Justice, Disrupted
Gina Miller
In this episode Byron speaks to Campaigner and Co-founder of SCM Direct, Gina Miller. They talk about a radical reframing of the justice system and reflect on campaigning for a better country for all of us.
In each episode of 'Justice, Disrupted' Byron Vincent will be speaking to people from varied walks of life; some may have come into direct contact with the justice system, others may have achieved something great in the face of adversity.
Each person will share their ideas of what a socially just society looks like and motivate listeners to get out there and make change happen.
CW: In Episode 1, discussion topics with Gina Miller include online bullying, racial abuse and threatening behaviour, specifically against women and children. If you are affected by anything in 'Justice, Disrupted', please visit the Community Justice Scotland website for a list of websites you can go to, to seek support and/or guidance.
In this episode Byron speaks to Campaigner and Co-founder of SCM Direct, Gina Miller. They talk about a radical reframing of the justice system and reflect on campaigning for a better country for all of us.
In each episode of 'Justice, Disrupted' Byron Vincent will be speaking to people from varied walks of life; some may have come into direct contact with the justice system, others may have achieved something great in the face of adversity.
Each person will share their ideas of what a socially just society looks like and motivate listeners to get out there and make change happen.
CW: In Episode 1, discussion topics with Gina Miller include online bullying, racial abuse and threatening behaviour, specifically against women and children. If you are affected by anything in 'Justice, Disrupted', please visit the Community Justice Scotland website for a list of websites you can go to, to seek support and/or guidance.
Before we get going. We advise listener discretion for justice disrupted this podcast, discusses social justice, and we'll touch on many areas, including, but not exclusive to crime, trauma and abuse in their various forms. Some listeners may find such content distressing. In this episode. Discussion topics include online bullying, racial abuse, and threatening behavior specifically against women and children. If you're affected by anything you hear in this podcast, there is a list of websites on the community justice Scotland website, from which you can seek support and or guidance. Thanks for joining us. Should we get started? Hello, I'm Byron Vincent and welcome to the debut episode of justice disrupted over the series. I'll be chatting to people who have fascinate in personal and professional insights into issues around all aspects of justice in all its multitudinous flavors. In this episode, I'm going to be chatting to Gina Miller, the business owner and activist who took the British government to court over its authority to implement Brexit without approval from parliament. This kind of seemed to make her as divisive a figure as Brexit itself, and she became the target for all sorts of racist and misogynist hate. She's also a mom, a campaigner and activist taking on numerous causes, including fighting for a more ethical and transparent financial sector. She's at a fascinating life and we explore everything from the impact of parenting to political populism. Let's face it, everyone in the pat yak as a podcast these days. So if you think this is an interesting chat, please let me know on social media or best still like share and comment on whatever platform you listen to know. Anyway, that's enough neediness for me is our chat enjoy.
Speaker 2:What's the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the word justice
Speaker 3:Frustration, anger, because I just think that the system is just not delivering justice and it's been this slow erosion over decades, but too many people being let down by the system we need to actually dismantle. And remantled the justice system always with the users of the services in mind. Well, with jumped in at the deep end, it is a flawed
Speaker 2:System. I guess, where we go from there is how do we fix it? In my opinion, we need a more person centered approach. We need to understand the causes of things and focus more on preventative measures rather than addressing things. When they're at a crisis point, I would
Speaker 3:Agree with that, but I'd go back further than that. I like us as a society to ask what is our aim in punishment, prisons justice, go back to the real basics because the cost of a society based on a system of justice and law that is about punishment will never actually grow. So I'd go back to the real basis of asking what is the law for? What is justice for, why do
Speaker 2:You think it is that we're so focused on a short term short-sighted punitive system rather than a system that would prevent escalation of net negative behavior, escalation of antisocial behavior and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:It's not just in the world of justice. I think in all policymaking, we have gotten to a place in our society where it's about power. And so what we've had is successive governments who make short term political decisions that are playing to the gallery, playing to voters. And there's a lack of courage, compassion, and actually common sense. I think the three CS that are missing in our political class actually have a ripple effect across all policy in all sectors. And the justice system has been politicized like so many other systems, prisons have been politicized. Gang culture has been politicized. Re-offending has been politicized sentencing, and unfortunately we never get to the root cause and like many other sectors that does have to be not just long-term solutions and thinking and strategies, but longer term funding. You can't have really robust since DEMEC policy change. We have art investing in it. And the thing is that I think is always lost when people talk about justice and the law is that getting it wrong is actually costing us more. And so there was a report recently about, you know, judges and the recruitment of judges and they don't reflect society. And the fact that they are from the same schools and the same old boy network. Yes. Well, we know that's a problem. The system has to work to recruit the right people into it. I would actually put law and justice into a cross-party box and say that we have to agree around the table of what 10 years of reform looks like, take the politics out and put people in centers. You said, sorry
