[noemon]

Theresa May has suspended the Conservative MP Anne Marie Morris after she used the racist slur "n***** in the woodpile".

The whip has been removed from the MP for Newton Abbot, in Devon, after she was recorded casually using the term at a panel event to discuss Brexit.

“I was shocked to hear of these remarks, which are completely unacceptable,” the Prime Minister said.

“I immediately asked the Chief Whip to suspend the party whip. Language like this has absolutely no place in politics or in today’s society.”

Opposition parties had piled pressure on Ms May to crack down hard on Ms Morris, as did some furious fellow Tory MPs.

One Conservative backbencher, Heidi Allen, tweeted: “I'm afraid an apology is not good enough - we must show zero tolerance for racism. MPs must lead by example.”

The Newton Abbott MP had been appearing on a panel, downplaying economic fears about Brexit alongside Tory colleagues Bill Cash and John Redwood.

“Now I’m sure there will be many people who’ll challenge that, but my response and my request is look at the detail, it isn’t all doom and gloom,” she said, in the recording made by the Huffington Post website.

“Now we get to the real n***** in the woodpile, which is, in two years, what happens if there is no deal?”

The suspension of Ms Morris cuts the precarious Conservative working majority in the Commons to just 12, even with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party.

Tim Farron, the outgoing leader of the Liberal Democrats, had been first to call for Ms Morris to lose the Tory whip, saying: “This disgusting comment belongs in the era of the Jim Crow laws and has no place in our parliament.

“Every hour they leave her in place is a stain on them and the so-called ‘compassionate conservatism’ they supposedly espouse.”

Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green party, and Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s campaign co-ordinator, also called for Ms Morris’ suspension.

Earlier this year, the MP was forced to distance herself from comments made by her electoral agent and partner, Roger Kendrick, who told a hustings event that “the crisis in education was due entirely to non-British-born immigrants and their high birth rates”.

In response, Ms Morris told DevonLive: “I don’t share the views expressed by Roger Kendrick.”

Independent

These poor Tories they can't help themselves.

[Saeko]

AMERICAN culture is so superior that the Tories even emulate our racism.

MURRICA!!!

[B0ycey]

This just confirms something that I already knew. To be a UK MP you need to possess no common sense. You attend a panel and you use a racist term. Did she think she'd get away with it? Seriously! You can't make it up. I genuinely believe there is not a single normal MP south of the boarder who would appeal to the general public. Not one. The vetting to become a MP in our main political parties must look for stupidity beyond anything else.

[MememyselfandIJK]

AMERICAN culture is so superior that the Tories even emulate our racism.

I thought they copied from the British when... Never mind

[Suntzu]

She sounds like my grandmother!

[skinster]

That explains a lot.

Anyway, a Tory acting like a Tory.

[Suntzu]

That explains a lot.

Anyway, a Tory acting like a Tory.

The was the sort to call a spade a spade.

[SolarCross]

The fun thing is that it is pretty clear from the context and the actual meaning of that idiom that she was not being racist, certainly not on purpose. Can one be racist accidentally?

Though of course she should know that by being a politician she has to be perfectly politically correct as even the slightest of faux pas can be used by unscrupulous people to ruin your career.

The irony of political correctness is that the higher up you are the more onerous and taxing a master it is. No gives a hoot when a road sweeper says n*****r. Political correctness is inversely inegalitarian in that respect.

[Suntzu]

She would slide if she was Black.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Never understood the moral panic around the N word. It's a slur like thousands of others, yet not only have all past crimes against blacks in America been projected onto it but non-Americans somehow feel obliged to share in the moral outrage.

This is the scariest Twitch-hunt yet

The hounding of Anne Marie Morris is positively unhinged.

Sharpen the pitchforks, fan the flames: a politician has misspoken.

Yes, another day, another Twitch-hunt. Another live-tweeted expulsion from polite society. Another roll-up-roll-up real-time destruction of a person’s reputation for the crime of having said something stupid.

The victim this time is Anne Marie Morris, the Tory MP for Newton Abbot. She was recorded dumbly using the outdated phrase ‘N***** in the woodpile’ at a gathering of Eurosceptic Tories at the East India Club in London. Ms Morris said ‘the real N***** in the woodpile’ in the Brexit issue is what happens if we get two years down the line and there’s still no deal between Britain and the EU. So she was clearly using the phrase in its classic sense to mean an issue of great importance that isn’t being openly or sufficiently discussed. She wasn’t being racist, just old-fashioned. Phew. We can call off the Twitterhounds, put back the tomatoes.

