THE exam results fiasco is just the latest episode in the Government’s ludicrous virus response. Parents, pupils and many others are up in arms about Gavin Williamson’s failure to get it right, but can they honestly say they’re surprised?
In May this year, after weeks of watching the British Government stealing the freedoms and liberties of its citizens, I decided to launch a legal challenge to the lockdown measures. Through a judicial review, I sought to question whether the lockdown contravenes the European Convention of Human Rights, which covers the rights to liberty, family life, education and property.
Three months on and while we await a date for our appeal in the High Court, the arguments for our legal challenge grow stronger, a key pillar being the unforgivable impact lockdown has had on the education of our children.
Gavin Williamson and the Department for Education have had since March to get their ducks in a row. Tens of thousands of teenagers have been trying to conduct their learning outside the structured classroom environment they need simply because the Government was pressured by the calculating teaching unions to close schools.
Now we are really beginning to see the mess their disastrous sequence of poor decisions, U-turns and delays have caused. The nation’s children have been traumatised and goodness knows what long-term mental health effects they will suffer from this farce. If the Department for Education was one of my businesses, I would call a meeting, sack the lot of them for gross incompetence and cease trading on the spot. But they haven’t given me the keys to the shop just yet.
As if the damage done isn’t enough for our leaders, the return to school in September is being marred by ridiculous propositions of ‘blended learning’, social distancing and the mandatory wearing of PPE. Such regulations will do nothing except be detrimental to the health of our children while limiting their capacity to learn. This is all despite the risk of transmission between children in schools being proved to be statistically low.
The thing children need most is a return to normality. They need to return to an environment where they feel safe, comfortable and supported, rather than being forced into a nightmarish ‘new normal’.
Schools returning to normal is something I am passionately fighting for through my campaign group Keep Britain Free. This was launched in June to bring together the like-minded people supporting my judicial review to form a strong and unified voice. Not only do we speak out against the damage the Government is doing to our youth, we speak out against anything the Government does which encroaches on our rightful freedoms.
Whether it’s local lockdowns, the enforcement of masks or the signing of a register before being able to enter a pub, at Keep Britain Free we believe in free thought. We are more than 10,000 strong and as those in Westminster continue to pass laws which infringe on the free will of Britons, I am confident we will continue to grow in number.
The education scandal and the disastrous way our youth has been treated is just the tip of the iceberg. It is criminal to deny that the Government’s lockdown will cost tens of thousands of excess deaths from lack of medical treatment. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs and businesses and whole sectors of the economy have come crashing down. It won’t recover for years.
Much of this could have been avoided if our leaders had placed some faith in Britons to practise free thought and do what was right for themselves, their families and their livelihoods. Whether it’s through my judicial review or through Keep Britain Free, this autonomy of thought is something I will continue to fight for until it is rightfully returned.
Editor’s note: Simon’s legal challenge can be supported here.
