Agenda item

Mayor's Comments

Minutes:

The Mayor, Councillor Makinson, welcomed everyone to this the third Face to Face meeting of the Council following the Covid 19 pandemic.

 

Before commencing the agenda, she was sure that everyone would want to join her in taking the opportunity to congratulate the England Football Team on their fantastic achievement in getting to the Euros Final a few weeks ago; especially to Barnsley’s own John Stones for his huge contribution during the tournament.  The Team hadn’t brought home the trophy, but they had certainly done everyone proud.

 

After all the excitement of the tournament she was, therefore, sickened to learn of the unacceptable racist posts aimed at a few members of the Team.  She would like to give praise to the whole of the England squad for showing fantastic support to their team mates over the past few weeks to denounce these acts of abuse by the racists who thought it was acceptable to post these comments.

 

Only last week, she had been contacted by Councillor Greenhough asking if today’s Council meeting would demonstrate solidarity by taking the knee.  She thanked Councillor Greenhough for his questions and wanting to raise awareness and demonstrate the Council’s stance on stopping racist abuse in Barnsley.  Given that the meeting was being held in the Civic, and many Members were on banked seating with little floor space, she felt it would be near on impossible to take the knee without it being a serious health and safety issue.

 

The Mayor did, however, think that now was an opportune time to raise awareness and highlight some of the work that the Council was doing here in Barnsley.

 

Last week saw the launch of a campaign to highlight ‘No Place for Hate in Barnsley’.  This had been circulated on social media platforms and the Council’s website, so she asked Members to keep an eye out for it.

 

This was just the start of what would be a longer-term piece of work with the Barnsley Safer Partnership Community Tolerance and Respect Sub-Group to focus on all types of hate and abuse.

 

The Council had also implemented internal measures to make sure that its own social media channels had a strong stance on stopping abuse online.  Members could read more about this in a report that had been submitted to Cabinet on the 14th July, 2021.

 

‘No Place for Hate in Barnsley’ wasn’t just a Council campaign.  To really make a difference, everyone needed to show a united stance against hate and abuse in the borough.  The Council was encouraging people to champion the campaign and to maximise every opportunity to get this message across and asking them to be part of this positive change in Barnsley by pledging their support.  The Mayor would ensure that further details were sent to all Members after the meeting on how they could pledge their support.

Councillor Greenhough stated that he had corresponded with the Mayor this week and he thanked her for her time.  He felt that this was a very important issue that everyone should be concerned about.

 

He commented on the great achievement of the England Football Team in reaching the Euro Finals.  This young team had done everyone proud with Yorkshire being well represented.  They had achieved more than most people had expected and did it with dignity.  It was hard to understand any criticism of the Team, but they had been criticised and, worse still, some were racially abused.  He hoped that everyone in the room this morning would have thought that this type of vile behaviour was in the past.  Racism appeared to have been given a new lease of life through social media and anyone in the public eye could be abused. 

 

Some of the young men received a mountain of abuse during and after the Euros yet they still ‘took the knee’ in silence to show that they would not bow down to this disgraceful behaviour.  This was a time when everyone needed to take this same stance against racism.  From Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics to the young men and women on the football pitch, they were calling everyone to consign racism to the history books.  Today, he would answer that call by taking the knee.

 

Councillor Kitching thanked the Mayor for giving Members the opportunity of raising this issue at the beginning of the meeting.  As all Members could tell, this was something about which Councillor Greenhough was truly passionate.

 

This racist abuse and other forms of hate speech and social media abuse happened every day but the recent Euro contest, with football being so high profile, had brought this to the fore and it was, therefore, right that Members raised the issue here today.  She wanted to confirm that the Mayor, the Leader and the Council as a whole had the Liberal Democrat Group full and unequivocal support for the ‘No Place for Hate’ campaign and they were particularly supportive of expanding this campaign to include all forms of abuse, hatred and marginalisation that the residents of Barnsley continued to suffer.

 

It was sometimes easy to think that these kinds of issues did not happen locally but they did.  An example of this here in Barnsley was the mosque whose members did not feel able to advertise their presence and who deliberately went out of their way to not draw attention to the building.  This was because in the past they had suffered vandalism and worshipers had been verbally abused on their way in and out of the building.  This was particularly sad as she felt that anyone of any faith attending their place of worship should be able to do so proudly and publicly without the risk of abuse.

 

Councillor Sir Steve Houghton CBE (Leader of the Council) stated that he fully supported the ‘No Place for Hate Campaign’.  This was not only about racism but was about all forms of prejudice and hate that people had to suffer.  He also supported those who took the knee but equally he supported those who didn’t and who wanted to fight prejudice and hate in other ways.

 

It was sad that these issues were still having to be discussed 20-30 from when they were first raised and were tired to be tackled.  There were may ways to tackle racism and there were people in this room who had been doing this for many years and sadly some had paid the price for that because they had fronted it up face to face.  One of his colleagues who was ill and not able to be here today had been put into hospital because he fought the racists in the street.  It was sad that this was continuing, and people should not be living in a world that did this.

 

A lot had already been said on this subject, but he wanted to just make two key points.  Firstly, there were some who would say they were not plying hate but who set the ground for those who did.  They did this by questioning the organisations honesty, integrity and motivation.  They questioned in public other people and Members of this Council (in some instances), honesty, integrity and motivation and that allowed those who wanted to ply hate to flourish.  There was, therefore, a responsibility for people to stop doing that as well as tackling acute racism at the same time.

 

The second point, which was probably more difficult, was that racism would not be defeated unless the divisions in society were tackled.  While ever there were communities set against each other, wherever there were massive differences in economic and social wellbeing, it would create a breeding ground for racism to occur.  What needed to occur was to settle, challenge and resolve those divisions.  Communities needed to find a common cause.  Working class people, working people or all colours, denominations, gender, sexuality, whatever it might be needed to come together to make a better life for everyone.  If someone thought another person was getting better than the other, that was when the racists and those with other prejudices moved in and tried to exploit the situation.

 

Racism must be tackled in its acutest form and it must be challenged every single day it was heard and seen.  However, the underlying causes had to be addressed too because if it wasn’t, the same debate and an attempt to resolve the same issues would be occurring in 20 years’ time.  It was important to work together to build a future for everyone.  This was the real way to tackle racism as well as fronting it up fac to face or individually or on social media or elsewhere.

 

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