(Note: All our links open in a new tab automatically, on desktops & laptops, at least. So no need to ‘right-click’.)
We also reported on her action against a pro-life church in Nairobi. But she has won a string of awards, so are we missing something?
Political and family life
Wikipedia describes her thus: ‘Esther Muthoni Passaris OGW is a Kenyan social entrepreneur, philanthropist and politician. She is the Nairobi County women representative in the bicameral Kenyan parliament, and a member of the Orange Democratic Movement Political Party.’
Honorable Esther M Passaris was born in Mombasa to a Greek father and a Kenyan Kikuyu mother. She attended the Aga Khan Academies for her primary and secondary education. She has been Nairobi Women Representative since 2013. She is – or was, some reports say she is divorce or separated – married to businessman Pius Mbugua Ngugi. They have two children together; Makenna Maria (24) and Lefteris Pierce (20)
Second wife
Pius Ngugi is a Kshilling billionaire and one of the most influential and wealthy persons in Kenya. He originates from Kiambu County, Kenya, but an article on TUKO says ‘details on his early life are not clear to the public’. Pius Mbugua founded two companies, Kenya Nut and Thika Coffee Mills, which he owns to date. The farmer is Kenya’s leading exporter of macadamia nuts. Mr Ngugi is also involved with the Tatu City project, and Kenya Alliance Insurance.
Esther Passaris is reportedly content with her husband’s affairs, claiming: ‘Because a man is not my God, my God is only one.’ Ms Passaris is a Roman Catholic.
https://www.kenyans.co.ke/news/43029-5-popular-politicians-you-didnt-know-were-2nd-wives Furthermore, Ms Passaris is, or was, in a polygamous setup with Pius Ngugi. Mr Ngugi is also married to Josephine Wambui Ngugi. They have children together. And she has sadly been having continual trouble with her back.
Entrepreneur
The MP, 53, is obviously well connected and provided for, but she is aldso an entrepreneur in her own right Vital Voices describes her as ‘a skilled marketing and public relations professional with over 20 years’ experience’. It claims she established two businesses, ‘namely Adopt A Light and Shaper Images Ltd.’ There is scant (actually none, except for the Vital Voices reference) evidence of a Kenyan ‘Shaper Images Ltd’ (or even ‘Sharper Images’) on the web, but what of ‘Adopt A Light’?
The company is based in Alpha Centre on Mombasa Road, Nairobi. Its website says it aims ‘to steer advertising revenues into community development. The company was inspired by the need to achieve safer cities through the provision of adequate street lighting.’
‘Ever-growing financial constraints’ mean Kenyan city councils find it ‘impossible’ ‘to install and maintain all existing streetlights’, says the About page. Adopt a Light sells advertising and pays a rent to the city to enable it to maintain that particular street lamp. To be fair, that is a clever and socially-responsible idea. Esther Passaris chairs the company.
Pro-life posters
But it precisely this idea, and this company, which cast Esther Passaris herself in an unfavourable light.
Pro-life billboards in Nairobi were ordered down by Esther Passaris.
Sozo Church, (Facebook page here) pastored by Reverend Catherine Oganga, paid for no fewer than thirteen billboards and posters on street lighting.
These were sited strategically near traffic lights and electricity poles along Nairobi’s main roads. The messages read: ‘Abortion is Murder!’, ‘Shut down abortion clinics!’ and had pictures of pre-born babies. Another read: ‘Your mother gave you a chance, it wasn’t easy then too. Give your baby a chance!’
International Planned Parenthood is now based in Nairobi. Marie Stopes has four facilities in the city. Its Eastleigh clinic specialises in ‘pregnancy crisis management’. So it was not surprising that pro-abortion activists soon saw the posters, got together and complained to Hon Passaris.
The Daily Nation newspaper observed: ‘… suffice to say that several NGOs — obviously with more spending power than Kageni-Oganga and her Sozo Church of God — had raised hackles against the billboards which they said were stigmatising women and girls seeking access to safe and legal abortion services.’
Esther Passaris first gave a verbal notice to Sozo Church of God notifying the church that Adopt-a-light would pull down the billboards.
Next, a terse text from the firm associated with the Nairobi Woman Representative said: “Kindly note that we are not able to continue advertising for you as per our earlier communication. I had informed you very clearly that it is not possible to continue. Thanks.”
However, Sozo say the MP then took matters into her own hands and pulled down the pro-life billboards herself, without, said Sozo, a notice or refund to the church.
Nation reports, however: ‘The advertising firm has told the preacher that it would be refunding all the monies owed so the contract can be legally terminated.’ We are currently unable to report they have done so.
Petition
Nevertheless, Pastor Oganga, who took personal charge of the billboards project, is considering legal action.
She also has a petition on CitizenGo appealing to His Excellency Mike Sonko, Governor of Nairobi, who is known for being strongly pro-life.
Interestingly, Hon Esther Passaris is also currently involved in a bizarre row with Governor Sonko, centred around what he says was an invitation to visit a room in Nairobi’s Intercontinental Hotel.
Pro-abortion NGOs
The pro-abortion NGO’s dragged up some paid activists to protest against Sozo’s posters.
The Nation blames the move to take down the posters on a ‘coalition of pro-choice NGOs’ who ‘went into a celebratory mood, announcing the victory’ as soon as Rep Passaris took them down. ‘Success. The billboards came down in May’ they whooped, going on to describe them as ‘inaccurate and inflammatory anti-abortion billboards.’ Quite what was inaccurate they didn’t say, although we would not expect detail from that side.
Religion Unplugged names the eleven NGOs as the Center for Reproductive Rights, along with ‘the Federation of Women Lawyers, Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health, Network for Adolescent and Youth of Africa, Red Tape, Ipas-Health Access Rights, Right Here Right Now, Kelin, Xhale Africa, Women’s Link Worldwide, and Reproductive Health Network Kenya.’
We have not researched the financial details of every one, yet, but it is safe to say not one is funded by Kenyan money. Every single one of them will be receiving cash from pro-abortion foundations, companies and governments in the West.
Esther Passaris and ‘She Decides’
Hon Passaris gushes about herself: ‘Kenyan social entrepreneur, philanthropist, and politician. She is the Nairobi County women representative in the bicameral Kenyan parliament and a She Decides Kenya champion.’
So what is this ‘She Decides’? We looked it up. The vision of She Decides is ‘A world where every girl and woman can decide what to do with her body, with her life and with her future. Without question.’ In other words, it is a hardline abortion-on-demand campaign.
She Decides Kenya was launched on 2nd March 2019 by ‘the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Kenya, together with the Center for Reproductive Rights Africa Program and the Reproductive Health Network Kenya’. There’s a surprise! The Dutch and two of the 11 NGOs which objected to the Sozo pro-life posters are funding ‘She Decides Kenya’.
The webpage on She Decides says: ‘With the launch of SheDecides Kenya, we hope to bring together partners and stakeholders to build pressure on the Government of Kenya to sign into the SheDecides manifesto. The launch will also be used to raise awareness on SheDecides and the effects of the global gag rule among Kenyans.’ She Decides is a lobbying and propaganda machine. Should foreign embassies and NGOs be interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign nations? You decide.
UNFPA in Kibera
Dr. Natalia Kanem promoting ‘reproductive rights’ with pro-abortion Kenyan MP Esther Passaris. Note the UNFPA back-drop.
Back in March 2019, Esther Passaris took the head of UNFPA, Dr Natalia Kanem along to the Kibera informal settlement in Nairobi. No doubt they took armed bodyguards, because UNFPA described the area pejoratively as a ‘slum’.
In reality, the settlement is a place where people are trying to earn a living, mirroring the world-wide trend of movement from the countryside to cities. This author moved in the opposite direction, but that’s another story.
Every charity, NGO and UN agency wants a piece of Kibera. There are probably more jobs dependent on Kibera than the people in it. Anyway, the two immediately promoted ‘reproductive rights’ which is UN-speak for abortion on demand.
