Last week’s seminar at the Frontline Club asked a very pertinent question of the Occupy London movement pitched outside St. Paul’s. What do you want? I was surprised to see from the show of journalistic hands that the majority in the room did not know exactly what the protesters are camped out for, though, given the lineup of speakers included accountant turned campaigner Richard Murphy and Julian Assange, fresh from court after losing his extradition appeal earlier that day, it was less surprising that the majority supported their broad aims.

Self-confessed occupy sceptic, Harry Cole, one of only two voices of dissent on the panel, accused the protesters of possessing an overwhelming mismatch of ideas.

“If you’ve got a movement that is calling for a realignment of capitalism, having speeches about climate change and Kurds within the space of 10 minutes, it’s not working,” Cole said.

More baffling opposition came from Daniel Ben-Ami, who described himself as of the left, but lost me when he called the protesters a deeply conservative movement loved by the establishment.

It fell to Murphy to give the most passionate defence of the movement, offering a rare charisma I had thought was bred out of accountants at playschool.

“The message from Occupy is you guys have got it wrong,” Murphy said. “After 30 years of neo-liberalism, which has actually suited both left and right in many ways, we end up with a social movement which is actually saying hang on a minute, what this is about is creating a geography of dissent. A space where people can say we are looking for alternatives ideas because our right to dissent, our right to even think has been crushed.”

“Yes it’s messy, but so is reality,” Murphy added.

Assange, confessing he had “had a bit of a busy day”, played up the importance of new forms of media and criticised the role of the mainstream press as the reason movements like Occupy were not in place five years ago.

“We now have ways to bypass the mainstream press,” said Assange, whose own means of bypassing the mainstream press, Wikileaks, has already helped topple governments, “pouring oil on the fire” that fuelled the Arab Spring.

From the speeches, particularly that of activist Naomi Colvin, and from contributions from the floor, it was clear that Occupy, despite the disparate groups that came together to form it, knows what it wants. A stand against cuts and tax avoidance and for the reform of a broken capitalism; a stand for the world’s poorest against the excesses of the world’s richest.

After my lunch breaks spent at the camp and marching on Westminster, swapping caps between journalist and protester, I find it hard to see why anyone could accuse the movement, messy and messianic as it is, of not knowing what it wants. They are persistent in their cause and assured of their politics – turning on, tuning in and dropping out in true radical spirit – and in that I can only wholeheartedly support them.

Equally, when Colvin talked of government not working in the interests of the general population and of her concern with financial services out of control, I found it hard to disagree. What worries me slightly, however, is the tendency of some protesters to link the movement to the Arab Spring.

“It’s one manifestation of a global emancipation movement that began with Egypt and Tunisia,” said Colvin.

Those make for stirring words, powerful, pretty, but also pretentious. It’s a pretention exemplified for all to see in the sign sitting opposite St. Paul’s reading ‘Tahrir Square EC4M’.

I can see what Occupy is trying to do and in showing solidarity with the people of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and the millions oppressed across the Arab world yearning for freedom from the yoke of dictatorship, they have a noble cause.

But where are the bullets and the cavalry charges? Where are the arrests, the beatings and the killings? I do not envy the Occupy protesters shivering in tents towards Christmas. But Paternoster Square is not Tahrir Square and they are not putting their lives on the line trying to get into it. I’m sure no one in the camp means to belittle the struggle for democracy in the Middle East, or lay claim to a struggle as dangerous, but as destructive and exploitative as modern capitalism is, as immiserating as its failings have been for the most vulnerable people in this country, the Arabs paid in blood for their emancipation, while the St. Paul’s protesters have been given a protected space by state and church – at least until the new year – in which to air their rightful grievances. To forget that, or to elevate a lengthy unseasonal politically charged festival to the status of a fundamental struggle against a sovereign that is trying to destroy you for speaking out against it, smacks of pretention.

That said, what they have done, in creating a space for discussion and democracy, linked with movements across the world, with a clear sense of what they are for and who they are against, is create a powerful symbol that politicians cannot afford to ignore.