Speaker 1:To interrupt here. I might do a fair bit of this, but do you think gene is right? Do we live in a culture of self-serving short-termism in politics? Sadly, I believe there is political currency in that sort of cynical, tough on crime rhetoric. And I understand why who doesn't want to see the bad guys, get the comeuppance when someone hurts, or it's not an unreasonable instinct to want to see that person suffer for their crimes. So the idea that if we punish a person severely enough, they'll behave themselves is appealing to voters because it's simple and it plays to a binary understanding of right and wrong. The problem is that research shows that much criminal behavior is a direct reaction to trauma. So piling trauma on trauma is ultimately self-defeating because for one of a less cheesy phrase hurt people, hurt people. So the cycle continues and the effects of one person's worsened in negative behavior grows ever wider permeate in an influence in what are often already impoverished and culturally isolated communities. I know nobody really wants to hear it, but I think true crime prevention requires long-term and holistic solutions that start by taking preventative measures in early childhood. I'm no academic, but what I've read around attachment theory and adverse childhood experience studies seem to offer a fairly clear explanation as to the root causes of a lot of offending in adult hood. And so the idea that people can be bullied into better behavior, well, let's just say it's unsound and goes against an increasing groundswell of evidence. And look, regardless of that, a justice system that doesn't take the context of people's lived experience into account is innately an unjust system and likely an ineffective one too. So as I said to Gina, if part of the justice system, isn't helping to heal people then behavior and culture along with it is only likely to worsen. And she had this to add not
Speaker 3:Only that, but it also, we pass on the ILS to the next generation. So it's not as though we are punishing one generation, then subsequent generations carry the burden of that trauma for my experience over the, since, well, growing up my father, being an attorney general and being very much a socialist and a humanist as I am, I think we need to start with this political system. And unfortunately that's a huge ask because the political system is based on power now, not putting people or the country. First, that whole sentiment of getting the best people into politics, who will put people first and countries' interests and national interests first is not where we are in modern politics. And you know, it is a difficult situation. And because we have a mainly two-party system and, you know, we have a default system that's not working in my view. We don't have enough federalism that I, I think the system needs a whole rehaul. And the question I always get asked when I'm talking about this topic, is that in whose interest is it to follow what you were seeing? Gina, you know, the reforms you're talking about my answer back is that it's in the interest of people who want to get into politics for the right reasons. If it's all about professional politicians and power, we're not going to change the system. So we have to try and I think we've got to place now post COVID where people are beginning to wake up to the nuances of hurt in our society. And that healing is going to take hard work. I know it sounds odd, but I think COVID has had a few silver linings and one, I think is the civic consciousness has actually been awoken. Okay.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to interrupt again here with an interesting statistic from the auditor general and the account's commission in Scotland from 2016, 2017 in Scotland, there are these things called community payback orders, which might include an offender doing unpaid community work, being under probationary supervision, offering compensation to the victim, restorative justice, engaging in educational support, engaging in programs around drug and alcohol misuse. CPOs might include a residential geographical and conduct restrictions, and they might also offer mental health treatments and they cost 1,894 pounds compared to a staggering 37,344 for a prisoner place. Now, obviously, if a person is a danger to others, then the wider community needs protecting. But if they aren't, it would appear that there are far more productive, rehabilitative and cost effective ways for an offender to a tone, make restitution and rehabilitate. And by the way, I'm not saying that community payback orders are perfect in their current guys. In fact, 27% of people complete in a CPO are reconvicted within a year, which doesn't sound great until you hear that 41%. That's two in five, a reconvicted within a year of leaving prison. And not only that children with a parent in prison around three times more likely to engage in antisocial behavior. So again, it's not just the offender themselves that we need to look at. It's the ripple effects within family and community. So I'm sure CPOs aren't perfect, but I would bet my life that a well-thought-out holistic and immersive program of education therapy, practical support and rehabilitation would be immeasurably more effective and obviously much cheaper than a custodial prison sentence in the vast majority of cases anyway, back to Gina. And that's the last time I'll interrupt her promise.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And I think for those people who don't have the humanitarian boat, and if you like, and they have an economic one, then you have to tailor the messages to them. So I think we have to tailor the messages to those who will listen on the subjects that they're listening. And it's true. Our system is costing our economy, a huge amount of money, getting it wrong is costing us.
Speaker 2:Can we talk about you for a bit in your book rise, you make your childhood in Guyana sounds sort of like a hyper real simulacrum of Britishness, your mom collected Wedgewood, uh, and the pictures of the queen around the house, the seemed to be this idealized perception of the UK. And then you came here.
Speaker 4:Yeah. How much of a culture shock was it or what was that experience like?
Speaker 3:Ghana is where supposedly Eldorado is. Uh, we always thought that the UK was Eldorado your parents, you know, dreamt of their kids, having a British education, coming to the UK and having the opportunity to go to a British university. I mean, that was more than gold. That was worth more than anything. It was the biggest prize parents could give their children. And so I grew up, my parents would order in books. So I, by the time I came to the UK, I'd already read, you know, all the Bronte books and all the Charles Dickens. And yeah, so I had a very idealistic view and listening to the BBC world service that my dad used to make us do every single night. When I arrived here on the very first day, it will stay with me forever driving from the airport down to Eastbourne, which is where my parents chose this school for me. I just kept thinking it's just gray. And when I looked at people's faces on the street, they weren't happy there was this greenness. And that's what I remember more than anything was thinking. Okay. At some point soon, I'll see the Britain I'm expecting, and it didn't really happen. Literal
Speaker 2:And metaphorical and emotional brain readiness. Your parents were obviously a massive influence on you. Um, is that where you got your sense of social justice?
