Conduct unbecoming

The life of a professional driver can be hazardous. This description applies not only to the motoring requirements of the profession but to other factors including the danger faced from a minority of passengers. These factors are known to most adults in the UK except, it seems, to senior government ministers.

In an interview with Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on April 2, 2023, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “...what’s clear... vulnerable white English girls, sometimes in care, sometimes who are in challenging circumstances being pursued and raped and drugged and harmed by gangs of British Pakistani men who worked in child abuse rings or networks...There are many of these perpetrators still running wild...”.

In my previous article, (‘A matter of life and death’, May 2023 edition), I wrote of the threats to their safety, including murder, faced by professional drivers across the country. But here we have the Home Secretary, who is responsible for the security of the UK’s citizens and residents, stating in an offthe-cuff manner, remarks that many have called incendiary, which has the potential to put the lives of particular professional drivers in danger.

What do I mean? Although there are no precise figures for the ethnicity and race of professional drivers in the United Kingdom, figures from my union indicates that the majority of them are from an Asian background. The dangers faced by these workers, along with others, include false allegations, robbery, assaults and in some cases murder.

The vast majority of passengers are polite, helpful and good to be with. However, a small minority harbour racist sentiments, the constraints of which are lowered in certain circumstances, particularly when alcohol is involved. This includes users from all communities across the UK.

The sentiment expressed by the Home Secretary is one of those elements that lowers the constraints on the action of passengers and which releases hatred against others. The almost deliberate carelessness of the use of such words in a manner likely to inflame is unbecoming of her role.

Information on criminality including serious sexual assaults deserves to be reported and reported widely, for the profession wishes to secure the safety of their passengers and enhance the reputation of the profession.

It is correct that during the early part of the century certain cities such as Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford contained groups of Asian men who were engaged in the grooming of young women, the majority of whom were white.

A number of these men worked as minicab drivers, a point highlighted in many newspaper reports. However, the 2010 convictions of a group of white men, and a woman, for abusing 30 children in the Cornwall received much less attention and was not referred to by Ms Braverman.

While it is extremely important that senior government figures speak up on such issues they must be extremely careful how they shape the information and where, when and how they impart it.

Despite being told by Sophy Ridge during the programme that her department’s own report stated that most grooming gangs were white and the link between ethnicity and grooming were not proven, she refused to clarify her statement. Following calls from a variety of figures for Braverman to withdraw her remarks she refused and doubled down instead.

In the April 22 edition of The Spectator, the Home Secretary wrote an article entitled “The truth can’t be racist”. Explaining her position and her refusal to row back on it she then used the “I can’t be racist” trope: “I’m the daughter of a Kenyan Catholic father and a Mauritian Hindu mother, and I have a Jewish husband who was born in South Africa...”

So that’s OK then. Because someone, no matter how senior, claims that they are speaking the truth does not make it so. Ask the families of the Rwandan victims of the Interahamwe, the killer gangs who were urged on by Government broadcasts to commit genocide against their neighbours. Believing that it is a truth that the world is flat does not make it true.

Further, the “truth” delivered in a negligent manner can, as well as “sticks and stones”, also break bones.

To see Braverman’s remarks on Sophy Ridge’s programme, follow the link: https://news.sky.com/video/in-full-sophy-ridge-onsunday-12848255 n Dennot is an AGM trade union member and was a former representative of the GMB’s professional drivers. He is also an author and broadcaster with a strong knowledge of the private hire industry and an equality and diversity specialist. email: dennotnyack@yahoo.com mobile: +44 0740 625 276