Women’s Parliamentary Caucus
Esther Passaris affirmed in Kibera her intention to work in the Kenyan Parliament with the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus to support the work of UNFPA. She unashamedly played the feminist card. However, defending abortion depends on feminism and feminism, according to feminist activists, depends on abortion (although pro-life feminists do exist). ‘Every woman should also able to access’ family planning, she said.
‘As Kenyan women we’re committed to your cause and will lobby with other policy makers to pass legislation that is favourable to women’s rights and their advancement,’ added the pro-abortion MP. Hon Passaris seriously believes women are advanced by killing their children in what should be the safest place on God’s earth..
Passaris on homosexuality
Abortion is illegal in Kenya, except to save the life of the mother (not her ‘lifestyle’, as in the West.) Sodomy and other practices against nature are also against the law. Sections 162 and 165 of the Penal Code criminalises same sex unions and offenders face up to 14 years in jail. Moreover, the Kenyan Constitution does not recognise sexual relationships between people of same gender.
That has not stopped Hon Esther Passaris expressing support for homosexuality. However, she has not expressed such views inside the Kenyan parliament in any speech that we can discover.
Took to Twitter
On the contrary, in May this year, she took to Twitter to express her opinion over what the Standard newspaper described as ‘the emotive issue of same-sex marriage.’
‘In her post on her Twitter wall, she said: “I choose not to judge. Who are we to deny two consenting adults the joy of love and sex? It’s time for us to live and let live. I wouldn’t want to see any LGBTIQ+ Kenyan killed or thrown in jail just for being different”.’
The expression ‘LGBTIQ+’ is straight out of the gay campaigners’ handbook. Her stance led to a storm of protest from other Twitter users. One said: ‘I thought u were better than this ?? We Africans will not allow such culture into our society. Let each organ play its designated role dont tempt God.’
https://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKCN1SU1M7-OZATP
Her post came as the High Court of Kenya ruled that same-sex marriage and relationships remain illegal and a criminal offence.
The TUKO website reported that three days later: ‘Speaking in an interview with Radio Maisha on Monday, May 27, the vocal politician claimed there are many homosexuals in government offices, business spaces, family circles who Kenyans should learn to live with in harmony and accept them for who they are.’
Gay ‘blonde moment’
Esther Passaris has not adopted her pro-gay views recently. Back in 2015 she jumped to what she thought was the defence of a homosexual athlete, only to find out ‘Gay’ was the man’s name.
The Nairobi Star gloated: ‘Replying to a tweet by Daily Nation titled “Drug-cheat Gay costs USA Olympic relay silver” , Passaris asked “@dailynation what’s gay got to do with it?.”
‘Of course she thought Gay in this case meant sexual orientation, while in real sense it’s the name of the athlete – Tyson Gay.’
The paper went on: ‘You can imagine how KOT (Kenyans on Twitter) roasted her.’ Many lampooned her light skin while Nairobi News accused her of a ‘blonde moment’. (We should clarify Christian Voice does not regard blonde people in general as stupid, although it certainly was the blonde women queuing up for the Nairobi UNFPA Summit on Tuesday 12th November who were more inclined to refuse a pro-life leaflet than any other group.)
‘El Cholo’ said ‘Passaris proved that lightskin theory.’ Later that afternoon, @EstherPassaris owned up to ‘definitely a blonde moment. Guilty as charged.’
A string of awards
In 2008 Esther Passaris was awarded the Order of Grand Warrior of Kenya (OGW) by then President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki. She has also been given a string of other awards by the right-on global elite.
She received the ‘Exceptional Women of Excellence’ Award at the Women Economic Forum 2019 in India, New Delhi.
Also this year Rep Passaris received the Outstanding African Community Figure Award from Voice Achievers. This was ‘for her contribution to the advancement of women and youth in Kenya.’ (Voice Achievers Award is given to leaders who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in the political, corporate and social sphere.}
According to Wikipedia, other awards include:
2016 Most influential women in business and government by CEO Global, South Africa
2009 UN Habitat Business Awards by UN Habitat
2006 Mashiriki Innovations in Local Governance Award and National Human Settlement Award also by UN-HABITAT. That same year, Adopt-A-Light won Company of the Year Award.
2004 Hon Passaris was awarded the Eve Woman of the Year Award, Make a Difference Award and the Mayoral Achievement Award.
National Assembly
Wikipedia also tells us ‘In the National Assembly, Hon. Passaris is an active member of the Committee on Health and the Special Funds Account Committee. She is also a founding member of the Kenya Parliamentary Caucus on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) & an active member of the Kenyan chapter of the African Parliamentarians Against Corruption (APNAC). ‘Internationally, Hon Passaris is a member of the Global Tuberculous Caucus and the Global Equality Caucus.
‘Esther Passaris is a known public figure in Kenya, who has sparked some controversy by her statements about other Kenyan politicians and businessmen. She has been a runner-up in Miss Kenya contest and is actively campaigning for the rights of women in Kenya.’
Feminist, pro-gay, pro-abortion
Esther Passaris is good at promoting herself.
Some will accuse us of being one-sided, but we found it difficult to discover anything positive Esther Passaris has achieved as a ‘social entrepreneur’ apart from a football team.
Instead, a search of her name alone drags up a mixed bag of references. She is certainly a ‘skilled marketing and public relations professional’ but seems to put that to best use promoting herself. It is strange to find someone who is so completely pro-feminist, pro-abortion and pro-gay representing voters in socially-conservative Kenya.
CitizenGo Africa says: ‘As evident in her and friends’ social media she has been in meetings funded by pro-abortion groups and always promises these abortionists her support and her availability. While she pushes for the interests of these abortionists, she has forgotten those that voted for her are pro-life.’ The group calls for a National Assembly motion to have Rep Passaris removed from public office.
In any event, the next parliamentary elections to the National Assembly will take place in August 2022. There is time for Hon Esther Passaris, OGW, MP either to repent or to dig herself into an even deeper hole.
Ezek 18:21 But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. … 23 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? (KJV)
Ambassadors of eleven nations held a press conference to condemn the ICPD25 Nairobi Summit and UNFPA
Ambassadors of eleven nations held a press conference to condemn the ICPD25 Nairobi Summit and UNFPA
A joint statement by eleven nations on the last day of the UNFPA Summit in Nairobi condemned UNFPA without mentioning the UN population agency by name.
The UN’s Fund for Population activities had hoped the jamboree would pass off without controversy. They wanted to counter ‘the push-back’ against homosexuality and abortion in the developing world. They would be disappointed.
(All our links open automatically in a new tab, on desktops & laptops, anyway.)
Press conference
Firstly, the United States, flanked by ambassadors from Brazil, Belarus, Egypt, Haiti, Hungary, Libya, Poland, Senegal, St. Lucia, and Uganda, held a press conference on 14th November 2019.
The US Special Representative for Global Women’s Health, Valerie Huber read a Statement. This reminded ‘both those gathered and those watching’ of the original aims of ICPD. The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo in 1994. Its stated objectives and actions seem dated now. They saw ‘critical challenges and interrelationships between population and sustained economic growth’. They placed it ‘in the context of sustainable development.’
Before the Statement, the Press Conference heard from Kenyan MPs Hon Chris Wamalwa, and Hon Jennifer Shamalla. Although Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy William Rutu steered clear of abortion and homosexuality when opening and closing the Summit respectively, these two MPs gave the press corps both barrels.
Parallel Conference
Secondly, Kenya Christian Professionals organised their own conference and also issued a statement. International ambassadors also addressed one session.
According to C-Fam, ‘The parallel conference included a high-level intergovernmental event with government representatives of the United States, Hungary, Poland, Brazil, Kenya and the Holy See Nuncio. They affirmed their governments commitment to policy that foster strong families and protects unborn life and criticized UNFPA for going beyond the mandate established at the ICPD 25 years ago.
The concern of the Eleven was that UNFPA and the Scandinavian nations behind the 2019 Nairobi Summit were taking the 1994 Cairo Declaration too far.