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely. I mean, my parents, I was incredibly fortunate to be their daughter and my father taught me about law and justice from a very early age. He told me that the law didn't live in a book or in a courtroom. It was about making people's lives better about making sure you dealt with the pain that they were going through. He spoke to me about people as if they were part of our family. He had the most extraordinary way of translating very adult subjects into a childhood understanding. And it's something I try and do with my children. And my mother, I think was an eco warrior before the term was even invented this idea that what we have might be gone tomorrow and might be us asking for help. So therefore you never walk past anybody who needs help. And those were very strong values and principles that my siblings and I were brought up with. And it's what I tried to pass on with my children. But it means that really, when you're brought up thinking that way, it's not hard. You don't have to think about helping somebody else. It just becomes second nature to you.
Speaker 2:You've spoken a bit about our collective responsibility. I've read your book and your fierce, you know, you, you
Speaker 4:Know about that
Speaker 2:Person, how responsible are we as individuals, do you think? And in terms of the fight for social justice
Speaker 3:In truth, I think we got a little bit complacent and a little bit lazy in that we thought as a country, you know, when this is up until the financial crisis, you know, we were doing well, getting more money in our pocket. We were buying more things. We were becoming more consumerist. Life was good. And we thought we be sort of elected politicians and we can trust them to get on with it. So we didn't really keep an eye on them. And slowly the systems that we have in place started eroding. We also fell for a lot of the propaganda that was basically being pushed out over the last sort of two, three decades. And we just took our eye off the ball because actually we're all responsible for the world we live in. And that also very largely goes with the environmental challenges we're facing. I think the messages, the whole idea that what we're hearing now and the changes we're going to have to make in our lives, these stories have been around for a long time. People have been warning us for a long time. We just chose not to listen. Civic responsibility has to be something we embrace going forwards, corporate responsibility. I talk about responsible capitalism, but also parenting. I go back to your question about my parents. It's an incredible responsibility. Being a parent and shaping the next generation. I think we have to be more responsible parents as well. We can't just leave it up to educational or institutions. We've got to start from day one, bringing up responsible individuals.
Speaker 1:I suppose it is quite a tough one because not all parents have the same skills and resources and there is no handbook for it. Is there? Well,
Speaker 3:What's really interesting is I think there's something like 167,000 charities in the United Kingdom. And what always shocks me is that I think there's two parenting charities, but if you think about it, society has changed. So, you know, we have to always all, so look at the networks, the family networks and the help that we have is we are not that society to anymore. So we have to pick up those pieces. You know, Mandela said, you judged a society about how it treats its children. That's absolutely true. And we have not treated and invested in our children enough. I'll give you an example. I'm always amazed when people talk about education, because we know that our skills in adults have been reducing over a years now. So literacy and adult hood is a problem in our country. We used to be the top three in the world. Now I think we're about number 19 or something. So, you know, we have a problem and actually we have it in the prison population. Yeah. But you've got schools, they're close, you've got these buildings could bring people together. So why are we not running literacy classes? You know, learning it in those buildings in the evenings for adults. It just seems to be such a waste of an infrastructure that we've got there that we should be investing in. So
Speaker 2:You, uh, taking a long gray drive from the airport to boarding school boarding school, just the concept of it seems traumatizing to me. Um, what was that experience like and how did it inform your growing up?
Speaker 3:I don't know why, but it never crossed my mind that my parents were actually going to leave me. So I was really excited by whole the concept of being there. We packed this big trunk. It was amusing to me that I have to have my name embroidered in our napkins and all this very quaint English things or British things. And then the said goodbye. They were leaving. And literally I felt completely empty. I had never been away from my family, for my siblings or my parents before that day. And looking back, I think part of me died then, and I remember running to the toilets because I didn't want the girls to see me crying. And I just wept my heart out into a towel so that they wouldn't hear me as I came out of the toilet. And I remember telling myself, you're going to have to be strong now you're on your own now. And so from that day, I had to rely on myself and that's a really tough thing to decide at such a young age.
Speaker 2:It's an incredibly tough thing to decide and profound in terms of formative development. I would imagine I remember the eighties. I remember this as an eighties and horrific racism, the vocal and ubiquitous and, uh, violent racism that was around at the time. I was, my friendship group was a multiethnic friendship group. I remember being chased by skinheads and having bricks thrown up all of that kind of stuff. Do you think things have changed?