As Sun Tzu famously wrote, “if know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles”. I suspect there will be more than a hundred battles ahead. Capitalism will not be over by Christmas and the camp may be gone by Easter. But the Occupy movement has tapped into a mood that stretches much further than a few hundred tents outside a famous London landmark. And, if indeed they do this once speak for the 99%, then that mood is not going away anytime soon.

The government couldn’t move him. In the end only cancer could. A symbol of peace and freedom, an icon of the anti-war movement and a picture of stalwart self-sacrifice for the cause of right.

Regardless of what anyone on the left thought of his tactics, I don’t think anyone could argue that he gave anything less than all of himself to ideals so many of us share. For all of us who struggle to find time to give a Saturday afternoon to protest, Brian Haw, who spent ten years camped outside the seat of power of a bankrupt ex-empire still bent on playing policeman to the world showing them the visceral evidence in bloody still-frames of all they were doing wrong, should stand as an inspiration.

While the evangelical Christian beliefs of some turned them into neo-conservative warmongers, Haw’s told him to stand up for peace and human life.

He fought a good fight, he finished his course, he kept the faith.

A version of this article was first published in International Tax Review

Bongo players, Robin Hood, men dressed as drag dinner ladies and Mrs Doyle from Father Ted proclaiming the only tea she does not like is poverty greeted activists as they filed into Westminster Central Hall to lobby their MPs. But behind the fun and frolics of Tea Time for Change, organised by seven of the UK’s leading development agencies, was a serious message. The government must act to shore up aid, crack down on tax avoidance and push for a Robin Hood tax on financial transactions to help the world’s poorest people.

Tax justice

“It’s a scandal every day that 850 million people are going hungry,” said Chris Bain, director of CAFOD, which helped organise the event. “But aid alone won’t enable us to end global poverty. Developing countries need sustainability.”

It is for this reason that tax was such a central focus of the event, which attracted 131 MPs, and activists welcomed International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell’s positive words on the subject.

“Everyone should pay their taxes due,” said Mitchell. “We champion transparency.”

Mitchell told the audience that the government is working in Rwanda and the occupied Palestinian territories to help them build the capacity necessary to ensure companies are not avoiding taxes.

Mitchell’s opposition counterpart, Harriet Harman, was even more forceful in talking about the role of multinational companies in development, pointing out that developing countries lose more through tax avoidance than they receive in aid.

“Many developing countries are rich in natural resources – in oil, diamonds, and precious metals – but their people go hungry,” Harman said. “Businesses can play a major part in helping development. But they can also be an ugly force for exploitation – the unacceptable face of global capitalism.”

Harman urged the government to act to ensure companies play their part in development and backed the Publish what you Pay campaign.

“We want the government to require companies to show what they pay in the developing world – country by country,” said Harman. “So that the world can see whether the relationship between a multibillion dollar multinational and a poor country is fair. And so that the people in that country can see that too – and hold their leaders to account.”

Chris Jordan, an economic justice campaigner at ActionAid, one of the charities behind the event, welcomed the government accepting the principle of transparency in the extractive sector, but argued that it should be wider.

“The government needs to take tangible steps before the G20, there’s no reason why transparency shouldn’t apply to all sectors,” Jordan told International Tax Review.

Financial transactions tax

Mitchell was positive on the possibility of a FTT and he stressed that using revenue from a new tax to finance development goals would not replace Britain’s commitment to spending 0.7% of its national income on aid.

“The Treasury is warm to this approach and it is looking at means to raise additional income,” Mitchell said, pointing to the report Bill Gates is preparing for French President Nicolas Sarkozy on financing for development. “We are looking at all the ways.”

Harman also supported taxing the financial sector to fund development.

“We back the demand that within Europe, in the G8 and in the G20, the Prime Minister leads on how we make the financial sector play its part in extra finance for development to tackle global poverty and climate change,” said Harman.

Campaigners were encouraged by the arguments heard from the government and the opposition.

“We welcome that the government is warming to a Robin Hood tax,” said Jordan. “We want to see those warm words turned into a commitment. Lots of the technical work has already been done, there’s no reason to delay.”

The benefits of a FTT for development, given its ability to raise large amounts of revenue with a tiny rate because of the breadth of the tax base, are obvious. So too are the difficulties. The European Commission, while giving its support to the FTT, said that it is something that needs to be implemented on a global level.

