Verbal violence erupts outside the Tory Party Conference

WARNING - CONTAINS FOUL LANGUAGE

Tina Louise Rothery

In 2018 the Conservative Party Conference was held in Birmingham. A coach was hired to leave Blackpool by anti-fracking campaigners keen to protest outside the event as a way of bringing attention to their continuing fight against Cuadrilla Resources Limited's hydraulic fracturing ambitions in Lancashire.

The day of protest however, led to a verbal confrontation that caused an outcry and hit newspaper headlines, but the taunts delivered by Ms Rothery have been ignored by both the Green Party and environmental campaign groups alike. Fellow protesters and campaigners have stated that what unfolded that day was not, as stated in Ms Rothery’s apology, an act out of character. These scenes are familiar occurrences although usually carried out away from the public eye and certainly not recorded for the world to see.

The confrontation took place when Ms Rothery, protesting alongside other anti-fracking campaigners outside the conference, had loudly and aggressively questioned Miriam Lewis as she was entering the building as to whether she had any children. Ms Lewis, former Maldon Conservative councillor and ex-wife of Labour MP and Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, was attending the conference to speak about the dreadful impact on victims and their families of domestic violence, replied that her only daughter had tragically died from suicide. Ms Rothery, instead of offering any condolence for this heart-breaking news, launched into an abusive tirade against Ms Lewis showing absolutely no empathy or compassion for the tragedy she had suffered.

This incident, and what subsequently followed, can only be regarded at its best as crass and appallingly vile and at its worst as the absolute lowest any human being could stoop.

The livestream recording, filmed by Ms Rothery, started to generate interest and, as the outcry against it began to build, the blame for interest was being laid by Ms Rothery and her sister, Julie Daniels, solely on pro-frackers as opposed to anti-frackers and members of the general public who were genuinely appalled at the incident. Ms Daniels then attempted to contain the "shit storm" that was about to hit the few who were, by this time, still supporting Ms Rothery by publishing the following post on Facebook.

With apologies for the appalling language

The above assumes, incorrectly, that Miriam Lewis was a pro-fracker and clearly attempts to lay all blame at her feet by suggesting Ms Lewis was "having a go" at the protesters. This, however, appears now to be so very far from the truth of the situation. Ms Lewis was entering the conference and mistakenly, because she is a member of the Womens Institute (WI) and had previously been informed members of the WI would be protesting thought the anti-fracking protestors were actually from the WI. The entrance to the conference was extremely noisy and Ms Lewis later states she couldn't really hear what was going on so had stopped to ask a member of Ms Rothery's group if they were part of the WI.

In response to an apology written by a well known and long-time activist on behalf of anti-frackers who felt strongly the campaign had been brought into disrepute, a close friend of Ms Lewis's commented ..."I'm not into politics and I'll admit I don't know enough about fracking to have an opinion about it. However I am a close friend of Miriam's - a friendship that has come about because tragically we have both lost a daughter to suicide last year. I was quite frankly horrified at Ms Rothery's behaviour towards Miriam. To say that Miriam as a Tory is denying Ms Rothery's child the opportunity to commit suicide is one of the most cruel vicious things I've ever heard. She hurts and insults every parent who has lost a child to suicide - I cannot believe that a fellow human being would say something so disgusting. The irony is that her daughter, Natalie, was born and bred in Lancashire where Miriam lived for over 20 years.

Following Green Party leaders being faced with calls to expel Ms Rothery from the party, requests that were ignored, Ms Rothery eventually, responding to pressure over the incident, issued an apology via her blogspot. Titled "Imperfect, Flawed & Sorry" she clearly states 'When I hear someone say: "We should frack, I want it." - what I hear is: "We should play Russian Roulette with the children and grandchildren." However, nowhere on the video recording of the incident can Ms Lewis be heard to say she "wanted fracking". Ms Rothery then continues in the article to say ... "Yes I am sorry our row escalated but I did not attack this woman about the loss of her child… she attacked our group for defending our children and I only became aware of her loss when during the argument, she answered my question about if she had children. Her reply revealed the awful reality that her daughter had committed suicide. She naturally did this with rage, anger and hurt and at this point, if I were a better person, I should have shut-up… but all I could think was that our children would never have options if fracking goes ahead and that their lives would be at risk. As she walked away she turned and laughed at me – I responded that sniggering was an odd reaction after she’d just talked about her daughter’s suicide."

Once again we can not reach the same conclusion from the video of the incident, what we draw instead is a picture of a bewildered and hurt Ms Lewis bemusedly reacting to abuse in a situation where noise, chaos and confusion were clearly evident.

Ms Rothery stated in the apology that "Ms Lewis sniggered" at her, however once again we see from the video this is just not the case. Ms Rothery's response to Ms Lewis's statement that her only daughter had committed suicide was to say ..."I feel no f*****g guilt" ... further taunting Ms Lewis with "quick have a snigger about it, your dead child if you think it's funny"

Further towards the end of what may be read as less of an apology and more of a defence statement Ms Rothery continues "Why the Times chose to write this article is beyond my comprehension and why those chose to angle it, shape it and place my words in different order is also beyond me – in a world full of genuine criminality, tragedy, danger, corruption, harm and news… two mothers having an argument is surely not what the space is best used for. Highlighting my membership of the Green Party in order to tarnish them is as relevant as if they’d said I work with any of the NGOs or my membership of a literary group. My actions always are mine alone and not representative of anything other than me. I apologise too then to this exceptional political party for seeing them dragged into this ugly episode."

The Times clearly wrote the article because it was of public interest. Protesters and campaigners can have very poor press at the best of times, this incident quite clearly played into the hands of those who think anti-frackers can behave appallingly when imparting their message. As to highlighting Ms Rothery's membership of the The Green Party as a means to "tarnish" the party it should be remembered that Ms Rothery was awarded life-long membership of the The Green Party and stood against George Osborne in the constituency of Tatton and, as such, no matter how much Ms Rothery may deny it, in whatever situation she is in, she is representing her party, and had the Green Party behaved as it should Ms Rothery would have been expelled for her behaviour.

Ms Lewis graciously accepted Ms Rothery's apology wishing to draw a line under the whole sorry incident.