Speaker 3:Well, thanks for change because we don't have programs like rising damp anymore. We don't have a, you know, the, the humor, we don't have golliwogs on marmalade jars, you know that, so the overt racism has gone. That doesn't mean racism has gone. And actually in some ways I think the nuanced under the radar racism is even more toxic. But I think at that point, people thought it was a bit of a joke. I know this sounds a very odd thing to say, but there was a lot more humor around racism then. And also I think, do you think the dynamic, this also changed is we took it. We didn't fight back. We didn't speak up. And in a way that made it easier because the, you know, when someone fights back the level of chaos increases and that's where I think we are now as a society is those who are suffering from discrimination, racism, inequality, uh, fighting back and speaking up the day we started doing that life got far more complicated. One
Speaker 2:Of the things that always strikes me as very weird is the media are always asking, uh, people of color to how best to tackle racism rather than asking racists. Why they're racist? Do you ever find that kind of focus frustrating?
Speaker 3:Oh, it is incredibly frustration because we're basically, it's saying it's our problem. You find a solution. So that basically the starting premise is it's your issue. It's your problem, rather than it's society's systemic and structural issue. Um, so I think that, yeah, the starting point there is wrong, but I actually think the language completely is wrong because I, I, I try and say this whenever I go and talk to schools and colleges and young people, is that be mindful that if you are so strong in your message, other people will think, well, what are they going to lose? In my view, you have to talk about equality about all of us. I think the minute you actually make division in your language and you actually compel those divisions, you're actually walking straight into the language of those who are propaganda Ising division. And, you know, as a society, we have those who ideologically believe in division because it's dividing conquer and they will set us up more divided. We are more groups. We are more tribes. We are the better it is for them because they just set one off against the other. So I think we have to be mindful to be bigger than them, better than them braver them, them and smarter than them. So we can't allow ourselves to fall into the way they talk about racism and division and discrimination. We have to stick up for what we believe is right, and how we find the solutions ourselves.
Speaker 2:In one of the earlier chapters of your book, you say that fair play tolerance, justice incivility are inherently British values. Given what we've just been talking about and given our history as a nation and given colonialism and conflict and imperialism and class war and all of that stuff. How were those things inherently British?
Speaker 3:I'm not saying they are now. I think they're in danger of disappearing, but I think for someone like me, who's traveled around the world. A lot women in the workplace in Japan is a real problem. Being openly gay in lots of countries around the world is a problem. Me walking down the street with my white Jewish husband has got me into lots of trouble. My children being mixed race who have been spat at, in some countries, we forget that the world has a long way to go. That does not mean we are getting it right. I think we were on the right path, but we've diverted off that path. And I worry about where we go. So we're going to have to fight our way back. One of the things I've always thought about Britain is a, we haven't valued our soft power and our soft influence in the world enough. And I think we were on the path to building a better society, a multicultural society that does have at the core of it, tolerance and humanity and compassion, but it's being destroyed and we're going to have to try harder and fight harder to make sure that we are still that country. And we can still step up onto the world stage and try and Butte, other cultures and countries with those values. If
Speaker 2:It's not too exhausting. Um, let's talk about Brexit for a little bit. In 2016, you were lead claimant in two successful legal cases, challenging the UK, government's legal authority to trigger article 50 and commence Brexit negotiations. How does something like that even, even come about? Why you like, how,
Speaker 3:What, why? That's an interesting one. Why me? Because when this all happened, I actually, without a second thought, I thought, of course, it's going to be me. It's almost like my entire life had come to this point, all the failures and having to pick myself up and it sort of had to be for a purpose. I'm such a nerd. I read so much history and I actually read hands-off to go to bed. And I'd been watching the dismantling of parliamentary sovereignty. It did not start with Brexit. It started before that. And the use of prerogative powers, secondary legislation are all Kiki things, but I'd been watching it. So for example, in 20 14, 20 15, 96 of our rights had been changed without us even noticing and parliament wasn't involved. I was already on high alert to what was happening to our constitution. And because of my father, I understood the British constitution and it's just something I've grown up with. So I was very much on high alert, but one of the things that has not been discussed and is always sort of hidden and people don't want to get into it because it was branded the Brexit case three things. One is we never mentioned Brexit in any of the legal arguments. It wasn't about that. It was about the fact that Mrs. May the prime minister was going to set this precedent because we have unwritten constitution that a prime minister could bypass parliament and change our rights. Now think about every right. We have, they could just decide to switch it on and off, but there is a third thing that people don't realize is that being a geek? I am. I actually knew the 126 words in about den triggering article 50. And it said it's an international treaty and you have to do it along the lines of the leaving country, its constitutional requirements. Now if our constitutional requirements are that we have to have parliament to vote on it would, the EU have said you've broken international law. We're now taking you the UK to international court. So we're not going to negotiate any treaty. We're not going to let you leave. We're going to basically tread water for average take court to an international court timing. What five years, eight years, 11 years, what would have happened to the UK in that time? And that terrified me. So I thought these issues are actually very black and white, fairly understandable that loads of people with joined me. I never anticipated. I was going to be the only, and I thought academics, business people, associations, unions would all realize. And I, and every time I looked around and there was not a single person there. So I never anticipated being on my own. You
Speaker 2:Have the benefit of understanding the law. I think for many people, Brexit was an entirely or appeared to me at least to be an entirely emotional experience. Um, the
Speaker 3:Marketing on both sides of working, but it's not any different from, from what we've seen happening in different parts of the world. It was about propaganda. I'm not a hardcore Europhile. I think any institution that doesn't develop and reform along the lines of the curve for the contemporary issues deserves in a way to be criticized and the EU hadn't been reforming enough. So I felt we already had the most unique deal being a member with not showing in, not in the Euro, uh, people don't realize it. I think it's a real shame that people don't realize this, but we were at the table of every major discussion. Our lawyers were writing. Most of the directives, we were very powerful in the EU, much more powerful than people were led to believe. And the EU dreaded us leaving because they knew that we could sit between that power access of France and Germany and the other big five because there really are big five countries, even though 26 members are, we were like the peacemakers. We were the sensible voice at the table and we were making the union work and people don't realize that. So I just wanted us to stay in and be the architects for reform for the next phase of the union. Thinking about issues without borders that are coming down the line, such as climate change, terrorism, you know, nationalism, there are big issues that are, have not got borders. And that is, I think is the biggest shame that, that wasn't explained to people enough that together we will be much, much stronger.