“It’s going to be most effective if it’s international, but there’s no reason why countries can’t go it alone,” said Jordan. “The concept is feasible, we already have a share transactions tax in the UK.”

The mood on the day was upbeat, with more than 1000 activists clearly excited to be drinking tea with their MPs and talking to them about tax and development. And despite the levity of the event, personified by Spitting Image comedian Jan Ravens impersonations of Sarah Palin – “When I heard there was a tea party I just had to come” – no one was in any doubt as to the gravity of the issues as the charities prepare to step up their campaign ahead of the G20 meeting in November.

“I want to share an African proverb because to me it sums up why you are here,” said Adwoa Kwateng-Kluvitse, country director for ActionAid Ghana. “When spiders webs unite they can tie up a lion.”

When you’re a member of a small party to the left of Labour, elections rarely give you much to cheer. Thankfully, the Greens (in England at least) have provided a somewhat more positive narrative for those of us who believe the Labour party’s dominance over the progressive vote is a dangerous thing.

Reading some of the party material before the election, it sounded as though the Greens were bracing for a setback in Brighton & Hove after Caroline Lucas’s breakthrough result, and losing council seats to a resurgent Labour party would have been very uncomfortable. Thankfully, they held all their seats and won ten more to become the largest party on the council.

Over at Socialist Unity, Andy Player has some good analysis of the challenges the party will now face, and the hope that those to the left of Labour might see in a rising Green Party.

After defending 13 seats and winning 10 new ones, the Green party now has the largest group on Brighton & Hove city council. The Tories dropped from 26 to 18, Labour remained on 13 and the Lib Dems were wiped off the map.

Following on from the remarkable General Election victory a year ago to the day, the Greens have made astonishing progress at a time when votes for smaller parties seems to be diminishing.

In many central Brighton seats the Greens had already replaced Labour as the progressive choice. The results in these wards were cemented by campaigning last year and large majorities increased on Thursday.

The push continued into the Labour suburbs with one seat being turned into three in Preston Park and two seats out of three taken in Hollingdean and Stanmer – with Labour deputy leader Pat Hawkes ousted.

Seats were taken from the Tories in previous Tory / Labour marginals like Goldsmid, but the shock results were in two ‘safe’ Tory wards – Central Hove and Withdean – where a Green candidate came from nowhere to top the poll.

The Greens’ relentless progress in Brighton & Hove should be of enormous interest to those on the left who believe that electoral politics play a part in the fight for a better world.

The Green party won their first council seat in 1996, adding two, then another three, and then another six at subsequent elections, plus a first Hove councillor in a by-election the year before Caroline Lucas won in Brighton Pavilion.

One lesson for the left is that the Greens in Brighton & Hove have achieved electoral success through consistent hard work. They have also built a significant layer of support amongst trade unionists and campaigners with their swift and unambiguous backing of the right causes.

The Greens in Brighton & Hove have a reputation for being honest, active and progressive. That is a breath of fresh air for many voters in this city.

Hard work and the right principles are one thing, but the crucial factor in surviving the current electoral squeeze of smaller parties is that voters believe the Greens can win. After last year’s result, that belief has mushroomed.

The Green party have now replaced Labour in most of their traditional areas and have become the opposition party in most Tory wards. Are we seeing the crumbling of Labourism – the Holy Grail for left-of-Labour electoral parties?

Some big challenges face the Brighton & Hove Green party councillors and the local party membership. The Green platform in these elections was to oppose cuts to services and to protect jobs. Taking over the council purse-strings in a time of savage cuts is not good timing for a progressive party, yet it is what the electorate demanded.

Tories, Labour and many on the left will be rubbing their hands and waiting for the new Green administration to ‘sell out’. To deliver on the local party’s manifesto is not going to be easy. But our local party has not got to where it is by being strategically naïve, vain or politically cowardly. We may have been handed the poisoned chalice, but no-one is forcing us to drink it.

“Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!” as Saint Benedict of Nursia once said.