A pre-summit document from UNFPA spoke of an ‘ambition’. This was ‘how countries can move towards universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights’. That would be ‘an essential part of universal health coverage’.
‘Sexual rights’ is shorthand for liberalising laws against homosexuality, while ‘reproductive rights’ refers to abortion.
1994 Cairo Declaration
Helpfully, UNFPA itself carries the original 1994 Cairo Declaration on its website. There are three mentions of ‘reproductive health’. All are in the context of family planning. But national governments must respect ‘their own national and cultural identity, values and tradition’.
There is no mention of ‘reproductive rights’, ‘sexual health’ or ‘sexual rights’ in the Cairo Declaration at all. Consequently there is no ‘reproductive right’ to abortion’. However the Declaration was not explicitly pro-life. It called upon national Governments ‘to reduce the need for abortion by providing universal access to family planning information and services.’
Contraception increases abortion
The Declaration blithely assumes that ‘access to family planning information and services’ reduces ‘the need for abortion’. However, that is simply not true.
Eighteen years before Cairo, British abortionist Dr Judith Bury, of Brook Advisory Centres, let the cat out of the bag. In 1981 she said “…women…have come to request [abortions] when contraception fails. There is overwhelming evidence that, contrary to what you might expect, the provision of contraception leads to an increase in the abortion rate.”
Comprehensive Sexuality Education
The Nairobi Summit was also promoting what is termed ‘Comprehensive Sexuality Education’ or CSE. This assault on the innocence of children figures nowhere in the Cairo Declaration.
Indeed, education in the Declaration had one single purpose. It was set solely in the context of increasing the wellbeing of women and girls. It would do that by bettering their health-care and developing their opportunities. Yes, it spoke of the feminist mantra of ‘women’s empowerment’. But ‘sex education’ of any kind was not there.
ICPD Program of Action
The UNFPA draw heavily on the ICPD Program of Action. This document, parallel to the Cairo Declaration, runs to 296 pages. It does contain references to ‘reproductive rights’ but these are nowhere defined, let alone to include a supposed ‘right’ to abortion. Indeed, the Government of Honduras entered a reservation in the document to clarify matters. It said the terms “‘reproductive rights’ and ‘sexual rights'” … “do not include ‘abortion’ or ‘termination of pregnancy’.”
There is no reference to ‘legalisation of abortion’ or ‘legal abortion’. Indeed, the Programme states:
‘7.24 Governments should take appropriate steps to help women avoid abortion, which in no case should be promoted as a method of family planning, and in all cases provide for the humane treatment and counselling of women who have had recourse to abortion.’
Consensus
The Program of Action was passed by consensus. It was then ‘endorsed by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in its resolution 49/128 of December 19, 1994.’ ‘Consensus’ is important in interantional law. If enough nations agree on something it begins to have a certain standing.
Therefore the 2019 Statement of the Eleven nations clarifies this point. ‘UN Member States were able to join consensus because the ICPD Program of Action preamble paragraph 1.15 made clear that the conference did not create any new international human rights, and that “the implementation of the recommendations contained in the Programme of Action is the sovereign right of each country, consistent with national laws and development priorities, with full respect for the various religious and ethical values and cultural backgrounds of its people, and in conformity with universally recognized international human rights”.’
Ambiguous terms
When it came to the ‘rights’ element in the context of ‘consensus’ the Eleven did not hold back. ‘We are also concerned about the content of some of the key priorities of this Summit. We do not support references in international documents to ambiguous terms and expressions, such as sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), which do not enjoy international consensus, nor contemplates the reservations and caveats incorporated into the Cairo outcome.
‘In addition, the use of the term SRHR may be used to actively promote practices like abortion. There is no international right to abortion; in fact, international law clearly states that “[e]veryone has the right to life” (e.g. Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights). ‘
No transparency
The 2019 Statement also condemned the Nairobi Summit for lack of transparency and inclusiveness. Cairo ‘was negotiated and implemented with and by the entire UN General Assembly membership’. In contrast, ‘only a small handful of governments were consulted on the planning and modalities of the 2019 Nairobi Summit’. (Mostly it was the Scandinavians.)
It follows, ‘outcomes from this summit are not intergovernmentally negotiated, nor are they the result of a consensus process. As a result, they should not be considered normative, nor should they appear in future documents as intergovernmentally-agreed language.’
Pro-family and pro-life nations will no doubt be on the alert for any sign of UNFPA language creeping in international documents. UNFPA will never bring its works to the light of the full UN. The Statement of the Eleven is clear. Without such universal acceptance, ‘no ICPD follow-on document has consensual weight or standing amongst governments.’
The value of Trump
It is worth saying that such a statement would never have been possible if Hilary Clinton had been elected President of the United States in 2016, the Statement of the Eleven would never have happened. It is only because of the staunch pro-life stand of the Trump administration that the 2019 Nairobi Summit was so roundly condemned.
So Almighty God plays a long game, and we should praise his name for all he did during the Summit. We were able to give out around 2,000 pro-life leaflets peacefully to delegates queuing for the Summit. Most were distributed on the opening day, Tuesday. And when we do the little things, we can leave it to the Lord to work miracles. The Statement of the Eleven is one of those things only God can organise.
Just remember, there is all to pray for as the US elections 2020 come ever closer.
Dan 2:21 And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:
Jeremy Hunt with Ghana foreign minister Honorable Shirley Ayorkor Botchway
Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP with Ghana foreign minister Honorable Shirley Ayorkor Botchway
Ghana is leading the way in Africa in encouraging self-sufficiency. The West-African nation is emerging as one of five or six real powerhouses on the continent. It’s ‘Beyond aid’ proposals aim to add value to natural resources rather than just ship out raw materials, to modernise agriculture, reduce corruption and transform education.
UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt MP was on a five-day, five-nation tour of Africa in April and May 2019. He started in Senegal on 29th April, went to Ghana on the 30th, Nigeria on 1st May. He then flew to Ethiopia before rounding off his trip in Kenya.
Describing the countries as having five of the fastest-growing economies on the continent, he told the Today programme, ‘When a Brexit agreement finally unties the UK from the EU, the UK government is looking to boost trade with Africa.’
Mr Hunt’s main goal
This is what Mr Hunt said about his main goal: ‘There is a central purpose [to the visit] which is to change the motor of our relationship with African countries from one based on aid to one based on enterprise and prosperity. I’m a big supporter of the 0.7% [aid] target and there are many African countries where that is desperately needed, like the DRC with its Ebola outbreak. But there are other countries, like Senegal, where I was yesterday, where the UK is about to overtake France and become the biggest international investor, Ghana, where I am today, where they have a national strategy which they call the “Beyond aid” strategy. And I think sometimes China, with its big infrastructure projects, is better in the eyes of African countries, in tapping into the future, and their excitement about the opportunities of the future.
‘To do this, I want to set out the stall for the UK to be the new partner of choice across Africa.’
Foreign Aid problems
It is worth saying Mr Hunt’s comment about being a ‘big supporter’ of the current Government policy of 0.7% aid target (spending 0.7% of gross national income on aid) is not popular with Conservative party members. It could come under challenge in a forthcoming leadership election.
A jaundiced view would be that, apart from actual emergencies like an Ebola outbreak, or a real failure of a major harvest, external aid depresses local prices for the commodities despatched and impoverishes local traders and farmers.
At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron said the United Kingdom would consider cutting off aid to any country that failed to recognize gay rights. Then President John Atta Mills pledged to never initiate or support any attempt to legalise homosexuality in Ghana. He said Mr Cameron ‘does not have the right to direct other sovereign nations as to what they should do especially where their societal norms and ideals are different from those that exist’ in Britain.
Financing anti-Christian NGOs
Rather than the blunt threat of cutting off aid, there is a more subtle approach. Much UK foreign aid aims to export evils like sodomy, abortion and feminism through NGOs to the developing world. Pro-gay and pro-abortion NGOs in African countries are completely financed from the West. Even when projects are ostensibly neutral, there will be an underlying ‘equality’ element. The UK is one of the worst funding culprits, although an LGBT advocacy group in Ghana known as the Solace Initiative started with funding from Canada.
