A Yorkshire council today admitted it made a mistake in removing children from foster parents because the couple were members of the UK Independence Party. (Read the Times article about it here.)
The children, a baby girl, a boy and an older girl, were removed from the foster couple by the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council in South Yorkshire following allegations from social workers that the parents’ political affiliation was at odds with the children’s European backgrounds. (The Ukip party favours Britain’s complete withdrawal from the EU.)
The social worker in the case alleged that UKIP is a racist party and that the children’s “cultural and ethnic needs” might be compromised by the foster parents. However, the council admitted that the South Yorkshire couple, a qualified nursery nurse and a former Royal Navy reservist, were good foster parents and provided proper care to the children.
The children had been with the foster parents for about eight weeks. During this time they were encouraged to share their own folk songs and speak their native language, which the foster parents were attempting to learn.
The Council’s admission of error occurred after Education Secretary, Michael Gove, condemned the decision as “indefensible” last weekend, leading to an investigation of the Council’s behaviour.
In a statement earlier today, council leader Roger Stone commented that “Membership of UKIP should not bar someone from fostering. The council places the highest priority on safeguarding children, and our overriding concern in all decisions about the children in our care is for their best interests.”
Labour leader, Ed Miliband also criticized the Council’s totalitarian actions. He was joined by Michael Grove, who heads the Government department responsible for children’s services. Mr Grove promised to investigate what happened and to “deal with” the situation. He commented that
“Rotherham’s reasons for denying this family the chance to foster are indefensible. The ideology behind their decision is actively harmful to children. We should not allow considerations of ethnic or cultural background to prevent children being placed with loving and stable families…. Any council which decides that supporting a mainstream UK political party disbars an individual from looking after children in care is sending a dreadful signal that will only decrease the number of loving homes available to children in need.”
The couple have still not received the children back, nor have they been given a public apology. The wife told The Daily Telegraph: “We feel that we have personally been slandered and we would like a public apology from Rotherham. We would also like something in the form of a letter stating that they have got it wrong in this case and that it will not be on our records that we have had children removed from our care.We just want a clean slate.”
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that social workers and local councils have used their power as leverage over parents whose views are not politically correct. Last June we reported on the story of Toni McLeod, who has taken up residence in Ireland to try to escape the tentacles of Durham County Council. Durham council is attempting to gain custody of Mrs. McLeod’s baby because of her allegedly anti-Muslim views.
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If these children are Polish, they are presumably nominally Christian at least, and there is no suggestion that the foster parents are not at least nominally Christian. This being so, I fail to see how this is of great concern to Christian Voice. It isn’t a case of homosexual foster parents being allowed to have heterosexual children, or Muslim parents being allowed to have Christian children, either of which would be of the utmost Christian Voice concern, obviously .
Clearly something is wrong, but the Council and the Education Secretary have admitted that, so what is the problem? Anyway, lots and lots of things are wrong in the world, but Christian Voice doesn’t normally get involved unless the they touch on its Christian agenda, and I don’t see how this case does.
Christianity cuts across all walks of life, and taking foster children away by a council over meaningless dogma is a most un-Christian and anti-charitable act.
It is a great shame that over the centuries, Christianity has played a far less significant role in national and local government than should have been the case.
Jesus left it to the disciples to decide when and over what issues to tackle. The Christian agenda is all encompassing and it worries us not the least when we speak out and others ask why? As they have over the centuries!
Archbishop Rowan Williams is one of the first to have the moral courage to speak out when government does some very uncharitable things indeed.
Queen Victoria was humble enough to pray fervently for Jesus to return during her lifetime, so she could hand him her crown!
When Jesus returns He will rule over all aspects of life, not just Christian Worship and it is just this that made the religious and political leaders of the time afraid enough to put Jesus to death. This left them flummoxed and totally defeated when He returned after the crucifixion. They could deal with Jesus the man, but not with Jesus God incarnate! Nor with the Holy Spirit which works in the present and the future for all time!
I think it is fair to make a statement on this case simply for the reason that if fostering couples are denied children solely because of political affiliation then it could quite possibly happen due to a couples religion or rather the ‘wrong’ religion i.e.. Christianity (or possible Judaism)
The really disturbing thing about this story that hasn’t been mentioned yet, and I think that Rotherham Council are being quite deceitful here, is that at no time have social services said that the fostering of the couple wasn’t up to scratch in fact they say that the couple have an excellent fostering record.
this begs the question about the so-called ‘tip-off’ as it was the only thing that got social services re-engaged.
someone just calls up Rotherham SS (abbreviation for Social Services) and says ‘you know that couple who foster kids for you – well I can tell you in confidence that they are UKIP members’
The whole thing stinks….
Apart from the UK there are 26 other member states of the EU, all of which are nominally Christian, so let’s leave speculation about their specific ethnic/national roots out of this.
It is part of the Christian agenda to take care of the fatherless and widows (James 1:27), these children have been very badly let down by Rotheram council, as indeed were the girls caught up in the recent sexual abuse scandal by gangs of ethnic minority men on the sacred cow of political correctness. Christians are concerned for both righteousness and justice and Christian Voice has every right, some may say duty, to comment.
I hope that you, like me, are appalled that political dogma should take precedent over the care and nurture of children, especially those that are disadvantaged.
Amen.
Why is Giles Frazer so determined to have women bishops? Him and his friends are on about getting deanery synods to declare a vote of no confidence in deanery synods! Why is he so concerned about this issue? Can anyone enlighten me on this?
I too think its fair to mention as this is probably the thin of the wedge and shows us by the example of political affiliation what lies in store for all those who won’t conform to this Communitarian social engineering, be they Christian or not. The false charge of “racist” by the Social Worker could just as easy have been “bigot and hater” for the Christian Foster parent by Social Services for upholding biblical morality. I suspect also that for every case like this that makes the news there are many that don’t.
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