Parents usually know best. The State must NEVER shut them out

IN A free society, the relationship between parent and child is one of the strongest and most important there is. And so it should be. The enormous majority of parents are responsible and loving. They have raised their children from the beginning, know them better than anyone else and would fiercely defend them against any danger.

As children turn slowly into adults, during the long and often fraught teenage years, this relationship necessarily changes. But it remains strong, and wise institutions value and respect it. Our most successful schools, for instance, are those who involve parents most closely in the education of their offspring.

This is why it is so disturbing and distressing to find that a publicly funded organisation is secretly encouraging girls as young as 13 to take serious steps down the road towards changing their gender.

It cannot be stressed enough that those undergoing such doubts about their gender deserve sympathy, support and help from every quarter. But at the age of 13, it is surely vital that their parents are aware of what is going on. Their knowledge and understanding are indispensable in such a crucial matter.

The State, whether in the form of politically correct teachers or Government and lottery-funded pressure groups, should not have the exclusive right to discuss these matters with anyone so young, or to help them take secret steps towards profound changes in their lives.

The involvement of Government-backed bodies in keeping parents out of any discussion of the future of such young children surely amounts to State interference in private life, which would appear to infringe Article 8 of the European Human Rights Charter, now incorporated in the UK’s law.

Leaving the law aside, at very young ages, it is surely essential for the young person’s welfare that parents are at the very least aware that their daughters are using garments such as chest binders, which can have serious long-term effects on the physical health of their users.

Outsiders with strong passions or agendas are certain to place more importance on their treasured goals, and less on the risks to the individual. The LGBT Foundation must either stop behaving in this fashion, or cease to receive public funds of any kind.

A far-Right UKIP is a menace to us all

NOBODY could dismiss Nigel Farage as a soppy liberal, or as a member of the Establishment. So members of UKIP cannot easily ignore his fervent warnings against the party’s alarming flirtation with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the raucous and highly controversial founder of the English Defence League who calls himself ‘Tommy Robinson’.

UKIP’s new leader, Gerard Batten, has chosen Mr YaxleyLennon as an adviser and now proposes to involve him in a planned pro-Brexit rally in London next Sunday.

Mr Farage – who fears that any association with Mr YaxleyLennon will destroy not just UKIP but the whole Brexit cause – is threatening to tear up his UKIP membership card unless Mr Batten is removed at a special meeting today. He warns of ‘scuffles, violence and worse’ if his advice is ignored. He may well be right.

UKIP, for all its faults, has played an important part in transforming British politics and persuading the established parties to take the EU issue seriously. And Mr Farage, for all his faults, always kept UKIP away from the football-hooligan fringe of the far right, helping to put paid to the highly unpleasant British National Party.

It will be bad for British politics, and for the country as well, if UKIP now seeks salvation in grubby and unpleasant street politics.