Ghana’s vision of doing without foreign aid may bring unexpected benefits. Paradoxically, Mr Cameron’s 2011 pitch may have provided a much-needed spur for the initiative.
Ghana without aid
In a press release on the official Ghana.gov website, journalist Sule N. Jotie starts by referring to ‘the natural wealth God gave Ghana which, if prudently exploited and managed, will lift Ghana beyond foreign aid.’ Clearly, the Ghanaian Government, like most of sub-Saharan Africa is not afraid to give the Almighty the thanks and glory.
Jotie continues: ‘Since the 1960s, the country has depended on aid from developing partners for her development.
‘African countries that gained independence in the 1950s and 60s were faced with many challenges—infrastructural deficit and lack of skilled labour, among others. To accelerate their development, the newly-independent African countries relied so much on assistance from their development partners to fund their development needs.
As the Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia rightly put it: “Development aid was born out of the need to accelerate post-colonial development. Aid (grants, loans and projects and technical assistance) was to help fill the savings-investment gap, the technical capacity gaps and the development finance gaps in order to promote growth and development.”
‘Indeed, Ghana falls among that group of African countries that have relied on foreign aid to fund its development since 1957, in spite of the country’s wealth in natural resources – cocoa, gold, timber, oil and gas, bauxite and manganese, among others.’
Use of tariffs
The West has been happy to take the resources tariff-free and re-export the finished products back to Africa. For example, the EU has zero tariffs on import of raw cocoa and coffee beans, but imposes tariffs on finished products. As a result, Germany makes more money from processed coffee than the whole of the African continent earns from exporting coffee beans.
However, after taking office on 7th January 2017, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said: ‘We want to build a Ghana beyond aid; a Ghana which looks to the use of its own resources. We want to build an economy that is not dependent on charity and handouts, but an economy that will look at the proper management of its resources as the way to engineer social and economic growth in our country.’
Adding value
Jotie goes on: ‘Evidence on the ground suggests that Government’s One District, One Factory project is encouraging investment across the length and breadth of Ghana, a positive sign of the beginnings of value addition to the country’s resources to move the economy from one reliant on production and export of raw material to a value-added industrialised economy.
‘In that regard, Ghana’s cocoa, timber, gold, bauxite, diamond and manganese will have to be refined and value added before exportation by which more jobs would be created.’
The government is already working towards an Integrated Bauxite/Aluminium Development Authority to smelt the nation’s bauxite deposits. With its substantial iron ore and manganese deposits in the Western and Northern regions an integrated steel industry could serve the needs of the country and region and obviate the import of steel from the West..
Ghana is believed to have up to 5 to 7 billion barrels of petroleum in reserves, the sixth largest in Africa and 25th largest proven reserves in the world. Ghana also has up to 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in its reserves. It is no surprise the President intends to establish petro-chemical industries to take advantage of the growth of the oil and gas industry.
Agriculture
The Government launched a ‘Planting for Food and Jobs’ initiative last year aimed at increasing food sufficiency, reducing food imports and creating jobs for the youth.
The Minister for Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, says the use of labour, improved seeds and fertilizers combined with increased extension service delivery had resulted in the production of an additional 485,000 metric tonnes of maize, 179,000 metric tonnes of rice and 45,200 metric tonnes of vegetables with a total value of £180 million.
The Government is also planning an irrigation policy for the north, challenged by the Sahel regions of West Africa which have the same conditions like northern Ghana but export fruits and vegetables to Ghana from irrigated farms.
Corruption and Education
Digitisation of national ID cards, drivers license and vehicle registration, business registration, e-commerce and the introduction paperless port operations are aimed at reducing revenue leakages and ensuring faster turnaround in customs processing and clearance of goods. The Government hope the monies released will help finance the country’s development agenda instead of relying on foreign aid.
Across Africa, high school education is privately-funded. However, the Akufo-Addo administration is implementing a Free Senior High School programme to drive its socio-economic activities rather than importing a skilled human workforce.
Christian faith
Both the President and his finance minster, Ken Ofori-Atta, are devout Christians in a nation where 70% of the population share the Christian faith.. They have even proposed building a national interdenominational cathedral in Accra. But the Government is strongly in need of private finance for its Beyond Aid projects and the proposed cost has been criticised. Equally, it shows the administration has a heart of worship.
Ghana’s plan is dramatic and ambitious. The questions remains, despite Jeremy Hunt’s fulsome praise: will the West actually allow it? A firm reliance on the Almighty and the power of our risen Saviour will be needed if the dream of Ghana Beyond Aid is to be realised.
PRAY: That Christian leaders across Africa will lead their nations in the ways of righteousness and peace, follow the Lord, and seek prosperity through his name
Pray the UK will help Ghana and other African nations to move ‘beyond aid’, to see it as an opportunity to British entrepreneurs and not as a threat to industry here. Well, they won’t do it through altruism, will they?
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Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA Executive Director, promoting 'reproductive rights' aka abortion, in Kibera, Nairobi.
Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA Executive Director, promoting ‘reproductive rights’ aka abortion, in Kibera, Nairobi.
Scandinavian nations are behind a major cash injection (all our links open automatically in a new tab – on desktops and laptops anyway!) for next month’s abortion-promoting conference being staged by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) next month (November 2019). Norway, Finland, Sweden and Ireland have pledged a combined $2.2 million in direct contributions.
It comes as the UNFPA complains of ‘growing opposition to the global movement in favor of sexual and reproductive rights for all.’ Moreover, the UNFPA has now raised a total amount close to $8 million. This, they say is ‘boding well for a successful summit.’ We are calling for prayer to bring their efforts to dust.
Psalm 10:2 The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.
From 12th-14th November, the Government of Kenya, the Government of Denmark and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) are together convening the Summit, in Nairobi. The high-level conference aims to advance the reproductive rights (in other words: pro-abortion) agenda of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which took place in Cairo in 1994, twenty-five years ago.It is being held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) at Harambee Avenue in Nairobi’s Central Business District.
KICC is well-known as the largest conference centre in East Africa. It was commissioned by Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta. Jomo Kenyatta’s son, Uhuru, is the current president of Kenya. The organisers are inviting ‘Heads of state, ministers, parliamentarians, technical experts, civil society representatives, private sector partners, faith-based leaders, youth leaders, advocates and many others’.
The Bible says: Pro 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, …
Abortion and feminism
Dr. Kanem promoting ‘reproductive rights’ with pro-abortion Kenyan MP Esther Passaris
Dr. Natalia Kanem, UNFPA’s Executive Director, has already been in the Kibera informal settlement in Nairobi in March, as we reported here. She adopted a blatant feminist stance, pretending that abortion advances the rights of women. Firstly, we accept some of what UNFPA does is good. We praise their campaigning against female genital mutilation. Grants for sanitary products for school-girls given to organisations like Genesis Care are to be commended.
Secondly, of course maternal deaths should be reduced through better obstetric cover. And peri-natal deaths as well, although that is not a UNFPA aim. However, Dr. Kanem was in Kibera to promote the pro-abortion Nairobi Summit on ‘ICPD25′. She wanted to ‘convene activists, governments and leaders to commit to realising sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.’ ‘Reproductive rights’ is code for universal abortion on demand.
Gen 4:10 And (God) said (to Cain), What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
Scandinavians
Norway’s Dag-Inge Ulstein ‘pushing back’ against life.
According to a UNFPA webpage, Norwegian Minister of International Development Dag-Inge Ulstein has now said his country will allocate 7 million Norwegian kroner (around $770,000) to ‘demonstrate Norway’s support for the objectives of the Nairobi Summit’. Referring to growing opposition to unfettered abortion, Norway is going to Nairobi ‘to push back [against that] pushback,’ said Mr. Ulstein.
The UNFPA also reports, ‘As sexual and reproductive health and rights come under attack in many parts of the world, “Sweden will not back down,” noted Peter Eriksson, Minister for International Development Cooperation.‘Sweden, he confirmed, will contribute $500,000 to make the Nairobi Summit a success and end the unfinished business of ICPD.’
