Debate contribution: Relationships and Sexuality Education
Debate contribution by Mr Jim Allister KC on .
- MLA
- Mr Jim Allister KC
- Party at the time
- Traditional Unionist Voice
- Date
- 22 April 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Relationships and Sexuality Education
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4484887
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Contrary to what Mr Tennyson says, the motion from the Alliance Party is not about education. It is about indoctrination. It is about a free course for indoctrination on the Alliance Party's pro-abortion agenda and its transgenderism agenda. If you want to indoctrinate, what do you need to do? You need to get rid of the obstacles, and that is why the motion is specific and determined to expunge parents' rights, to expunge governors' rights and to expunge regard to the ethos of a school. Let us remember what the statutory position is in relation to education. It is that the board of governors and the principal have the statutory responsibility to deliver the minimum curriculum content, but that they also have autonomy over who is involved in curriculum delivery, and when and how, aligned with the ethos of the school. Those are the targets of the Alliance Party today. Parents: get them out of the situation. Governors: get them out of the situation. School ethos: remove it. Why? Because it wants to enforce its own agenda. In doing that, it is quite happy to brazenly disregard the human rights of parents. As has been quoted here today, the human rights of parents in education are set out in the relevant protocol of the European Convention, which says:
"the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions."
The motion is about expunging that right. Not for the first time, those who hold themselves out as the great liberals in fact turn out to be the most illiberal and the most totalitarian, and that is what we are seeing here today. Let us take some insight into this. They are going to have this standardised approach to RSE. So when they come to talk about transgenderism, which the Alliance Party likes to promote and defend, and a child asks about puberty blockers, are they to be told, "Yes, you can have puberty blockers. Yes, you should have puberty blockers"? What are they doing? They are sowing the most immense discord between child and parent, the parent whom they have shut outside the door. The child goes home and tells them that. What do you think they are doing? They are bringing untold division to education. That is the purpose, for the sake of promoting their narrow agenda, of the motion. Take abortion. Sadly now, under the regulations, abortion has to be taught as a right. So, again, parents will be set up against pupils.
No, I will not give way, because I have no time to hear something that is not going to inform the debate. Let us be very clear. This is an agenda by the Alliance Party to enforce its world view on those who dare to disagree. You would think from listening to some in this debate that we have never had a safeguarding policy in schools. All the issues have been addressed. Every school has a safeguarding policy that is capable of addressing the complaints and the issues that have been raised, yet you would think that we do not even have those. Not for the first time, the Alliance Party, the great illiberals of our society, is in the business of it-knows-best. Only that party knows what is right, and it will ram it down everyone else's throat. It is quite clearly what the Alliance Party calls a progressive agenda, which it knows will offend parents, offend governors and offend the ethos, so the answer is to expunge all of that and railroad it through. No, thanks. Not in my name.
609 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues
Jev’s structured answers met every documented threshold for a qualifying culture-war activity.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.66 (qualifying needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not qualifying).
- Criteria met: Dog-whistle messaging (0.85).
- The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.72).
- Subject area: Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues.
- The text adopts an antagonistic or dog-whistle framing, which qualifies even alongside legitimate scrutiny.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.47 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.22 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.15 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.85 | Yes |
| Controversy escalation | 0.48 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.51 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.66 | Between thresholds |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing | 0.26 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.02 |
| Adopts it (chosen) | 0.72 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 1.00 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.00 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
| Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:01 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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