Speaker 2:You traveled up and down the country when you spoke to a lot of people, there was a lot of anger. But the thing is, is that it seems a morphous to me. And could you identify a clear source of this anger?
Speaker 3:I was going to the places because I was part of the remain campaign since the sort of October, 2015, but the people in the campaign sort of didn't want to go outside of London. They were all pontificating on, on debates. And I just said, look, I'm going to go traveling around the country. So I was going to places like mine had north Wales, Leeds, Leicester I traveled. And what shocked me was that people really genuinely were hurting. They saw no future. They had no hope. There really was this. We might as well have a throw of the dice, but even more than that, they believed that it would make them and their families and the future of their children better. Only somebody who's either insane or, you know, uh, living on another planet would actually vote to hurt themselves. So this idea that people were stupid, it is so disrespectful. And I think I would have put most of the Brexiteers and those major Brexiteers and remainers in a coach and drive them around the country and get them to really listen to people because there was so much pain. There is so much pain still. Now politicians from all sides have let down too many people because they've promised not delivered and just made sure they're staying in.
Speaker 2:I grew up in the north, in the post-industrial north. And so the disappearance of industries and everything from textiles to mine in shop fronts, closing. And now when I returned a lot of the places I spent time in as a child or have either been bulldozed or there are, yeah,
Speaker 3:I went to see this woman Edna. She was 86. She was organizing the local Brexit sort of campaign group in north Wales. And I went to see her in her place. And she said to me, you know, we've got to leave for my son and my grandson because there's no work. I listened to her. And I said, but us leaving Europe is not going to bring a job for your son or grandson. And she said, yes, it is. They told me it was going to, we're going to go back to being great Britain. And she was a lovely lady who believed it. She believed what she was being told. And what really surprised me bearing my, she was 86 years old is she was reading this on Facebook. And I said to her, how did you get on a political Facebook page? And she said, no, no. I belong to a gardening club. It was coming through our gardening Facebook pages, I guess,
Speaker 2:Given the divisiveness and given the vitriol, all this misdirected emotion around Brexit, how do we ever heal out? Do we ever find common ground in empathy, given that there are elements that are so intent on dividing
Speaker 3:Us? Oh, it, it's not an easy problem. And I've been trying to think about how do I explain it? And I think there is so much that's broken in so many parts of our society. I think COVID has, has highlighted things we knew that were broken. Anyway, our education system is so broken our training development, the way we live our lives, our housing everywhere. I look, I, I feel in dismay and then I think, well, what if we just chose three or four stones? This is my analogy. And I could drop them in the water. And the ripple effects of those could start that process because you can't fix everything. We have got to have more accountability. It's a bit like where the political systems of vessel. And we keep concentrating on who we're going to get to the captain and the crew to sail the big ship. But we forget to fix the ship and what happens if it's not the best captain and the best crew, I'm an advocate for a semi flexible written constitution, um, limits and checks and powers that actually go into law. I can't believe there's no employment contract. We pay their bills. There's no employment contract. Do you think of any other place in life? So I would start bringing in checks and balances. I don't think we can trust the all boy network and you know that my word is my bond. I mean, that's for the birds. We don't live in that world anymore. So I think I would try and change political infrastructure first and then look at how that works at infrastructure in different bits of society, education, prison, justice, all of those. We've got to fix the system. So we get the best people in. And at the moment, if you are a good kind, brave, sensitive, nuanced individual, why on earth would you want to go into any of those positions? And then the other thing of course, is the media and, and online. I mean, I, one of the things that does really keep me up at night and I don't sleep a lot is I cannot think of any time in history when we've had issues on all continents. Normally you've had big issues, big things happening, what was on particularly maybe one or two, but this is every continent in the world is being touched by what we're going through at the moment. And
Speaker 2:I want to move on, uh, nothing boils my blood more than bullying. Nothing gets my hackles up more than bullying. You seem to be of a similar mindset. Do you know where that's born of?