On the same day that David Cameron and arch-Blairite former Home Secretary, John Reid, shared a platform to denounce AV, the Evening Standard came out against voting reform, patronising the electorate by basing its flimsy argument on the crazy notion that AV is so much harder to understand. I wonder what’s so hard to understand about ranking candidates in order of preference. Most semi-intelligent people have learnt how to count to five by the time they reach 18. Then again, perhaps the Tories implicitly accept that right wing voters are inherently stupid and that’s why they’re so scared of electoral reform. It might also explain why the BNP are equally opposed to AV.

Meanwhile, with a few honourable exceptions, the Greens are out in force campaigning for AV. As Waveney Councillor Graham Elliott reports:

In Waveney I know several people who voted for their THIRD choice candidate in the 2010 general election in an attempt to keep the Conservatives out. They knew their first choice (Green) would not win and they also knew that the Lib Dems (their second choice) were weak in Waveney and the contest was really a two-horse race between Labour and the Conservatives. They therefore voted Labour which was their third choice. Under AV they would have been able to vote 1 for Green, 2 for Lib Dem and 3 for Labour with no increased risk of letting the Tories in. This is just one specific example to illustrate why the current system doesn’t work. Far too many people vote to keep a party out rather than vote for they believe in. AV will allow a more honest expression of voters values.

From my time campaigning with Elliott, back when I used to live in Suffolk, I’ve come to realise that he’s one of those people whom if they’re on your side, you’re probably on the right one. And if it’s a choice between the Greens, Ed Miliband and the Lib Dems vs. The Tories, John Reid, Nick Griffin and the Evening Standard, I think it becomes clear which side has the moral highground.

Of course, as Reid’s appearance with Cameron shows, the debate does cross party lines. But, increasingly it seems, it is running along ideological ones. With a few obvious exceptions, the left are falling behind AV and the right are coming out against it. No one wants to have Nick Clegg on their team, I admit, he’s the spotty fat geek with asthma we got lumbered with because nobody picked him. But set him aside for now. The referendum isn’t about kicking Clegg – we can wedgie him in the changing rooms come the next election – this is about setting the direction of our democracy.

We can go forward or we can stand still forever. It’s time for those on the left who, for whatever genuine and principled reasons they have, have come out against AV, to look around them and see who’s playing for their team and what their agenda is. It’s time for them to ask themselves, whose side are they on?

We all know that the Alternative Vote isn’t the panacea. It’s not going to cure all the ills of our democracy. Only true proportional representation can do that. But since it’s the best we have on offer, it deserves fair consideration on its own merits.

I support AV because I believe that in a democracy, I have the right and the responsibility to vote for who I want to run the country, not who I think would be least bad out of the devil and the deep blue Tories. Under AV there is no wasted vote, no ridiculous need to squander my democratic right on tactics, no dyed pink in the wool New Labourites telling me that if I vote Green or Respect or whatever I believe is best for this country and the world, I’m letting the Tories in through the back door.

The last eleven months of Tory-Lib Dem cuts and fees have already left an unpleasant taste at the back of my mouth. But a decade of Blair’s neoconservative wars hardly made me feel much better. Like so many people I know, I marched against the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. We’d campaign against Blair for five years, shouting from the streets and rooftops, across blogs and broadsheets, but come polling day, so many of them would swallow that sick and stick their cross next to New Labour for fear of the Tories getting in. As George Monbiot told me before the last election, “As much as I dislike and am disgusted with the Tories, I think you have to vote for what you think is right. And if you cling onto something bad for fear of something worse, no one will end up with the government they want.” I will always vote for what I think is right. Under AV, I can do that safe from the fear of something worse. A two party state, after all, is only twice as good as a dictatorship, and I refuse to accept a system that allows me the choice between one of two evils.

This is exactly why Reuben was wrong to argue that AV should be voted down as the most extremist-proof electoral system. True, the BNP are voting against it, which in itself might be enough to make any sensible progressive support it, but there are more compelling reasons. What Reuben has done is mistake radical parties for parties that are unpalatable to the majority, fascists for example, who may well lose out under AV because they are less likely to be able to attract second preference votes from the mainstream, as Rupert Read argues. As Martin Kettle writes, however, the German experience suggests parties like the Greens could do very well out of AV. This is precisely because the progressive majority we hear so much about in this country will no longer feel that a vote for their conscience is a wasted one.