Don’t be daft. The small matter of intention, of what someone means, counts for literally nothing in the Kafkaesque world of 21st-century speech-policing. All that matters is that everyone speak correctly, always, religiously, without fail, unless they want to be rebranded scum and made unemployable. And so it was that the illiberal liberal media and outrage-hungry Twitterati demanded that Ms Morris be punished. Theresa May, being weakened and rubbish, duly suspended her. But of course that isn’t enough. It never is. Their nostrils filled with the perfume of a public shaming, of the sweat and terror of their quarry, the Twitch-hunters always want more. She must be sacked, they cried, forever thrown out of the party, tarred and feathered. (Okay I made up that last one, but seriously, it can’t be far off.)

The Morris debacle, this latest by-numbers orgy of ostentatious fury and demands for at least a metaphorical head on a platter, shines an unforgiving light on the political state of the nation. First, it exposes the nasty, Stalinist streak in the virtual Corbynista movement. These largely youthful cheerleaders and tweeters for Jeremy are at the forefront of demanding Morris’s public humiliation. Guardian square Owen Jones even suggested action should be taken against other Tory MPs who were at the meeting and who failed to denounce Morris for her choice of phrase. This is the living (or rather deathly) essence of Stalinism: to seek the punishment not only of moral miscreants but also of those who fail to point the finger at them, who neglect to rat them out. Behind the countercultural facade of the Corbynista moment there lurks that dark, censorious, state-loving shade of leftism that really should have been left in the 20th century.

And secondly, this controversy shows how unhinged, how otherworldly, PC has become. Commentators are accusing Morris of racism. She engaged in a ‘racist outburst’, some claim. This is categorically untrue. Morris did not say the N-word at anyone. She did not use it as an insult. Her aim was not to demean black people. It was simply to make a political point about Brexit. Doesn’t this matter? Doesn’t it matter that she had no racist or wicked or evil intention and rather was simply expressing an opinion on political events? It should matter, but, terrifyingly, it doesn’t.

The end result is that Morris has been punished for something she didn’t actually do: express a racist sentiment. This is how Kafkaesque the myopic monitoring of speech has become: use the wrong word, once, and you might find your entire moral worldview called into question and your public reputation trashed by the baying commentariat. To punish Morris for using the N-word is as mad as punishing a rapper for using it. No, not because Morris’s use of that word is as acceptable as Jay-Z’s. Of course it isn’t. Rappers use it with power and cultural force, whereas Morris just sounds dim. She really should have gone for a different phrase. But the key thing, the overriding thing, the thing that a more rational, civilised society would take into account, is that neither Morris nor your average rapper uses the N-word as a racist attack, as an attempt to denigrate or dehumanise black people. Both of them lack the thing that must surely be proven before we demand that someone be punished: foul intent; the desire to do evil.

This is what is terrifying about this latest Twitch-hunt: it confirms that in the febrile, finger-pointing climate whipped up by a vengeful Twitterati and censorious commentariat, you can be branded racist even if you are not racist. Like when girls were branded witches when they were not witches.

Brendan O’Neill is editor of spiked.

[Potemkin]

This is the living (or rather deathly) essence of Stalinism: to seek the punishment not only of moral miscreants but also of those who fail to point the finger at them, who neglect to rat them out. Behind the countercultural facade of the Corbynista moment there lurks that dark, censorious, state-loving shade of leftism that really should have been left in the 20th century.

He says that like it's a bad thing.

[Frollein]

It is a bad thing.

[Rich]

Absolutely disgraceful the witch hunting of this woman for her perfectly reasonable and decent use of language. This is a nasty combination of anti White racist cultural Marxism and American cultural imperialism. The whole absurd fetishism of the word N***** came out of the very particular needs of the (burgeoning but small) Black middle Class in 1950's and 60s America. They were desperate (quite understandably) to be accepted as ordinary middle Class Americans just like White Middle class Americans. I'll not have any jumped little Hitler (or Stalin) telling me I can't use the word N***** any-more than I'll have any jumped little Hitler telling me I can't use Swastikas.

I'm quite aware that terms like "Brit" (used by racist Irish Nationalists), Goy and Infidel were not intended as compliments, but I receive them as such because, I'm very proud to be British, non-Jewish and Non Muslim. And of course this is the attitude taken today by many lower class Blacks. N***** only means Black so whats shameful about using the term.

