Last week Scottish newspapers reported on a recently appointed SNP equalities officer who has been caught out threatening violence against women and using misogynistic language on social media.
23-year-old ‘he/they’ Cameron Downing is the SNP Equalities Officer at the party’s London branch.
His misogynistic tweets threatening violence against women and insulting feminists were reported in The Daily Record and The National Scot.
The now-deleted comments date from September and October 2020. In one of the tweets, Downing stated, “I’m in the mood to beat the fuck out of some terfs and transphobes today”. In another, he declared, “I fucking hate terfs and transphobes with such a passion they make me want to SCREAM !!!!!”
Forced into making a half-hearted apology, Downing told The Daily Record, “I apologise for these tweets and for any offence caused to the LGBTQ+ community”. No apology for the women he threatened to ‘beat the fuck out of’, though.
Gordon Millar is the former Political Education Officer of the SNP’s London Branch. He twice contacted the SNP London convenor to question Downing’s suitability as Equalities Officer. Millar never received a reply. SNP London ignored Downing’s tweets even when they were being reported on various political blogs and widely condemned on social media. (SNP London did, however, surreptitiously remove the ‘Committee Members’ page from its website.)
Writing on the Yours For Scotland blog, Millar points out that the SNP has taken no action against Downing over his tweets. “Downing has not been disciplined or suspended and has been allowed to get away with a pathetic non-apology.”
Indeed, the same weekend as the stories about Downing’s disgusting comments appeared in the press, he was photographed with ‘real feminist’, Nicola Sturgeon, at the SNP annual Conference in Aberdeen.
Gordon Millar believes that Cameron Downing’s involvement with SNP London Branch began under the patronage of Karen Adam MSP when the pair attended the organisation’s Pride event together.
Karen Adam has little to say about Downing’s offensive tweets. She claims that she condemned his comments ‘a long time ago’ but has not produced any evidence confirming this. When prominent feminist campaigner, Lucy Hunter Blackburn, and journalist, Susan Dalgety, questioned Adam on Twitter about Downing’s tweets, instead of responding, she blocked them both.
Josh Mennie is Karen Adam’s Head of Office and Public Affairs.
Like Downing, he is no stranger to insulting gender critical feminists.
In 2019 he posted a photograph of himself using a women's toilet, appearing to mock the feminists who defend female-only spaces.
He also commented that he uses female-only toilets ‘all the time’.
Not surprisingly, he received criticism on social media for violating women’s boundaries.
He responded “Cheers” with a thumbs-up emoji to a woman who tried to explain the importance of female-only spaces.
Karen Adam defended him, telling the woman who had expressed concern that she is Mennie’s ‘best friend’ and commenting “Your trolling has no place here”. (Explaining why women of certain faiths and women who have been traumatised by male violence need female-only spaces is ‘trolling’?)
It is noteworthy that Karen Adam is ‘best friends’ and works so closely with a man who has such disregard for women’s boundaries and spaces. It is noteworthy that she is closely associated with another man who has insulted and threatened violence against gender-critical feminists. It is noteworthy that she blocks and ignores the women who question this.
Aside from her being a member of the Scottish parliament, Karen Adam is on the committee tasked with scrutinising the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.
Writing in The Sunday Times this weekend, JK Rowling made a shocking revelation regarding this committee on which Karen Adam sits.
“One of the most damning things I’ve heard about the consultation process for Sturgeon’s new bill is this: Murray Blackburn Mackenzie identified five female survivors of male violence who were prepared to meet with the committee and explain what had happened to them, the severe impact it had upon their lives, and why they fear the government is making it easier for violent or predatory men to get access to women and girls.
The committee declined to meet the survivors, telling them to put their concerns in writing. Susan Smith, one of For Women Scotland’s founders, told me: ‘These women were prepared to parade their trauma and were rebuffed’. The committee did, however, find time to meet 17 trans-identified individuals.”
Survivors of male violence are ignored and disregarded but a man who has threatened to ‘beat the fuck’ out of women receives no censure, keeps his equalities role and is photographed smiling alongside the party leader.
Nicola Sturgeon is no feminist.
This ideology has exposed the true nature of so many people, and even once it's defeated I just don't know how as a society we can move on.
I understand the SNP has probably received a large donation from a drug company that makes puberty blockers, like the LibDems did. The SNP is not professional, it’s acting like a party filled with childish thugs, which is exactly what it is, headed by a woman who is advocating for men’s rights.