Harriet Harman, Deputy leader of the Labour Party, has refused to apologise for working for a civil liberties group which was affiliated with the notorious Paedophile Information Exchange known as PIE.
It follows more than a week of media pressure led by the Daily Mail which has urged Miss Harman to explain and apologise for her links with PIE which campaigned in the 1970s for the rights of adults to have sex with four-year-olds.
Labour’s Deputy Leader, her husband, Jack Dromey MP, shadow spokesman for Home Affairs, and the former Labour Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, were key figures in the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), which helped PIE gain credibility as a legitimate campaign group.
Meanwhile, a Home Office investigation is taking place into allegations that PIE received tens of thousands of pounds from taxpayers between 1976-1979 when James Callaghan was the Labour Prime Minister.
Police investigation
The Labour Party has ordered an inquiry into the specific allegations against Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey and Patricia Hewitt following an investigation by the Daily Mail.
The paper reports: “Astonishingly this Left-wing group granted ‘affiliate’ status to PIE and built close links with it. The group of predatory paedophiles was calling for the age of consent to be cut to just four.”
The Mail says that Police are now investigating PIE as part of Operation Fernbridge, launched in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.
Threat of 'homophobe' slur
It quotes a feminist writer saying, “The PIE somehow managed to convince feminists and the gay rights lobby that they had shared values and that we all belonged in the same club. Anyone who spoke out against them feared being called a ‘homophobe’, which in left-wing circles at the time was about the biggest insult anyone could throw at you. So they were invited into the liberal establishment.’
In 1976, when Ms Harman’s husband, Jack Dromey, was on the executive of the NCCL, it filed a submission to a parliamentary committee claiming that a proposed Bill to protect children from sex abusers would lead to “!damaging and absurd prosecutions”. The submission said: “Childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in with an adult, result in no identifiable damage. The real need is a change in the attitude which assumes that all cases of paedophilia result in lasting damage.”
Apologist for child pornography
Harriet Harman in 1978 was a newly qualified solicitor and became the NCCL’s legal officer. She wrote its official response to Parliament’s Protection of Children Bill, which sought to ban child pornography. Her letter claimed that such a law would “increase censorship”, and she argued that a pornographic picture of a naked child should not be considered indecent unless it could be proven that the subject had suffered.
“Our amendment [to the proposed law] places the onus of proof on the prosecution to show that the child was actually harmed,” wrote Harman.
Media protects labour
The broadcaster and writer, Rod Liddle, criticises what he calls “the former NCCL troika” for not addressing the historic allegations against them. His commentary in The Sunday Times says only a handful of newspapers have so far reported “the fact that three very senior Labour Party figures had rather close links” with PIE.
“Can you imagine how the media — and especially the BBC — would react if three current senior Conservative MPs were revealed to have had links to a paedophile group,” asks Liddle. He says,”The Beeb would be in a state of perpetual agitation: you would not hear the last. It would make the reporting of Nelson Mandela’s death look a model of restraint and brevity.”
Legalising incest
Liddle’s column highlights that while the three prominent Labour officials were with the NCCL, it campaigned for incest to be decriminalised. He says that Ms Hewitt was “boss of the ghastly outfit” when it announced that “childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in with an adult, result in no identifiable damage”.
Liddle challenges Patricia Hewitt: “Go on, Pat, try to make the same case now.”
The columnist points to the fact that it is now the liberal left that demands prosecutions be brought in cases of historic sexual abuse, especially of children, and describes those who argue that things were very different back then as, “abuse deniers”.
He concludes,” But — Harriet, Jack, Patricia — things were very different back then, weren’t they? So who has got it right — the liberal left of the 1970s or the liberal left of today?”
Home office investigation
Meanwhile a Home Office investigation is on-going into allegations that tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money may have been funnelled to PIE via the Voluntary Services Unit (VSU), a department of the Home Office that gave annual grants to charities and non-profit-making lobby groups.
A Home Office statement in response to a Christian Concern enquiry said: "We are aware of the allegations and the Permanent Secretary has commissioned a thorough, independent investigation into what funding the Voluntary Services Unit previously provided.”
Tatchell's views exposed
The views of the prominent pro-homosexual activist, Peter Tatchell, on the sexualisation of children, have been exposed in a leaflet distributed at a House of Commons meeting organised by the Henry Jackson Society.
The founder of ‘Fathers Against Child Sexualisation’, Alan Craig, issued a challenge to Mr.Tatchell who was the guest speaker at the event.
Mr.Craig handed out a leaflet documenting Mr. Tatchell’s writings and quotations, advocating adult-child sexual relations.
He gave an interview to Christian Concern, explaining why he had made his protest: watch here >
Read the leaflet by "Fathers Against Child Sexualisation" here >
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