the police, but equally, they should not suffer whilst they are serving.
As I type, I’m eating peanut m&m’s and have a bottle of Coke, but they probably already know this 😮
My sexuality has already been used against me, what next?
Whatever it is, I’m prepared.
I challenge wrongdoing, write and now make films about the things I am passionate about … race and sexual orientation discrimination, mental health, cancer, children, homelessness and privacy.
The latter which we all have a right to, including gay men.
I do all of this, without fear or favour.
I have a vested interest in making my country, this small island, the best it can be.
It’s future as a democracy depends on the little man, standing up and being counted. He too can still be loyal to the State. Those that cause Britain a detriment, are the ones that need to take a good look in the mirror.
Anyone can call themselves a British patriot, then act in a racist and/or homophobic way – which, is un-British.