Speaker 3:My parents say that I was always like that. Even nature and nurture. I've always been sort of, you know, I won't put up with this. I've tried to really know myself so that other people can't tell me who I am and can't bully me because, you know, if they say you're this and I go, yeah, so difficult woman. Well, that's your problem. It's having said that I've actually managed to get myself into positions of being really badly bullied. I ended up being a survivor of a very destructive marriage. I then got into business where men were going to help me build my business. And then that was also very controlling, disruptive. I'm doing a bit more work on myself on that. And one of the things I do and I'd recommend this to other people because we have so much noise in our world. I do try and sit quietly and just listen to my own inner voice and my own emotions and have conversations with myself. I think we forget how powerful we are as individuals. We have a sense of what's right and wrong. We know when something is wrong, we actually physically feel it that feeding the pit of your stomach, that rage, when your blood really does boil. When you see somebody being bullied, you'll be just listen a little bit more into our own physical manifestations of when we see injustice, I think we do something about it, but it's sort of socialized out of us.
Speaker 2:I've been dealing with bullies since you arrived in the UK, it's taken a shocking and horrific turn. Over the last few years, you've suffered a deluge of physical threats and misogynistic and racist abuse, both from social and traditional media. It's a lot to unpack if it's not too traumatic and experience for you, can you start with what happened with via count Rhodri Phillips? Cause that is just for people that aren't aware of. It it's such a bizarre,
Speaker 3:It was a bizarre situation. I was sent a screenshot from Facebook, seeing that there was a closed group on social media run by this fight count where they're discussing, killing me and the person who sent me the, uh, by email, the screenshot said, I haven't known what to do. I contacted the police, got no response. So I'm sending it to you. I didn't want to send it to you, but it's growing and growing and it's getting really serious and they're raising money. Now. It wasn't just talk. And so the thing that terrified me, he actually lived very close to where I work. The thing was to get somebody when I was leaving work to run me over. So that's how it was going to be looking like an accident. And this is what they'd come up with. Cause I wasn't deemed a public person. So I didn't get any security, any protection for the police. Even though I was getting those horrendous threats, because at the same time we were getting letters saying, we know where your children go to school. There'll be taken. I cannot even today explain to you what that felt like. I was torn. I cried for hours. I just did not know what to do. I called the police. I got some lawyers. We reported it. I'm a fortunate position where I can afford to do those things. No real reaction. And in the end they threatened the Rigo, the papers I, we got hold of Facebook to see if they close it down. They wouldn't because they said it was a closed group. And I said, yes, but we've got screenshots. Now we've got people who are telling you this CPS then got the report from the police and nobody had ever been prosecuted for online. So the CPS said to me, Gina, this is going to be a test case again, do you want to go through this? And I said, absolutely, we've got to go for this. We've got to do this people don't ever think when they're anonymous, there'll be found when they are found and a policeman turns up at your door, believe me, it's enough. We've done eight to cease and desist letters through the police. This one came to court and we won. I mean, what was so horrendous to me though? It wasn't attempted murder. It wasn't a conspiracy. It was just malicious communications. So he got six weeks. And I think for somebody who's a VI count who lives a very privileged life. Six weeks in Brixton prison was probably quite a trough. So I think that was pretty awful. The next one that happened, I also during lockdown, there's this platform called go-fund me. And again, somebody sent me the screenshot because I wasn't aware of it. But for five months, up until October, 2019, there had been a fundraiser. And the headline of the fundraiser was raising 10,000 pounds to hire a Hitman, to kill Gina Miller long and short. We got that to the police. We weren't held. And I found out that during lockdown, um, it did go to court. They found the man and uh, I got 200 pounds for distress and that was it. I'm not saying everybody has to be prosecuted. We do need to set some markers in the sand that this behavior is not acceptable.
Speaker 2:As a young man, I experienced, uh, an incredible amount of violence. And also the threat of death was very prevalent for a few years as a young person. And there is nothing more emotionally destabilizing that I've experienced than waking up every morning. Wondering whether some terrible things about to happen to you w whether it might be your last day, it's an enormous burden to walk around the world with
Speaker 3:A huge burden. How did you cope? Very practical person? So, because the thing is when I won the first case, I thought the government would just don't go ahead. And that would be it. When the government appealed to the Supreme court, every part of me just wanted to stop. I couldn't believe that there were appealing. AI had find more money be, but I knew it was more about the threats and what it was going to do to our family. And I thought, my gosh, this is now another however many months is going to take. I just wanted to disappear into the background. And actually at that point between the high court and the Supreme court were threats, got much, much worse. And I woke up one day and I started writing letters to my kids because I'd made a decision with my husband that I wouldn't go out with the family. So I wouldn't go out with the children anywhere. So anything happened to me, it would just happened to me. So I started writing them because, you know, there are different personalities at different ages. I'm not in a way, kept me. And it sounds ridiculous. It kept me seen, but something happened in me. And I decided I had a choice. I had a word with myself sitting in one of my quiet moments. And I thought I can either step back at which point, the beliefs of one, or I could carry on because no enough am I letting them win. And they don't realize it those few months when the abuse was probably at its worst is when I became more energized and more determined if they fired me up to carry on. So it has a really, it's really all that negative energy I used as positive energy.