Some radical have argued that AV will constrain extremist viewpoints because it will encourage parties to attract the widest possible range of voters to scoop up their second and third preferences. They’re right to argue that AV is about coalition building, but I see it not as a constraining force, but an enabling one. As Labour MP Alison McGovern explained to me, this process of pre-election coalition building will naturally benefit the UK’s progressive majority. After all, Labour can look to pick up support from the Greens, the Lib Dems and other left of centre parties. In doing so, it will mean the party, already on a leftwards tilt, will be forced to abandon the banal middle ground, get off the fence and start reaching out to progressives with policies that will appeal to them. Who will the Tories reach out to? UKIP? Perhaps, but go too far down the Europhobic line and they risk falling back into their familiar patterns of disastrous infighting. The BNP? I don’t think so.

Some on the left have argued that the best reason to vote against AV is to deal a blow to the Lib Dems and cripple the coalition’s weak link. Hate Nick Clegg, vote against AV. Hang on, isn’t David Cameron doing the same thing? Don’t we hate him even more? I think we need to be more sensible in picking both our enemies and our battles. The Lib Dems may be the weaker part of the coalition, but it won’t come apart if AV fails, the Tories have thrown them enough bones and there’s no where else for them to go. It might ruffle a few backbench feathers, it might irk the rank and file, but the Parliamentary Lib Dems will stay behind the coalition because they’ve lost their clothes and the wilderness is too cold without them. AV, on the other hand, will benefit genuine progressive reformers. It is childish to put short term political gripes that we all share ahead of long-term democratic reform. Nick Clegg deserves to be the punchbag he wishes he weren’t. He deserves every expletive, every hate-filled column inch, every ounce of fight we can possibly bring to him, but the future of our democratic system is not the right battle.

And let’s not forget, this really is about the future of our democratic system. AV is far from perfect. It’s a sop, another Tory bone, a limp excuse for listening to the people and above all, it’s not proportional representation. But it’s all we’ve got for the moment. We can either say yes to meagre change, or stick with what we’ve got. If we vote down this reform, we will derail all attempts for genuine democratic reform for decades to come. Our opponents will say ‘look, no one wanted AV, there’s no demand for PR’. And the debate will die there for another generation. If we vote to pass AV, we have a platform. We have an argument to say this is just the beginning, we want more and we’ll have the power of a referendum behind us.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. But when Honorious saw the Visigoths coming over the hill and decided to do nothing, it was sacked much more quickly.

That is why I’m voting for AV on May 5.

I’m sure your thoughts are with Japan. If not, read now. The death count is unbearable, the initial Hollywood-style video footage has become merely a prelude to the suffering which is happening in its wake.

Reactor explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi plant

In Haiti last year, the earthquake brought with it artificial disasters: US imperialism. the squabbling cash divisions of NGOs, everything except real Haitian government. Now in Japan the natural, unchangeable series of events have been worsened by the Nuclear material artificially created and left in its path. The exploding reactors are not merely a part of the natural disaster, they are an avoidable exacerbation of suffering.

A friend of mine said to me earlier today “It’s times like this that I wish I hadn’t studied physics at University.” Most of us don’t understand what the effects to a nuclear disaster in Japan would be, but many who do are saying that this is worse than the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago.

Nuclear power and weapons have not gone away, we have merely taken them out of public thought. And the horrors of nuclear material remain. This is the kind of disaster which has made so many of us oppose nuclear power even in the face of climate change, even in the face of those citing the clean, safe, responsible nature of modern nuclear technology. It’s only purpose is to secure short term profit, never mind the human cost it has levied for decades in Japan, Russia and beyond. It isn’t clean, and it isn’t safe.

If any good can come out of this disaster, maybe it is that we can finally end the absurd calls for increased nuclear power, and turn our backs on its foul technology, and overturn a politics which puts short-term profit over life itself.

Cameron said: “I simply don’t understand how you can’t understand how democracies have a right to defend themselves. I would have thought this argument is particularly powerful right here in Kuwait which, 20 years ago, was invaded by a thuggish bullying neighbour who disrespected your sovereignty, invaded your country and destroyed parts of your capital city.