Sex Education
Finnish Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari announced another $500,000 to pay for the Nairobi Summit ‘because women and girls are always a good investment and completing the ICPD agenda “is the right thing to do”.’ Mr. Skinnari is also an advocate of ‘comprehensive’ sex education.
This invasion of children’s modesty and privacy is now gaining ground even in conservative-minded Kenya.Ireland will add $400,000 ‘to ensure least developed countries and small island nations are present in Nairobi.’ ‘We fully support the objectives of the Nairobi Summit,’ said Katherine Zappone, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, adding that it is an ‘opportunity to turn ambitions into commitments’ to realise the promise of ICPD. The Republic legalised abortion last year.
The Bible says:Micah 2:1 Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.
Abortion as ‘health’?
The first of five ‘themes’ of the conference is ‘Universal access to sexual and reproductive health as a part of universal health coverage.’Treatment for sexually-transmitted disease should be and always is part of universal health coverage.
But that’s not what they mean. Their focus is on abortion and contraception. However, money, private or public, is always in short supply for health provision. Priorities have to be set. The UNFPA clearly wants contraceptives to be funded instead of real health provision. Will they also prioritise abortions over, for example, cancer treatment?
They moan that ‘around the world, sexual and reproductive health care is often under-funded and separated from primary health care.’ Of course it is. That is because it isn’t genuine health care. Abortion breaks the first medical principle of ‘do no harm’. Equally, contraception is overwhelmingly a lifestyle choice. You take a medicine or have surgery because you are ill. What is wrong with a woman taking the pill? She’s fertile? Since when was that an ailment?
Abortion is an insult to all the women in this world desperate to conceive, seeing the doctors, praying to be like the Bible’s Hannah: 1Sam 2:21 And the LORD visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters. And (her first) child Samuel grew before the LORD.
‘End violence against women’
Another stated ‘theme’ of the conference is ‘Accelerating Action to End Violence Against Women and Girls’. The UNFPA say this without blushing. Abortion is a manifest expression of violence against women. It assaults the caring nurturing heart of their being. It rips a living human being out of what should be the safest place on God’s earth:
Psalm 139:13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.Eccl 11:5 As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all
Moreover, it is unashamedly sexist. Does violence against men and boys not matter? The conflict in Ukraine has seen 4,266 deaths to date. The Iraq Body Count project documents 183,348 – 205,908 violent civilian deaths to April 2019. It displaced millions. Estimates of deaths in the Western-funded Syrian Civil War vary between 371,222 and more than 570,000. By the end of 2013, the UN estimated its total economic damage at $143 billion. In 2018, the World Bank estimated that about one-third of Syria’s housing stock and one half of its health and education facilities had been destroyed by the conflict.
That devastation affected whole families, men, women and children. And yet the UNFPA acts as if none of this is of any consequence.
The truth about violence
In fact, a massive social survey in Kenya found ‘Forty-five percent of women … have experienced physical violence’. The UNFPA made a lot of that figure. They completely ignored that the same report found 44% of men reported experiencing violence.
Men willingly put their lives on the line for their families.
Again, 19.7% of women had suffered unintentional injury. But that compares with 33% of men.
All over the world, being a man is far more dangerous than being a woman. However, men do not complain that they do the more dangerous jobs and put their lives on the line for their women and their families:
Neh 4:14 And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.
Deliberately misleading
Having read the Kenyan report, the UNFPA are being deliberately misleading when they drone on about violence against women. Furthermore, families and relationships are complex things. Women are just as capable of malice against their men-folk as men are of striking out against a woman.
The Psalmist complains: Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
But we should be wrong to conclude from his male gender that it is only men who are tainted with original sin while women as a sex are as pure as the driven snow. It is only necessary to look at the UNFPA’s Dr. Natalia Kanem, in Nairobi to promote abortion, and Kenyan MP Esther Passaris, going around Nairobi tearing down pro-life posters, to realise that women are capable of sin.
Fragile contexts
As an example of how the UNFPA live in a parallel universe to that of normal people, consider another ‘theme’. It is ‘Upholding the right to sexual and reproductive health care even in humanitarian and fragile contexts.’ They say: ‘Women fleeing war or stranded in places where services have collapsed must still be able to prevent pregnancy and may still need help to give birth safely.’
Is life in a refugee camp really made better by condoms and abortion? Should not the West be funding tents, food and blankets and helping people get their lives back together?
Of course giving birth in a refugee camp is not ideal, and if the UNFPA were merely asking for midwives to form part of emergency teams we should not have a quarrel. But being ‘able to prevent pregnancy’?
There are people in the camps who have lost everything, perhaps carrying injury, maybe mourning family members. But cheer up, here are some condoms from Norway and we have a Swedish-paid abortionist on hand when they fail! Are they serious?
Abortion as a driver of evil
The Psalmist observes how the people of Israel became corrupted by pagan practice when they entered the Holy Land:
Psalm 106:37 Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, 38 And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.
As we read above about the death of Abel, innocent blood cries to heaven for vengeance. But there is more. In the Bible’s book of Second Kings, we read of the king of Moab in battle against a coalition led by Israel. It was going badly for him. As a last resort:
2Kings 3:27 Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.
The Hebrew word translated ‘indignation’ is ‘qetsef’. It also means ‘rage’ or ‘wrath’. I believe his terrible ritual human sacrifice of his son released unimaginable demonic power for which his enemies were unprepared.
Act of rebellion – and judgment
But we do not need incantations. Every time an innocent human life is lost the Devil draws spiritual power. Abortion becomes an act of rebellion against a holy God and a judgment against a nation. It releases even greater evil, for bloodshed, for perversion, for immorality.
We see this in the Western world. In the United Kingdom in the 1960s we decriminalised both abortion and sexual perversion including sodomy. We sowed the seeds for family breakdown with no-fault divorce. We began explicit sex education.
Gay Pride Parade in London.
The prophet says:Hosea 8:7 For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind:
We now reap disrespect for human life and authority, an epidemic of knife crime, fatherless families, parades of homosexual perversion through our cities.
The UK has exported violence to Iraq, Libya and Syria and through our Saudi proxy, to Yemen. We are part of a European Union which destablised Ukraine. We have much blood on our hands. How we, and much of the so-called ‘civilised’ West, need national repentance. Instead, we try to export our rebellion to the developing world.
The Kenya perspective
Abortion is prohibited by the Kenya criminal code. Despite that, Marie Stopes International (MSI), which according to its latest annual report is ‘one of the world’s largest providers of high quality, affordable contraception and safe abortion services’ operates openly all over the country and much of East and West Africa. Its total turnover worldwide in 2018 was £296,849,000.
The Guardian reports In December 2018 the Kenyan Government allowed MSI to continue to provide post-abortion services alone. Yet it is clear that service is a smokescreen for illegal abortion. The MSI website boasts: ‘Providing access to safe abortion and post-abortion care is at the core of our mission. In 2018, MSI provided more than 4.8 million services to women and girls who turned to us for safe abortion and post-abortion care services.’ (Our emphasis of ‘and’ in both cases above.)
Dr Linden Stocker took part in illegal abortions at Marie Stopes in Kisumu
UK doctor helped abortionists
In 2012, on the website of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, medical student Linden Stocker wrote of an elective she did in Kisumu. Dr Stocker (as she now is) spent two days a week at Marie Stopes and reported they ‘perform safe, completely illegal abortions for a cost equivalent of about £30′.
Marie Stopes actually turned over £11.5m in Kenya in 2018, but almost 94% of its income to slay the innocent across Africa and Asia came from Western grants. (Total turnover Africa & Asia: £180,611. Income from grants: £169,204.) The Bible says:
Deut 27:25 Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Western grants to Marie Stopes
When we turned up the page of Marie Stopes ‘partners’ we were shocked. It lists 31 NGOs and government agencies. The abortionists receive grants from the national governments of Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, USA and the European Commission. Moreover, a recent House of Commons motion revealed the UK Government is the biggest donor to Marie Stopes International. The UK provided £48m to allow the abortionist to carry out illegal abortions in Africa.
