Campaign Against Political Correctness

The Campaign Against Political Correctness was a lobby group[1] in the United Kingdom created to oppose what its founders described as political correctness.

The Campaign Against Political Correctness logo

Aims

The campaign was founded by John and Laura Midgley in 2004.[2]

The campaign had the political support of MP Philip Davies[1] and his father, controversial and short-tenured Mayor of Doncaster, Peter Davies who ended up being disciplined by the council for breaching its code of conduct by failing to declare his membership of the group.[3] As of October 2020, Laura Midgley holds a Parliamentary pass sponsored by Philip Davies in a secretarial or research capacity, which suggests she is in his employ.[4]

Criticism

Paul Owen and Matthew Holehouse in The Guardian and Andrew Hough in The Daily Telegraph criticised the campaign when it was revealed that Philip Davies had sent 19 letters to Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in which he asked some "extraordinary" questions relating to race and sex discrimination.[1][5] Reportedly, one letter asked: "Is it offensive to black up or not, particularly if you are impersonating a black person?" Davies enquires: "why it is so offensive to black up your face, as I have never understood this", this led some commentators to suggest that he was "lobbying for 'blacking up'"[6] He also asked whether it was racist for a policeman to refer to a BMW as "black man's wheels" and whether the Metropolitan Black Police Association breaches discrimination law by restricting its membership to black people, an argument recently used by the British National Party in an unsuccessful attempt to maintain its white-only membership policy.[1]

Current status

Since 2014, the website has only been available in archive versions and the last news story on its news page is dated to June 2011.[7]

References
  1. Paul Owen (18 December 2009). "Philip Davies MP bombarded watchdog in 'political correctness' campaign". The Guardian. London.
  2. The first mention in the national press was in a letter titled "Tory proposal to review effects of Human Rights Act" in The Times, 26 August 2004, p. 25.
  3. Kessen, Dabid (8 October 2010). "Mayor's code of conduct breach". The Star. Retrieved 31 October 2010.
  4. "House of Commons - Register Of Interests Of Members' Secretaries And Research Assistants as at 15 October 2020: Coutinho, C to Greenwood, M". publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  5. Andrew Hough (19 December 2009). "Philip Davies: Tory MP 'never understood' why blacking-up was offensive". The Daily Telegraph (London).
  6. Helen Nugent (19 December 2009). "Conservative MP lobbies for 'blacking up'". The Times. London.
  7. "Latest News". Campaign Against Political Correctness. Archived from the original on 10 February 2014. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
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