Press Release
3rd October 2003
Opponents of Antisocial Behaviour Laws
“Neds’ Champions”
Politicians who oppose the Scottish
Executive’s tough action on antisocial behaviour are letting
their communities down, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Duncan
McNeil, has told the Scottish Parliament.
Speaking in a wide-ranging debate on antisocial
behaviour, Mr McNeil angrily branded opposition members who put
“political correctness before public safety” as the
“neds’ champions and the bams’ buddies.”
He said MSPs
such as the Scottish Socialists Party’s Colin Fox had denied
their “community a voice” by toeing “the party
line” and opposing the crackdown.
“Colin
Fox,” he continued, “put political correctness before
public safety and he showed us the SSP's true colours as the
neds' champions and the bams' buddies. The SSP has
turned its back on every decent, hard-working family and young
person in Scotland, to spread the myth — no doubt grown in
some organic coffee shop — that antisocial behaviour is a
menace that politicians have somehow manufactured for electoral
purposes. That denies victims their experiences and it adds
insult to injury.”
Mr McNeil then
rounded on the SNP’s Stewart Stevenson, who called for a
debate on “What is antisocial behaviour?” and the Green
Party’s Patrick Harvie, who suggested that fear of crime and
antisocial behaviour came from watching too much television.
“I say to
Stewart Stevenson that there is no debate in Greenock about what
is or is not antisocial behaviour. Anyone who has ever
experienced it knows what it is. It is the repeated
smashing of an elderly constituent's windows just because he did
his civic duty and testified in court. It is the gang
violence that results in young people being unable to use their
own community hall.
“It is
not all in their minds. It is not all on the telly. And
they are certainly not faking it to get me a few more
votes.”
The reality,
Mr McNeil said, was set out in the study he had carried out in
Greenock and Inverclyde over the summer as part of his submission
to the consultation on the forthcoming antisocial behaviour bill.
“Ninety
three per cent said that it is very important for the Executive
to bring forward new antisocial behaviour laws. Only 7 per
cent did not want electronic tagging extended to under-16s. When
asked if parents should take more responsibility for their
children, 86 per cent agreed strongly, 14 per cent agreed, none
disagreed, none disagreed strongly and not a single person did
not know.
“That is
the real story. That is what our communities are saying to
us. It is our duty as elected representatives to act.”
Mr McNeil also said the SNP’s claim that the
Executive was demonising all young people had “a serious
contradiction at its heart.”
“We all
agree, I think, that it is a small minority of young people who
cause a disproportionate amount of damage to their communities. We
also agree that young people are the biggest victims of that sort
of crime. So how can SNP members paint our determination to
crack down on bad behaviour as a ‘demonisation of young
people’?
“Do we
demonise all men when we tackle domestic violence? Do we
demonise all Christians when we tackle sectarianism? Of
course we do not.”
He concluded:
“We have
listened too long to Officialdom. Well, no more. Let
us listen to the people who know what they are talking about. As
the Minister for Communities considers her response to the
consultation, I ask her to examine closely what people with
first-hand experience of antisocial behaviour are saying, rather
than the thoughts of the apologists who just read, write and talk
about it.”
ENDS
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