US-based NGOs funding its abortion services include Bloomberg Philanthropies, Care International, Direct Relief, the Ford Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates, Global Health Corps, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, Population Action International (PAI), John Templeton Foundation and West Wind Foundation. Marie Stopes Furthermore, UK-based funders include Amref (began as flying doctors), Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the Ernest Kleinwort Charitable Trust, the Waterloo Foundation and Vitol. German-based KfW Development Bank and the World Bank provide Marie Stopes with money.
Lastly, UN bodies funding Marie Stopes include Unicef, UNHCR and of course UNFPA.
Planned Parenthood
It doesn’t stop there. The world’s largest abortionist is Planned Parenthood. Their website says: ‘In July 2017, Planned Parenthood Global officially transitioned its headquarters from New York to Nairobi, Kenya. The Nairobi headquarters will help Planned Parenthood Global establish a larger footprint in both regions where it works, as we face unprecedented attacks on sexual and reproductive health and rights around the world.’
The world’s biggest abortionist is now headquartered in Senteu Plaza, 3rd floor Galana Rd, Nairobi, in a nation which bans abortion. No wonder they spent $115m on ‘advocacy’ (propaganda) in 2018. Planned Parenthood Federation of America International is also quartered in the city, in Chaka Place, 1st Floor, on Chaka Rd.
In total, Planned Parenthood turned over $1,665m in 2018, of which $564m came from governments, $366 from ‘non-government sources’ and $631m from ‘private contributions and bequests’. Planned Parenthood has personnel links with the Ford Foundation and also with George Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Ford Foundation has given the abortionist $22m over the last twelve years. Open Society gave PP a modest £250,000 in 2016, but a whopping $10m to its Action Fund propaganda arm in 2017.
In March, pro-abortion rights and former US congressman Tom Perriello joined Open Society Foundations ‘to oversee grantmaking and advocacy’.From this year, Planned Parenthood will go without US Federal grants. They refused to comply with a new Trump administration rule that forbids referrals to doctors who can perform abortions. But their income is still colossal and their influence set to increase.
Abortion ban brings blessing
African and Asian nations and many in Central and South America who maintain a ban on legal abortion do so in the face of intense international pressure. They can expect a blessing from the Almighty from refusing to shed innocent blood.They will have other things they need to put right before God, of course. Repentance and trusting in the Lord Jesus are national necessities. But holding human life sacred is a good start. God’s prophet says of the Almighty:
Isaiah 60:12 For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.
But the Lord Almighty promises to every nation:
Lev 26:3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4 Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. 6 And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.
Boris Johnson with a real issue of trust - can he keep his word to leave the EU on Halloween?
Boris Johnson with a real issue of trust – can he keep his word to leave the EU on Halloween?
1Timothy 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; 2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
Yesterday, the European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 became law. Boris Johnson has dubbed it the ‘Surrender Act’. It compels him to ask for an extension to Article 50 for another three months past 31st October if Parliament has not approved a withdrawal deal with the EU. Then it allows the EU to specify the length of an extension.
Mr Johnson gave his word during his election campaign that he would take the UK out of the EU on Halloween. His words were, ‘Do or die’, ‘Come what may’. So what are his options?
Here we urge prayer for him to keep his word and refuse to send the letter drafted for him. We’ll argue he should dare the Remainers to take action against him. Mr Johnson may not be washed in the blood of the Lamb. Nevertheless, he is doing the will of the Lord in taking the UK out of the EU’s Revived Roman Empire. If that is the case, he may say:
Psalm 118:6 The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?
What indeed can they do? We shall explore their options – and his – below.
An issue of trust
Also yesterday, for the second time, the Government lost a vote on holding a general election in October. Why will the Opposition not agree to an October general election? They say it’s because they want to see their new Act put into effect first. But they also know that electoral success for the Conservatives depends on Boris delivering on his promise to take the UK out of the EU on Halloween whatever happens.
The Sun put it well: ‘They have defeated the Government on its central policy — but intend to keep it trapped in office for fear that an election will hand Boris the convincing victory polls indicate.’
John Crace, the Guardian’s sneering opinion-writer, said on BBC on Saturday morning (7th September 2019) there was an ‘issue of trust’ with Boris Johnson. Opposition MPs do not trust Boris Johnson to abide by their new law. Why do they not trust him to abide by it? Funnily enough, it’s because they trust him to keep his word. Whether they are right to do so is another matter, but he says he would rather ‘be dead in a ditch’ than ask for a ‘pointless’ delay.
The real issue of trust
So the real issue of trust works like this: Firstly, the Opposition appear not to trust Mr Johnson to break his word. Secondly, the Opposition certainly do not trust themselves to win an October general election. That is with good reason. Labour are so far behind in the polls they could not win a majority, as things stand.
Moreover, suppose the Tories were to enter into a pact with the Brexit Party. Each stood aside in the other’s winnable seats. In that event there could easily be a thumping No-Deal majority in a new October House of Commons.
Then Hilary Benn’s Surrender Act would be repealed. The UK would leave the EU without a deal on 31st October. But delay Brexit past All Hallows’ E’en and the polling shows the Tories as toast and victory for the Opposition. But on top of that, this is still a spiritual war. The prospect of leaving without a deal, or even leaving the EU at all, terrifies true Remainers.
Isa 31:1 Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD!
Lawyers
Initially, politicians and the media talked about Boris resigning rather than send the letter, That’s all they were talking about on Friday afternoon. The idea he might simply refuse to send the letter had not yet occurred to them.
By Saturday morning it had. After all, he did say, ‘Come what may’ and ‘Do or die’. Ex-Tory rebels started consulting lawyers to see how they could force Boris Johnson to abide by their Surrender Act.
According to the BBC, they would seek some sort of Court Order to force him to send the EU the letter contained in the Surrender Act asking for an extension.
‘Sent to prison for contempt’
2Chron 19:6 (Solomon) said to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the LORD, who is with you in the judgment.
Former director of public prosecutions Lord MacDonald, told Sky News legal action would mean a court ordering that ‘the law should be followed’.
‘A refusal in the face of that would amount to contempt of court’ which could ‘find that person in prison’, he said.
The cross-bench peer said this was ‘not an extreme outcome’ as it was ‘conventional’ that individuals who refuse to ‘purge their contempt’ are sent to prison.
Dominic Grieve agreed, saying Mr Johnson was acting like a ‘spoilt child having a tantrum’. (It’s funny how often people accuse others of doing exactly what they do themselves.) If he refuses to obey the law he will be ‘sent to prison for contempt,’ the Beaconsfield MP said.
Micah 2:1 Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.
Rules for Radicals
In 1971 US civil rights activist Saul Alinsky wrote his ‘Rules for Radicals’. One challenge with Boris being sent to prison is it falls outside his experience. That contravenes the first of the ‘rules for radicals’. Alinsky writes: ‘When an action is outside the experience of the people the result is confusion, fear and retreat.’ (p127) This is where, for Mr Johnson, courage comes in. Furthermore, Boris can pull off a spell inside in a good cause if anyone can.
He would simply go around charming everyone as usual, being hailed by the lags as a phenomenon. Senior Conservatives and the Sun Newspaper are already talking about Boris in that scenario as a ‘Brexit Martyr.’
By the same token, being responsible for sending a Prime Minister to jail is outside the experience of Dominic Grieve and his pals. So this one cuts both ways.
Is that all you’ve got?
Alinsky argued the reaction from the establishment is more important than the action (or in this case the lack of action) from the radical which precedes it.
The establishment is rarely creative. It operates according to its own certain fixed rules. And it may be its reaction generates for you a swathe of positive publicity.
That prospect of prison is supposed to be really scary, but demands the response ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ Boris Johnson going to prison rather than break his word is the stuff of dreams for political campaigners. Jailed for standing up for the people against Parliament? It’s election landslide material.