Speaker 2:And we're in the midst of a very difficult and traumatic situation. We're so busy dealing with it that we haven't got time to figure
Speaker 3:It out. No, no, no. You don't feel anything. I mean, there are lots of times when I cried, but that was probably more out of exhaustion because I was really tired because the thing is, when you walk around on high alert all the time, it's really exhausting. So I was always thinking who's around the corner. Who's there. I mean, bottles of water. I was thinking, cause I had a lot of threats of acid being thrown at me because of course in the UK, we can't carry anything. I started carrying little cans of hairspray because I know hairspray and eyes is like the most serious thing. So I'd come home. I was absolutely exhausted from being on high alert all the time and sometimes missing food. And you know, uh, I remember in court one day just wanting to faint because I hadn't eaten properly. I hadn't slept properly. And I knew everyone was looking at me and I thought I can't faint. I can't, I really just want to stop. But I knew I was also standing up for quite a lot of people. Also, it was an accidental platform. I never envisaged. I mean, I've been a campaign for 30 years, but not in that sort of visible way. And then my daughter, my eldest daughter has got special needs. Who's now 33. Her mentally is about five or six. She always lifts me up when I need it. She said to me, one day she said, mom, you know, you can't give up. And I said, why? She said, because you're always strong. You're always mummy. You're always other people's mommy too. And I thought, gosh, she's just the most extraordinary person. And she, she just, I don't know. She just gives me the strength I need when I'm at my lowest. I just pick up the phone and talk to her. A lot of these threats
Speaker 2:And the worst of the vitriol has come from men. What are we doing wrong? Like what, how are we raising so many emotionally dysfunctional men? And what can we do about it? I think I'm doing that thing where I'm asking and, and it,
Speaker 3:It, it, no, it's a really interesting question, but I have to say, there's two things I'll share with you, which is not really out there known, but it wasn't just white men. And that's something I'm really interested in, in looking at it was men from all different walks of life, educational levels and ethnic minorities to be something about me being a woman of color, but being a woman and a woman of color, the two together just enraged so many men. But I think what I find even more disturbing, it's not just me because I've now spoken to lots of female politicians and last election, 19 of them stepped down and wouldn't stand again. There's something about strong women. That's somehow threatening. There's so many edges and sides to this. There's a prismatic approach we have to take, but there's definitely been a infecting of men's consciousness. When it comes to games, they playing online, the sexualizing and the, you know, the way women are treated, I find extraordinarily disturbing. And then you've got also the prevalence for pornography. Now amongst 10, 12, 14 year olds, Christine women in different light. You know, we, we look what's happening on university campuses, violence against women on campus has gone up 400% fourfold in last few years. It's extraordinary. What's happening. We saw what's happening on the websites, the around Sarah Everett, all the other points that came out, women going actually it's me too. It's me too. Well, something has been broken. And I think, again, going back to parents, respect seeing women as equals there's something that's changed there that somehow we're taking down a threat. I really
Speaker 2:Honestly believe the predominant role of school before we start getting into any academic subject should be personal social and emotional education. Because without that grounding in how to be a decent human being, then, you know, math or history or geography don't mean it, it doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 3:Again, it's also about role models of compassionate men. This whole idea. You have to be strong, aggressive, alpha male. You know, we all have to be Donald Trump. Oh my God, you poor guys. If you think that, so you need to be, I think
Speaker 2:Really this then the notion of strength needs to be reconsidered.
Speaker 3:True. Strength is actually showing your emotions, feeling and caring. That is true strength,
Speaker 2:Right? Tin angrily is very easy. You know, it takes literally no effort. It's an explosion of emotion that is not been processed. And so, yeah, I think we need more social and emotional education. The thing
Speaker 3:Is, it's not just one generation, they're all this started breaking down, say 20, 30 years ago, you know, you're asking a young man who hasn't had that sort of relationship. Then when he becomes a father to be nurturing to his children, actually, that's why parenting classes are so important. That's why, and allowing men into groups, you know, mother and baby groups, all these things are so important because somebody who's not had love and experienced love is going to find it very difficult to give love
Speaker 2:Clear. One of the many things you've been doing recently is working on cleaning up the financial sector.
Speaker 4:Yeah. That's an easy job.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's an alien world, but for me as a factless artists, I've no idea what are the major problems and how do we tackle them?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, the whole financial system is broken again. So if you look at, if I break it down to three main areas, the first is corporates. So we have a system where it's put into law that the pursuit of profit is their main golden aim. Nothing else matters. Well, that's absurd. Surely it's people, profits, and planet. Then you come to the financial system of people like banks, institutions, pension, funds, all those people who look after our money, who do not have our best interests at heart find, they should have a fee for what they're doing, but it should be a reasonable, modest fee because the majority of it, it's your money. You've worked hard to come back to you. And then the third thing that's broken is it's completely opaque. We don't actually know what's going on. So we've got to have more transparency. So those are the things I've been pushing for
Speaker 2:In my ignorance. All I know about the financial sector, all like hear about the financial sector, uh, you know, subprime mortgages and sociopathic hedge fund practices. Um, is it redeemable?