He added: “Are we honestly saying that for all time, forever and a day, that countries like Kuwait have to manufacture and maintain every single part of their own defences? I think very few people considering that argument for any time would give it any consideration at all.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. No one – no one – who’s criticising Cameron for taking a trip to the Middle East to talk up democracy in between visiting arms fairs is saying democracies shouldn’t be allowed to buy weapons to defend themselves. That would be stupid. The idea that nice cuddly democratic governments might still need to buy weapons from time to time is entirely reasonable. But as an adequate response to the criticism at hand Cameron’s statement falls short so badly it’s hard to know where to even begin.

First, isn’t it a teensy bit of a stretch to imply – as Cameron seems to – that Saddam Hussein still constitutes a threat to Kuwait’s sovereignty? I don’t think even Genghis Khan managed to conquer anywhere from beyond the grave.

Second, Kuwait’s a democracy now? Oh dear. The Economist’s Intelligence Unit’s only ranked it 114^th out of 162 countries for political freedoms, and classified it as an authoritarian regime. Boy, are they going to feel stupid when they learn that all that ‘research’ and ‘studying’ they did was a waste of time. A country where peaceful political meetings are violently broken up by riot police is clearly exactly the kind of place we want to be selling riot shields to.

This is what democracy looks like. Apparently. Image - TTC Press Images/flickr

Third – and this is so obvious it really shouldn’t need pointing out – it might have escaped Cameron’s notice, but Kuwait’s not the only sodding country in the Middle East. We’ve sold tear gas to Gaddafi’s Libya, Land Rovers and Armoured Personnel Carriers to Saudi Arabia, combat helicopters to Algeria…the list goes on. At this point I almost feel it’s insulting all of our intelligence to point out that none of these regimes are in the least bit democratic, but Cameron seems not to be aware of it, so it seems worth spelling out.

All in all, it’s hard to see how Cameron’s statement could have been less convincing. It’s as if someone had a go at him for running over a small child while five pints over the limit and he came out with a spiel about the vital role cars play in meeting our travel needs in modern society. I know politicians have a habit of being evasive when faced with awkward questions, but it’s kind of galling to see it done so brazenly.

I swore I’d never write about tax in my private life, but given tax avoidance kills 1,000 children in the developing world every day since these countries lose more through multinational corporations shifting taxable profits abroad than they receive in aid, I feel the need to post this very important press release I received from Christian Aid today.

Tuesday 8 February 2011

G20 MUST END TAX HAVEN SECRECY, CAMPAIGNERS TELL SARKOZY

French President Nicolas Sarkozy faces a global campaign demanding that the G20 commits to ending tax haven secrecy when it meets in Cannes, France later this year.

Organisations behind the campaign, which was launched at the World Social Forum in Dakar today, include Christian Aid, ActionAid, Tax Justice Network Africa and Inspiraction (Spain).

By visiting the websites of participating agencies, those wanting to add their voices will be able to email President Sarkozy, who is this year’s G20 host, as well as other G20  leaders, demanding that effective action to end tax haven secrecy is firmly on the G20 agenda.

‘We hope many thousands of campaigners will demand an end to the huge suffering which tax haven secrecy currently causes, especially in developing countries,’ said Dr David McNair, Senior Economic Justice Adviser at Christian Aid.

‘G20 countries between them have the power to force tax havens to stop keeping the secrets of people and companies who dodge tax, pay or receive bribes and launder money.’

Tax dodging by some unscrupulous companies operating internationally costs developing countries more than they receive in aid. Christian Aid estimates this to be around US$160bn each year – money which should be funding schools, hospitals and other vital public services.

Chris Jordan, Tax Justice Campaigner at ActionAid, said: ‘Removing the secrecy havens offer would make tax dodging dramatically more difficult and enable governments in poorer countries to determine just how much they are losing by way of tax revenues, and take the appropriate action.’

Visitors to www.endtaxhavensecrecy.org will be able to send the following message to Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron and Nick Clegg:

‘Please take effective action on tax haven secrecy at the G20 in November 2011.

‘Global tax losses amount to over a hundred billion dollars per year at a time when the global financial crisis has prompted severe cuts in states’ budgets around the world.

