In British elections, it is quite usual to have a few oddball independent candidates standing together with candidates from the major parties: often people campaigning on some local issue, like a hospital closure. But in the General Election of May 2015 there was something slightly different happening in the constituency of Ashfield.
The sitting Labour candidate was a leading feminist politician, Gloria De Piero, the Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, who retained the seat easily. But there was a lone, insistent voice from a candidate who received only 153 votes, but who clearly has a much larger agenda. Mike Buchanan, an energetic and articulate man in a business suit who comes across like a corporate efficiency expert, has formed a political party, Justice for Men & Boys (J4MB), confronting what he says is widespread sexism and prejudice against men in British society.
Having worked as a consultant for the Conservative Party until 2008, he is a smooth political operator, and while electoral success is still some way off (J4MB is working on the next general election, but life is hard for small parties in Britain), he has succeeded in establishing himself as ‘the most controversial politician in the UK’, as the voice of male opposition to radical feminism, now regularly appearing on radio and television to get his message across and using facts and figures to counter the claims and arguments of feminists. I talked to him in his Bedfordshire home.
Could you give me some examples of what you see as injustice?
The whole feminist agenda is about increasing female privilege. In our election manifesto we list 20 areas where the state assaults the human rights of men and boys, and no feminist has been able to give me one example of the same thing happening to women and girls. Just to look at some of the most outrageous examples, the state fails badly in ensuring that children have reasonable access to their fathers after family breakdowns, and also in allowing fathers to see their children. It enables mothers to emotionally abuse both the children and their ex-partners. When it comes to education, it’s been almost 30 years since the exam system was changed to favour girls over boys. Today, for every two male university student, there are three female ones. Nicky Morgan, who is simultameously Education Secretary and Minister for Women & Equalities, is a radical feminist. Her department is doing nothing about the under-representation of young men in higher education. We could talk about street homelessness – 90% men – which is a driver of suicide, which is the No. 1 cause of death of men under 50 in the UK. The differential between the male suicide rate and the female suicide rate has more than doubled in the past 30 years, it’s currently 3.5:1. The government doesn’t give a damn, and their narratives always focus on mental health. What causes most men to commit suicide is reactive depression caused by issues such as denial of access to their children, denial of support for male victims of domestic violence, unemployment, and other factors. And the state plays a major role in all these areas, through its actions and inactions.
Outside the major parties, the House of Commons has only one Green MP and one representative of UKIP. What makes you think J4MB can beat the system?
We’ve got a lot of momentum now. We plan to field 20 candidates at the 2020 general election, standing in the top 20 Conservative marginal constituencies where the runner-up in 2015 was a Labour MP. Funding streams for their £500 deposits were in place shortly after the 2015 general election. If we succeed in ensuring that some of those Conservative MPs aren’t re-elected, but Labour MPs are, it would tip the balance towards Labour. Then the Conservatives would have five years in Opposition to consider how to properly represent men and boys when they return to government, as well as women and girls. At the moment only 1 out of 650 MPs speaks out publicly on men’s issues – Philip Davies, a Conservative MP. But we’re facing enormous media bias. I’ve spoken about 100 times on the BBC, radio and television, and they’re always hostile.
In July we’re co-hosting the second International Conference on Men’s Issues in London, with 20 speakers, 5 of them women. People are often surprised to learn that we have female supporters. In nearly every case, these women have a personal reason to support us: most are the mothers of sons denied access to their children after family breakdowns which means that paternal grandparents also lose access. The remaining female supporters see their sons disadvantaged in a highly feminized education system.
In November, the world’s most famous living feminist, Germaine Greer, was due to lecture at Cardiff University, but Rachael Melhuish, the women’s officer at the university’s students’ union, started an online petition against her talk, saying that Greer had ‘demonstrated misogynistic views towards trans women’. What’s your perspective on that?
Gender identity is fixed in the brain of the foetus during its time in the womb. Transgenderism is a rare gender identity disorder – maybe 1 in 10,000 men, 1 in 30,000 women – and it’s used by feminists to support their ridiculous assertion that gender is a social construct. It isn’t, it’s a biological construct, with very few people having gender identity disorders.
In higher education, 18-year-olds, boys and girls, are introduced to a whole new vocabulary and way of thinking, being told that they live in a rape culture, and that the main thing is to resist the Patriarchy. Do you believe we live in a rape culture?
The Patriarchy, in the way described by feminists, has NEVER existed. Men have historically been the protectors of women, as well as their providers, and in many cultures that remains the case. Single mothers receiving benefits have taxpayers to thank, and 72% of income tax in the UK is paid by men. Men still support women both as partners and as taxpayers.
There is no rape culture in the UK, or anywhere else in the developed world. It’s just one of countless feminist myths. All feminist narratives are one or more of the following – conspiracy theories, fantasies, lies, delusions or myths.
The takeover of universities by radical feminists is an appalling phenomenon. They routinely deny platforms to anyone disagreeing with their evil ideology.
Do you think this reaction against radical feminism is an English-speaking world phenomenon?
I think it’s a global phenomenon. While most of the speakers and delegates at our upcoming international conference will be from English-speaking countries, 11 of the 16 countries represented are not English-speaking.
Our most important allies in America are those running A Voice for Men http://avoiceformen.com, the most-visited website in the world advocating for the human rights of men and boys. It was founded in 2009 and the leader of the organization, Paul Elam, will be speaking at the London conference.
Emma Watson said at the UN that a lot of feminism today is about ‘man-hating’. I’m sure you’re often accused of woman-hating.
Feminists try to portray opposition to their evil ideology as stemming from misogyny, it’s just another lie. Misogyny is actually a rare phenomenon, while misandry – the hatred of men – is common among women.
Do you have any thoughts for our Italian readers?
We have one or two Italians attending the London conference, and we’d like to see more.
In British elections, it is quite usual to have a few oddball independent candidates standing together with candidates from the major parties: often people campaigning on some local issue, like a hospital closure. But in the General Election of May 2015 there was something slightly different happening in the constituency of Ashfield.