Speaker 3:It is. But again, the system has got to change because at the moment we have people from more or less the same schools, the same universities going into that, uh, women are not represented enough. Um, ethnic minorities are not represented enough. People from different sexual orientations are not represented enough. We have to have a financial system that reflects society and they put all the barriers up to make sure that it's not
Speaker 2:Happened. I like you take on a lot of issues. And, um, and it's a thing that comes up really in almost every element of everything that I do is representation
Speaker 3:People with good intentions, go into a system that then corrupts them because you end up having a collective mindset and you, and you know, you bet your psyche is formed by those around you. And that's really difficult. So that's why the system has to change. You. Can't just rely on people and culture. The whole system has to change to make sure that the good people with good intentions go in and most of the people are like that, that they can actually execute their ideas and their principles and their values. And that unfortunately is not what happens. I really, really check in on myself to make sure I'm doing things for the right reasons. It's easy to get swayed along. And you're lots of people will approach me and go, how about sitting on this board? How by doing that, how about, you know, having this accolade and I have to check myself and say, no, no, I've got to try and stay true to that little girl who grew up in Marvel comic books, who thought that I could change the world.
Speaker 2:Well, speaking of changing the world and the financial sector, one of the things that you are doing at the moment is offering free resources to women, with the aim of making them feel confident and savvy about
Speaker 3:It. So basically I've launched this thing called money Xi, which is a resource where we talk in everyday language. We're going to dispel all the myths and make it understandable because at the end of the day, we're all living longer. We all need money when we're older, true freedom, unfortunately needs financing. So I want people to become much more active li involved in how they look after themselves, their families in their, in old age, uh,
Speaker 2:The gender imbalances in the sectors impacted you personally, what's made you the most angry. And what have you been the most conscious of
Speaker 3:Being again, a woman of color and quite petite. I almost walk into a room and ex I expect the negative, but what I do is, and I've always thought my fortitude is to know my subject. I work hard at knowing what I'm talking about. I don't, I could walk in and bluff.
Speaker 2:Isn't that like incredibly frustrating. It has to be, I have to be better at my job than anybody else in the room just to feel.
Speaker 4:I know. I know. And unfortunately,
Speaker 3:A lot of women do feel that and I do, but I know that then it's just the way it is. I mean, it is just the way it is, you know, you can't stretch in and, and like a lot of men do. But the other thing is I do is that, um, I'm also very, very aware of physical presence. And when I, what I mean by that, I'll give you a couple of examples. So I walk into an event, big, you know, heads of most of the big banks at an event in Luxembourg. I'm on the panel with lots of regulators and different people. And they put my name at the very end. And, uh, they did it on purpose because I know what they do, what they do is they, then you have a few minutes to introduce yourself. And of course they bag all the good points. By the time it gets to me, I've got obviously nothing to see. So I'm really happy to be at the end because what I do is I listen. And when people quite often go into situations where they're in a combative environment or they're campaigning, or they're talking, they want to be the first to speak. I always want to be the last to speak. I listen very carefully. And so I can come back at them at their own points. And I try really hard not to attack them personally. I always try to stay calm. They will, when they then come back and attack me personally, I know I've won already. I already know. I relax. I sit back and think why, okay, I'm already got this one.
Speaker 2:It seems to me that you've spent a lifetime. And certainly the last few years are holding people accountable for their actions. And it also seems to me that that's been an incredibly tough experience and there's been personal cost. Has it been worth it?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Because I worry about the world. My children are going to grow up in, you know, when I'm really exhausted. And I do want to give up some times, I think about a letter I got, which said, because my children are Asian and Jewish that they're mongrels and they should have been put down at birth. Wow. That letter I carry with me because I'm never stopping until I feel completely exhausted. And I'm nowhere near that yet.
Speaker 2:I was being a parent shaped you as an individual and shaped you in terms of your sense of justice. I mean, it's obvious from the way you talk about your childhood, you've always had this set that has been apparent impacted on that
Speaker 3:Even more. But the thing is, it didn't have to be my children because I've always worked with children. I just find the idea that walking next to us, there's a little person who's going to form the world in the future. I just find it. It's a miracle. It's the most extraordinary thing to get my head around. And the fact that we have a responsibility, you know, what are they going to pick up when their era, our age? I think we have that huge responsibility. It's that saying? Isn't it. You plant a tree under the shadow of which you'll never sit as
Speaker 2:Someone who's been forced to deal with a phenomenal amount of stress in your life. Have you got any tips for the rest of us in how you have managed and cope with that over the years,
Speaker 3:You've got to look after yourself and find the things that you love and do them. I know the thing I love. I love dancing. I love, um, flowers. You know, I find the things that fill me up and they don't have to be expensive, but yeah, I'm a crazy dancer. And that's for me, music, I'll dance on the floor, on the ceiling, on the furniture, whatever it is with my children as well. So, you know, find the thing you love, but feed yourself, always remember to look after yourself. And if you need to take some time out to do that, don't feel guilty about that. Brilliant.
Speaker 2:I will take that on board. Thank you so much for chatting to me. It's been an absolute
Speaker 3:Pleasure. My pleasure too. Thank you.