‘Developing countries lose more to tax dodging each year than they receive in aid.

‘The G20 nations must take action now to end this injustice by agreeing on measures to end tax haven secrecy.

‘I call upon you to show global leadership in 2011.’

It’s safe to say I would rather saw my own arm off than spend an evening at a One Direction gig. So my sympathy for the ‘hordes’ of teenage girls who not only have to struggle on a daily basis with their crippling lack of musical taste but who were also reportedly denied entry to the performance by said boy ‘band’ at G-A-Y on Saturday night (on the grounds that said girls were, y’know, straight) was always going to be somewhat limited, regardless of the actual rights and wrongs of the issue. But even putting my musical prejudices aside, G-A-Y promoter Jeremy Joseph is in the right on this.

Image: purpaboo/flickr

Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is against the law, of course, as duly reinforced by yesterday’s court judgement against the B&B owners who got all hot and bothered (interpret that as you choose) at the thought of all the sinful things two men who were sharing a bed could get up to. And it has to be admitted that this might put gay clubs in a slightly tricky position, since their whole raison d’être is to be places where LGBT people go to meet one another (and let’s be frank, probably hook up, since that seems to be the point of most clubs).

I’m not really interested in focusing on the law on this as it currently exists; gay clubs seem to have functioned perfectly well thus far without attracting any Equality and Human Rights Commission-sponsored lawsuits, and I doubt that’s going to change any time soon. True, there are vast legions of assorted morons who love to point to the isolated and insignificant instances of discrimination against straight middle-class white men as evidence that they’re victims too (and equality’s all very well but these days it’s all gone too far and did you hear about that terrible Winterval business?), but they’re probably too busy working themselves into a lather over whatever the Express is telling them to hate this week to be a problem. Nor am I getting into the vexed question of precisely how the door staff at gay clubs judge would-be revellers’ sexual orientation – though admittedly it does seem like that can be a pretty unpleasant experience, as Jack Cullen’s Guardian post above makes clear. No, it’s the ethics of the act of discrimination itself that interest me. How is Jeremy Joseph’s decision to exclude non-LGBT One Direction fans from G-A-Y different from Peter and Hazel Bull’s aversion to man-love in their B&B?

I don’t think it’s sufficient just to argue that being barred from a club for being straight is a trivial sort of discrimination. Aside from anything else, not being allowed to share a bed with your partner for a night or two isn’t that terrible an ordeal in itself either. The relevant point, I think, is pretty simple. Straight devotees of One Direction aren’t a particularly marginalised or oppressed group in society, while homophobia, despite the massive improvement in attitudes and legal rights over the past decade and a half or so, is still very much with us. It’s easy to see why cases like the killings of Jody Dobrowski and Ian Baynham could make some LGBT people wary of being open about their sexuality in their day-to-day lives, and gay clubs can to some extent act as safe spaces to allow them to be themselves.

But even if you’re convinced by that, surely (I hear you cry) you couldn’t have anti-discrimination laws which allow some clubs to refuse entrance to straight people, but not B&B owners to refuse a double room to gay people? But why not? It’s already perfectly legal for rape crisis centres and women’s refuges to specify in recruitment ads that their support workers have to be female. Sure, gay clubs aren’t offering quite as vital a service as rape crisis centres do, but the principle’s pretty similar. Society is better off with gay clubs than without them, and without some means of ensuring that their clientele is mainly LGBT, they would cease to function as gay clubs. B&Bs, on the other hand, don’t cease to function as B&Bs if same-sex couples patronise them and choose to share beds, and any Christians who run those B&Bs don’t cease to be Christians if they permit it.

It’s important to emphasise that this categorically isn’t a libertarian argument; I don’t think gay clubs should be allowed to have discriminatory admissions policies just because they’re private businesses, I think they should be allowed to do so because it’s beneficial for society to have safe spaces for LGBT people. And the right to a place where you can associate with like-minded people and be yourself certainly needn’t just apply to the LGBT community; if the Bulls wanted to exclude gay couples from a prayer meeting they were holding, they’d be perfectly entitled to do so. But that’s a very different proposition from running a B&B. If B&Bs ever start to be considered safe spaces for minorities, that would be a different matter.