There’s a new party standing in the next UK general election in May.
An anti-feminism party called Justice for Men and Boys (And the Women Who Love Them) is standing for parliament in May’s general election.
The party, which hands out “Lying Feminist of the Month” awards to female journalists, will be fielding three candidates in the Nottingham area, including one candidate who will attempt to unseat shadow women and equalities minister Gloria De Piero.
The party was founded by retired businessman Mike Buchanan, who told BuzzFeed News it’s his party’s ultimate aim to “make feminism a dirty word”.
That’s already happened.
Buchanan used to work as a business consultant for the Conservative party, but quit in 2009 when David Cameron backed all-women parliamentary candidate shortlists. He has since dedicated his life to anti-feminism, writing three books, Feminism: The Ugly Truth, The Glass Ceiling Delusion, and David Cameron – The Heir to Harman?
“Feminism is a hatred, and it should be a badge of shame,” he said. “To call yourself a feminist should be no more acceptable than calling yourself a bigot or a sexist or a fascist. It is a deeply vile, corrupting ideology and the idea it’s a benign movement about gender equality is dangerous nonsense.”
Mike Buchanan is a citizen of Backward World, where everything means the opposite of what it means in Real World.
“We hear a lot about misogyny, which is actually very rare, but a hatred of men is very commonplace,” said Buchanan. “As far as the state is concerned, males are pretty much subhuman and they’ll do anything they can to destroy men’s lives.”
Oh? Really? So men are officially forbidden (by the state) to have jobs? Boys are barred from all forms of education? Everything is in the hands of women, and men are enslaved and confined? I don’t recognize that picture.
In the general election, Buchanan is pessimistic about winning enough votes to retain any of the three £500 deposits he’s put down, but thinks it’s worth the expense in order to raise awareness of what he called “the only anti-feminism party in the English-speaking world”.
It’s a bargain.
So, to run for MP, once must pay a deposit which is refunded if you get a certain number of votes? I presume that’s to discourage frivolous candidates?
If so, maybe the amount needs to be higher?
(In the US, I think petitions are more typical, but that ends up being largely a matter of money as well, since paid signature gathering is the norm).
He doesn’t get out much, does he? He might want to do a little reading about the GOP in the USA.
latveriandiplomat #1: Yes, basically. Every candidate pays £500 (paid by their party if they have one) which is refunded if they manage to get 5% of the vote or more. Especially for the main parties, “lost their deposit” is therefore a familiar political shorthand meaning that they’ve suffered a particularly horrendous election.
I had to completely stop reading Ally Fogg’s comment sections because Mike Buchanan is always there, denying misogyny and plugging J4MB.
Oh great – one degree of separation from Mike Buchanan. *snort*
@3: Thanks, Dylan.
Buchanan used to be fairly regular over at We Hunted the Mammoth as well, again always plugging his website and telling his sob stories. And being the butt of comments along the lines of ‘Do you know he has a website? No, really?’ because he simply would not shut up about it and kept trying to link to his own site as evidence of his points. I believe he finally got banned a while back, as I haven’t seen him lately.
I am afraid that the Buzzfeed article and the secondary coverage it caused only acts as advertisement. 🙁 Despite all his efforts at self-promotion, Buchanan was just a weirdo with a blog. Now he’s been given a megaphone that he could only dream of.
When I read the headline I thought you meant this new party.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/14/al-murray-the-pub-landlord-to-stand-against-nigel-farage-in-south-thanet
Information for those outside the UK who are not familiar with how our elections work – please don’t think this represents some sort of vanguard of a movement or a stain on our electoral system or anything.
Each electoral seat (of about 650 in the UK) can be contested at election by anyone who can raise a deposit of £500. You get your deposit back if you get more than a certain (small) share of the vote, so it doesn’t cost “proper” candidates anything, BUT anyone, anyone at all, can stand (although certain things can disqualify you, like for instance having ever been made bankrupt).
This is healthy for our democracy, because it means people like the Greens can get an MP. It means if your local MP is a corrupt Tory scumbag like Neil Hamilton, an independent candidate like the journalist Martin Bell can step up to contest their seat on a “not a scumbag” ticket… and win. It means if your local hospital is threatened with closure, a doctor can contest your local seat on a “keep the hospital open” ticket… and win.
But it also means you get nutters with money standing. I remember clearly the Alfred Chicken party standing in Christchurch, as an advert for a Game Boy game (we’re going back a couple of decades there). For many years, the dear departed David “Screaming Lord” Sutch and his Monster Raving Loony Party were a regular fixture of every election. And there are loonies elsewhere, and this man is one of them. They’re an amusing diversion. Do please understand that the British electorate treat them as such, having (as we do) a long, long history of seeing them on the hustings.
He’s a lone idiot… and everyone (including, it seems, himself, judging by how pessimistic he is about retaining his deposit) knows it.
I might also add that he’s howling in the dark. Feminism is, I think it’s fair to say, doing pretty well in the UK right now. The Guardian had an article about it: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/31/guardian-view-year-feminism-2014-watershed
It’s good stuff. Don’t let this tosser get you down.
Obligatory link to the wikipedia article about the Monty Python fan who legally changed his name to Tarquin Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F’tang-F’tang-Olé-Biscuitbarrel when he ran for election, and still was more worthy of a vote than this jackass: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosby_by-election,_1981#Candidates