Nor would time inside disqualify Mr Johnson from remaining as Prime Minister or as an MP. Under the Representation of the People Act 1981, a member of the House of Commons is only disqualified if found guilty of an offence and sentenced to more than one year in prison.
Happily, the Remainers forgot to make it an offence in the Surrender Act for the Prime Minister not to send their letter. On Sunday the Observer screamed: ‘Boris Johnson “will be forced from power if he defies no-deal law”.’ Nothing in their article backed up the headline. It was nonsense.
‘Not going to Pentonville’
However, former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption told Sky News ‘He’s not going to be marched off to Pentonville Prison.’ (The usual place for those in contempt of court is actually establishments as found on the Isle of Sheppey.) He sneered, ‘it’s much less dramatic than all that’.
There would be ‘plenty of ways’ to enforce the law, he went on. A judge could make an order demanding that a government official sign off the extension ‘in place of the prime minister’.
The problem there is the Act specifies ‘The Prime Minister’ shall send the letter, not any official or ‘a minister of the crown’. The Remainers made it personal. They wanted to humiliate Boris Johnson into breaking his word. It is precisely that which has scuppered them.
His Lordship went on to suggest ‘senior civil servants would refuse to co-operate with a prime minister who was wilfully breaking the law.’
However, the Prime Minister will not ask any civil servant to do anything, because there is not anything to do. All Mr Johnson has to do is nothing and wait for the Remainers to file papers.
Resignations
Warming to his theme, Lord Sumption went on, ‘He won’t get any co-operation, apart from the fanatics around him… the attorney general won’t sit there quietly while this happens.’
It may not be Attorney General Geoffrey Cox MP getting cold feet, but Justice Secretary Robert Buckland is running scared. He revealed his concerns about the Prime Minister in twitter. ‘We have spoken over the past 24 hours regarding the importance of the Rule of Law, which I as Lord Chancellor have taken an oath to uphold.’ The Independent says ‘the pro-EU justice secretary is one of four cabinet ministers on “resignation watch”, as No 10 ratchets up the rhetoric in a Brexit showdown heading for the courts.’
Don’t forget, if Boris Johnson does refuse to send the letter, and the Remainers do take him to court, a high-ranking QC will stand up for him in front of the judge. If not Geoffrey Cox, another lawyer will jump at the opportunity.
Don’t challenge the Surrender Act
Note that it is very important the Prime Minister remains passive and does not challenge the Surrender Act in court himself.
The Foreign Secretary has suggested Boris Johnson might go to court to challenge the order from parliament to delay Brexit. The Independent quoted Dominic Raab insisting the government would neither break nor comply with the new ‘law’. Mr Raab said: ‘We will look very carefully, legally at what it requires and what it doesn’t require.’
Asked if the government would go to the courts, he pointed to the failed legal actions to stop parliament being suspended. He told Sky’s Sophy Ridge programme: ‘We had two legal challenges last week and we won both of those.’
That is exactly the point. Those people wasted time going to court. Don’t do it. Wait for them to come for you.
Not ‘ignoring’ the law
Writing in the Daily Express, Leo McKinstry argues against ‘ignoring’ the new law. He writes: ‘That is the stuff of despots and revolutionaries, not British Government ministers who are meant to be guardians of the rule of law..’ The reason he is wrong is because the despots he refers to have the power to ignore law without repercussions. Boris Johnson does not. He runs the risk of being taken to court. So he makes himself subject to the law even while challenging it.
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said although No 10 insisted it was not looking to break the new law, efforts were under way to examine ways of getting around it.
Once again, they should not waste their time. Just defy it. Make the Remainers take action against you. That is the principled thing to do and a bit of raw courage is what the public is crying out for. Here is Moses giving Joshua his final orders:
Deut 31:23 And he gave Joshua the son of Nun a charge, and said, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them: and I will be with thee.
Courage is do-able and more do-able if the Lord is with you. Boris Johnson needs faith in Jesus. Pray for him!
Impeachment
As it happens, Parliamentarians taking Boris to court is itself a sign of weakness. Their normal course would be to put down a motion of no confidence. But that is what Boris Johnson wants. Why? Because it must lead to a general election. That is because the combined opposition cannot agree who should be Prime Minister and form a government instead of Mr Johnson. That is precisely why they chose their Surrender Act approach.
Could the Prime Minister be found ‘in contempt of Parliament’? That form of words usually refers to obstructing Parliament in its work. It was used on 4th December 2018 to compel Mrs May’s administration to release the Attorney General’s advice. His advice when subsequently published severely damaged Mrs May’s case for her Withdrawal Agreement.
As for impeachment, a Parliamentary paper says this: ‘The last (unsuccessful) prosecution of an impeachment case was in 1806. The 1967 Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege recommended that the right to impeach should be formally abandoned, for which legislation would have been necessary. The recommendation was repeated in the third report from the Committee on Privileges in 1976-77. However, the 1999 Report from the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege stated that ‘the circumstances in which impeachment has taken place are now so remote from the present that the procedure may be considered obsolete’.’
Bluster, or not?
QC Philippe Sands told the Observer: ‘Britain is a rule of law country, so he will comply or leave office. All other talk is bluster, as attorney general Geoffrey Cox will already have advised him.’
That sounds right, but in truth the UK is a nation founded on the rule of God’s law, who is our only lawgiver:
Isaiah 33:22 For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.
God’s laws also have a teaching function and impact the heart:
Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
Regulation not law
This United Kingdom has passed plenty of laws in rebellion against God’s laws. We have passed laws from hell in a covenant with death. It is also possible to pass non-criminal measures which look like laws but are mere regulations. The Lord Jesus quoted another passage from Isaiah:
Matt 15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
In the view I am proposing the Surrender Act is not a serious law but just a bit of political maneuvering. The Sun describes its authors as ‘illegitimate’ and ‘a parallel, unaccountable Remainer Government with no mandate.’
Boris Johnson would not go to hell for ignoring this non-law any more than he would for being offside in football.
Issue of trust again
ITV’s Robert Peston writes in the Spectator: ‘I don’t believe Johnson will ever voluntarily quit Downing Street. He’s waited for this moment too long. … It seems extraordinary that senior Tory MPs tell me that a serving prime minister should break the law, rather than break a promise that under no circumstances would he fail to take the UK out of the EU by October 31. The choice is between keeping his word or disobeying the law of the land. “He can’t sign the letter” said a Tory grandee and former Cabinet minister. “He has to precipitate a very real constitutional crisis”.’ It’s that issue of trust again.
The Daily Express records Iain Duncan Smith encouraging ‘Boris Johnson to defy parliament and the law in order to deliver Brexit.’ Mr Duncan Smith said: ‘This is about Parliament versus the people. Boris Johnson is on the side of the people, who voted to leave the EU.’
According to The Telegraph (£), Mr Johnson said: ‘They just passed a law that would force me to beg Brussels for an extension to the Brexit deadline. This is something I will never do.’
No UK Commissioner
Meanwhile, the Express claims the Prime Minister will ‘sabotage’ the EU. It goes on, ‘The defiant Prime Minister will use the EU’s own rules to bring it to a standstill from November 1.’ ‘Mr Johnson today tells Sunday Express readers: “I refuse to accept Corbyn’s pointless delay.” …’
Sources have said the Government will refuse to nominate a commissioner for the EU Commission. That, coupled with the PM’s refusal to extend, means the EU Commission will not be legally constituted on November 1 because of Article 17 of the Treaty of the European Union.
‘If the EU member states try to change the rules, Mr Johnson can use the British veto to prevent it.’
Silliness
I think we can disregard a couple of vacuous ideas. The first, mentioned by the Daily Telegraph (£), is for the Prime Minister to send the letter as demanded but to send a second covering letter saying he did not really mean it. That would not just be against the spirit of the Surrender Act. It would be silly and it would break his word. You cannot face two ways at once:
Matt 5:37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
The second is he could send the letter and then use the UK’s veto – we should still be just about in the EU at this point – to prevent any extension. That would also strike at the issue of trust. It would break his pledge never to send the letter.