[anarchist23]

That explains a lot.

Anyway, a Tory acting like a Tory.

Yes..

Conservative MP Anne Marie Morris has been suspended from the Conservative party after she was taped using the phrase “n****** in a woodpile” in a discussion about Brexit.

She is far from the first politician to get in trouble for using the exact same phrase in recent years, however, with a number of Conservatives using the racist slur in recent years.

1) Anne Marie Morris MP, 2017

The most recent culprit used the phrase at the private East India Club in London, and was taped doing so. The MP for Newton Abbott said that not getting a Brexit deal would be a “n****** in a woodpile”. She later she had not intended to use the phrase and apologised “for any offence caused”.

2) John Townend MP, 1993

In 1993 then Tory MP for Bridlington in Yorkshire John Townend used the phrase openly on the BBC’s Westminster Live programme on a Wednesday. 37 MPs signed an early day motion criticising his used of language. In 2001 Townend later accused Labour of wanting to turn the UK into a “mongrel race”.

3) George Gardiner MP, 1993

Another Tory MP immediately leapt to John Townend’s defence and used the phrase himself. George Gardiner, MP for Reigate, tabled an amendment to the critical early day motion arguing that he was “amazed that anyone could see the honourable Member for Bridlington's choice of words as racist; and commends him for expressing himself in terms that ordinary people can understand”.

4) Lord Dixon-Smith, 2008

While David Cameron was Tory leader frontbencher and peer Lord Dixon-Smith used the phrase in the House of Lords chamber and apologised, saying he had “left my brains behind”. He added that the phrased had slipped out without thinking”.

5) Councillor Gerry Forsbrey, 2012

The second most recent known scandal over the phrase happened after Spelthorne Tory councillor Councillor Gerry Forsbrey said: “I don’t want to be the n***** in the woodpile”. He later said it was an “old fashioned phrase and that people may well take offence at the language”.

6) Councillor Robert Fraser, 2010

In May 2010 councillor Robert Fraser, a Conservative on Leicestershire County Council, used the phrase during an annual meeting of the Ratby & District Conservative Association at the Bulls Head Public House in Ratby, according to complaint documents from the council. The council found that he had brought it into disrepute.

7) Councillor Peter Edwards, 2014

Peter Edwards, a Tory councillor in Bath, used the phrased on BBC Radio Bristol's drivetime show while talking about the Horseworld centre. The local politician said it was "not his intention to cause anyone any offence".

Councillor David Viney, 2001

David Viney, a councillor from Plymouth and the Tory nominee for the city's Lord Mayor, referred to himself as a "n***** in a woodpile" in a meeting with trade unions in April of that year, according to the local Plymouth Herald newspaper's archive.......

http://www.independent.co.uk/News/uk/po ... 34291.html

[Kaiserschmarrn]

He says that like it's a bad thing.

The youngsters that came out en masse to vote for Corbyn/Labour are probably the no-platforming enthusiasts, so you have some willing pupils there, young enough to be impressionable and with a killer instinct.

[Rugoz]

LoL, there's no free speech for politicians. If she says something stupid that might cost the party votes, obviously she will be replaced.

I'm surprised how casually she was using the N-word though, seems like basic social competence not to use it.

[Potemkin]

I'm surprised how casually she was using the N-word though, seems like basic social competence not to use it.

These are Tory MPs we're talking about, remember?

[Kaiserschmarrn]

LoL, there's no free speech for politicians. If she says something stupid that might cost the party votes, obviously she will be replaced.

Why should it cost the party votes? The only people who are outraged about this are those that would never vote Tory anyway.

[Suntzu]

Never understood the moral panic around the N word. It's a slur like thousands of others, yet not only have all past crimes against blacks in America been projected onto it but non-Americans somehow feel obliged to share in the moral outrage.

Yep, can you think of any word directed at Whites or Asians that stirs the same moral outrage?

[mikema63]

Why should it cost the party votes? The only people who are outraged about this are those that would never vote Tory anyway.

There's always been a section of the GOP and right leaning independents that have been uncomfortable with racial rhetoric and can be swayed to the other side or to not vote by racial controversies. Don't be so naive to think that all Tory voters are exactly the same and would stand in a united front for the party no matter what the current controversy is going on.