Bill Butler avoids mentioning RC schools

After our little article yesterday exposing an IRA supporter, who is advising the government on bigotry and also receiving public money to spout her vicious fabrications. We now have yet more double standards and hypocrisy from Conservative MSP “Bill Butler”.

He has written to the Herald of all newspapers, asking for a coherent anti-sectarian strategy from the SNP government. In his letter (below) you will notice he mentions joint campuses for our children. He also mentions something about school twinning, which for the life of me I don’t really understand.

Could I be a little more straightforward than Bill and all the other cowards, who hide under their blankets at Holyrood and Westminster, when this subject is mentioned? Here's a better idea Bill. Why not just let little Johnny and little Freddie who live next door to each other go to the SAME school?

Are you so scared of losing the so-called green vote and facing the wrath of the RC church you won’t mention what society really wants. We object to financing these schools, which breed a "them and us" mentality. We object to paying for an apartheid state school system and we object to our politicians not taking on the real issues.

I welcome wholeheartedly publication of the STUC’s report into sectarianism in the workplace and applaud its commitment to fight bigotry (“Employers must act on sectarian banter in workplace”, The Herald, November 24).

Sectarianism is complex. To combat it, we need the Scottish Government to work with bodies such as the STUC, police, faith groups and local authorities to bring forward a national strategy.
I have campaigned for such a strategy for more than two years and, through my meetings and discussions with those at the forefront of this fight, it is clear prevention is better than cure. Any successful strategy must have education at its core.

Sadly, in recent years, we have witnessed a decline in the number of twinning projects between denominational and non-denominational schools. This can be attributed, in no small part, to the axeing of a £100,000 government fund to support and encourage such projects.

The Scottish Islamic Foundation has returned a sum of £128,000, which it had been unable to spend, to the Scottish Government. This offers an ideal opportunity for the government to restore £100,000 to the school twinning fund and so bolster the battle to beat bigotry.

The remaining £28,000 could be used to pilot the rehabilitation project for those convicted of sectarian offences, being delivered by the Iona Community free of charge, in Polmont Young Offenders’ Institution. The Minister for Community Safety visited this project and spoke highly of it in the Scottish Parliament last week.
Such a modest investment would allow the Iona Community’s work to be rolled out across the country.

A positive response to my suggestion would give a welcome signal that the Scottish Government is determined to develop a coherent anti-sectarianism strategy.
Bill Butler, Labour MSP, 129 Dalsetter Avenue, Glasgow.