Nor will he send the letter, which as drafted gives no reasons whatever for an extension, then rely on the French or Dutch to veto it. Reasons see above.
On Conservative Home, Councillor Simon Fawthrop observes that the Surrender Act requires the Prime Minister to send the letter it specifies but fails to direct by what means. Amusingly he suggests the Prime Minister draft it and sign it on 19th October but entrust it to a languid hiker. Accordingly the hiker would take the rest of October and most of November to reach the EU Council in Brussels. But that is a silly idea, isn’t it?
Real deal
One matter for prayer would be to watch out for Labour bringing Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement back in the new Session of Parliament and Parliament voting it through as the next best thing to remaining. Which it is.
Furthermore, we cannot discount the possibility of the Government securing a real 11th-hour deal with the EU. There is word at the moment from the Daily Express of a possible deal which would treat Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the United Kingdom. That is unacceptable. Nevertheless, we should pray rather than believe all we read in the papers. And always bear this in mind as we began by talking of an issue of trust:
Psalm 146:3 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.
The original idea was to negotiate a trade deal. Mrs May blew that. Boris Johnson is constrained by time to some version of the May Withdrawal Agreement. There is no time for a real deal. No Deal still looks inevitable barring a total climb-down from the Prime Minister. And he knows that would destroy him and his party.
Whatever deal or pseudo-deal he proposes, the House of Commons could still vote against it and the Government would be back to square one.
The Lord has boxed them in
The BBC said yesterday morning: ‘The Irish government is also watching Westminster events closely, knowing that the prime minister is currently boxed in by the opposition parties and has few options left.’
They are wrong. It is beginning to dawn on Remainers that rather than box in the Prime Minister, the Lord (some will say ‘their own action’ – or both) has boxed them in:
Psalm 57:6 They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves.
The Times (£) thinks ‘Boris Johnson … looks all out of options and there is already speculation that he will soon be forced to resign. In truth, things are not as hopeless as they look. Mr Johnson does have one good option. He needs to cut a deal with the European Union.’ That would be nice, if there were time, but in its absence the Times, a Remainer paper, ignores the No-Deal option of sitting tight and doing nothing.
The Sun hints at the inaction option: ‘Many MPs think the Prime Minister has only two options if he refuses to ask the EU for an extension: break the law or resign. The truth is he could do neither. …Boris has rightly staked his reputation on refusing another extension. But the rebels think their new law on its own will force him to bend to their will. They may be in for a nasty shock.’ Yes, Mr Crace, Boris Johnson faces an issue of trust. We’ll pray he lives up to it and his enemies reap the prophecy of Jeremiah:
Jer 48:16 The calamity of Moab is near to come, and his affliction hasteth fast.
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Some supporters of Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP really want to stop Brexit
Some supporters of Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP really want to stop Brexit
Make no mistake, the members of Parliament who will try to grab control of House of Commons business today or tomorrow with the intention of forcing through a law to tell the Prime Minister to ask for an Article 50 are not doing it to secure a ‘deal’.
They will never agree one. So what is behind the move?
The Bill’s other sponsors are Alistair Burt, Philip Hammond and David Gauke (Conservative), Tom Brake (LibDem), Stephen Gethins (SNP), Jonathan Edwards (Plaid Cymru), Joan Ryan (TIG-Change), Caroline Lucas (Green), Chris Bryant and Stephen Doughty (Labour) and Nick Boles (ex-Conservative, now Independent).
As to the real purpose, around half of them really want to, in the words of that protester, ‘Stop Brexit!’
No reason for extension
Mr Benn’s Bill page 1
The Bill takes up four pages which Mr Been posted and we reproduce here. ITV news says, ‘The Bill requires the Government to either reach a deal with the EU, or gain Parliament’s approval for a no-deal exit by October 19.’
Actually, Clause 1(1) says the deal must be approved by both houses of Parliament by 19th October to meet the first condition. Clause 1(2) says Parliament must approve No Deal. It’s an ‘either/or’.
A House of Commons stuffed with Remainers will, of course, do neither of those. Wherefore Clause 1(3) will come into play. This tells the Prime Minister to write to the European Council ‘no later than 19 October 2019.’ Moreover, under Clause 1(4) he must ask in his letter for an Article 50 extension to 31st January 2020.
In fact, a Schedule on page 4 of the Bill specifies precisely the letter the Prime Minister must send. Curiously, the schedule’s letter gives the President of the European Council no reason for such an extension. Nor does it say the Prime Minister must travel to Brussels to present this lack of a case. Nor does it say he must accept whatever conditions the EU might put on such an extension.
How can Boris get around it, if passed?
Mr Benn’s Bill page 2
Mr Johnson’s threatened general election is now looking unlikely, which is a good thing. Who knows what could happen if one were called? So if Mr Johnson stays in office, another option is simply to ignore the new Act and be taken to court or held in contempt of Parliament. Now that would be ‘Do or Die’.
Alternatively, the BBC’s Norman Smith writes this: ‘To secure a delay would require the support of all 28 members of the EU. As the UK is still a member, Mr Johnson could – however bizarre this might sound – veto his own government’s position.’
So in the eyes of this writer the proposed Act of Parliament is something of a toothless tiger. But we are talking as if it will undoubtedly pass. That is not a given. Yes, Tory rebels may vote for it. But there may be as many Labour MPs who vote against. And there is a God in heaven. It would be better for Brexit happening on Halloween not to have it, the Government should still oppose it, and we should still pray against it.
Overrides Withdrawal Act
Mr Benn’s Bill page 3
Crazily, the Bill overrides the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 which MPs passed into law last year. As we reported, Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay signed an Order to bring that Act into force last month. Under it, the UK will leave the European Union non 31st October.
But the new Bill says, in Clause 5(3): ‘The provisions of this Act override any statutory or other provision which would otherwise require the UK to leave the European Union on any specified date.’
Mr Benn’s Bill sets back ‘Exit Day’. ITV is not alone in the Remainy media in claiming a delay, ‘will also give time to allow Parliament to seek to build a consensus on the way forward.’ They haven’t managed it so far. Parliament’s ‘Indicative Votes’ went nowhere, after two attempts.
Some MPs want a ‘second referendum’. Others are in favour of scrapping Article 50 abruptly. Most Labour MPs simply want a Labour government. There is no chance of a ‘consensus’. That is why the rebels ditched the idea of a confidence vote followed by a government led by … well, by whom?
Benn or Letwin? Who is Prime Minister?
Mr Benn’s Bill page 4
In the usual run of things, this is what an MP does to take charge of the Commons Order Paper.
Firstly, he becomes leader of a political party. Secondly, he leads that party to victory in a general election. Thirdly, he appoints a Leader of the House to tell the Chamber what will happen when.
The Speaker, John Bercow MP is likely to grant that request. If the House agrees to hold the debate, the Parliament website says ‘The motion to be debated will be “That the House has considered the matter of [Topic]”.’
However, the Speaker is likely, as he did with the earlier Letwin / Cooper Bill, to allow amendments to the anodyne motion.
Mr Benn or a friend would then table an amendment to allow days to debate his Bill.
The LORD is still God
Overruling all these affairs of men is the most high God.
Psalm 103:19 The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all.
We do not know what the Lord will do. We shall pray for peace and righteousness to prevail. The Bible says this about any earthly empire, such as the EU, coming in the spirit of Babylon:
Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
The prayers of John Knox terrified Mary Queen of Scots.
John Knox is well known as 16th-century Scotland’s most fiery preacher. He was also on fire in prayer. Mary Queen of Scots is attributed with these words: “I fear John Knox’s prayers more than all the assembled armies of Europe.”
Would that our rulers feared our prayers. Let us remember the night in 2006 when Tony Blair lost a key vote on his Racial and Religious Hatred Bill by one vote after his whips told him he could go home. That was an unexpected and dramatic answer to prayer. ‘Lord, how do you do that?’
Let us pray the LORD does something equally amazing over the course of the next few days:
Isa 25:3 Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee.
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