Charity regulator to slam anti-migrant ‘thuggery and intimidation’

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The Charity Commission’s new chair Dame Julia Unwin is also expected to warn on Friday that “we must never grow accustomed to criminal or para-criminal abuse.”

In her inaugural speech to the Charity Commission’s annual public meeting, the former CEO of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation will warn against the “normalisation of violence” and highlight there is a difference between “heated discussion” and harassment or abuse.

Speaking in central London, she is expected to say: “I want to use this opportunity to condemn in the strongest terms the thuggery and intimidation that volunteers of the RNLI have faced over recent weeks — and indeed over months and even years.

“Charities must only do things that meet their purpose and objects.

“For the RNLI that means rescuing people in peril in the sea.

“It is not their right to do so. It is their absolute duty.

“The charitable sector must have the courage to tolerate vigorous debate, individual charities must accept that people might disapprove of their work, for reasons of values, politics, faith or identity.

“We should in fact welcome differences of view as evidence that we are living in a society in which everyone has freedom of conscience.

“But we must never grow accustomed to criminal or para-criminal abuse.”

The RNLI was forced to pause its services in Portsmouth in the wake of abuse of its volunteers targeted by proto-fascist thugs for helping migrants at sea.

Footage posted on social media showed them described as “traitors” after bringing a dinghy to safety in the Hampshire port city.

Dame Julia will also say the commission must also be “willing to resist pressure from the media, government, or other charities to find against a charity in the absence of clear evidence” and take action against a charity “when the law requires it, even if that means getting in the cross hairs of sensitive debates.”

This week, the government opened a consultation proposing that people convicted of hate crimes and serious national security offences can be automatically disqualified from being charity trustees.

The suggested changes are aimed at ensuring the charities regulator is able to keep pace with “changing threats.”