By now many of our readers will have read about the Goldsmith’s racism and sexism scandal in which their student union “diversity officer” banned white people and males from an event an then proceeded to send disturbing hate tweets such as “kill all white men”. No doubt this all sounds remarkably familiar to most readers, given that it’s this very blog that broke the remarkably similar “kill all men” Lib Dem hate speech scandal, the first known case of a feminist actually getting in trouble for the promotion of male genocide.

At HEqual we’ve been busy tying to ensure sufficient attention has been given to this latest Goldsmith’s hate scandal and some media outlets even noted the links between this latest scandal and our Lib Dem hate investigation. Given such interest in this topic we decided it was time to post an update on the story.

It’s been a while since our last article on Sarah Noble. We’ve previously reported on her suspension from her role at Yorkshire and Humberside Lib Dems, her resignation from the Secular and Humanist Lib Dems and how this contrasts with the lack of any action taken by the LGBT Lib Dems. Like Mustafa, Noble has strong links to the NUS and recently we’ve reported how she was “proud” of her hatred of men and stood by her hateful statements. Thankfully, Noble has now at least begun the process of backtracking somewhat, and has finally deleted a number of the worst tweets we exposed. Four “kill all men” related tweets have been removed, as well as the original “remove men from society” tweet which first drew our attention to Noble. A sixth tweet has also disappeared in which Noble stated “I can’t wait to murder people” and a tweet about the death of males was also removed.

At about the same time of these deletions Noble posted a very short statement on her website about the scandal, promise to expand on it later The statement reads as follows:

A brief statement regarding the “kill all men” controversy.

For a sig­nif­i­cant period of time I have been the sub­ject of misog­y­nis­tic online trolling and harass­ment of the most per­sonal and unpleas­ant kind. In response to that I made a series of tweets that I realise now have caused offence. I have now deleted those tweets and apol­o­gise to those I have offended, whether in my own party or mem­bers of the pub­lic. I am also grate­ful to those in the party who have han­dled this fairly and promptly.

I will release a longer state­ment in the com­ing days.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20150422211306/https://sarahlicity.co.uk/2015/04/20/a-brief-statement-regarding-the-kill-all-men-controversy/

Much of the above statement is clearly false. None of the offending tweets appeared to be replies to any sort of harassment, nor have all the offending tweets been removed, nor has Noble even issued the longer statement she promised. One of the offending comments was made in person at The NUS Women’s conference, so that surely can’t have been in response to any harassment, and they actually span a period of two and a half years, so aren’t part of any “series” but just normal every-day behaviour on Noble’s part.

The deletions that did take place are certainly welcome but Noble’s behaviour continues to be extremely troubling. We previously noted how Noble boasted of being “proud” of hating men and how such hatred was “real cool”. These relatively recent tweets still remain in place therefore suggesting she’s of the same mindset and is just seeking to remove the most extreme genocidal material whilst still retaining her clear hatred for half the population. Further evidence of Noble’s lack of genuine change of heart can also been seen in her reaction to the Goldsmith’s controversy. Noble sent no less than three tweets expressing her support for Bahar Mustafa, stating “I know from experience how entitled white men get when their hold on power gets challenged” This racist angle was largely missing from most of Noble’s other tweets, with just one out of her many previous hate tweets specifically mentioning white men specifically, so this could be seen a worsening of her behaviour. And whatever the case, her support for Mustafa’s hate speech and sexist actions goes to show that Noble isn’t actually remotely sorry, hasn’t learned a single lesson and it’s clearly supportive of those who follow her down the same path.

There’s also the issue of numerous other Tweets still remaining in place on Noble’s Twitter feed that we’ve not even had the chance to get round to exposing yet. Noble’s feed contains various comments using Mustafa-style “logic” to inform us that it’s impossible to hate men. Confusingly, a number of other tweets highlight misandry as a positive force. So one minute we have Noble celebrating misandry and the next she tell us it doesn’t exist. Without wishing to defend Mustafa, at lease she came across as consistent in her warped and hateful thinking.

Other hate tweets we’ve neglected to highlight in the past appear to celebrate the castration of men and their death through blood loss, with Noble also commenting that she likes her men “ground up and in the freezer”.

Just a week ago HEqual again made contact with the Lib Dems asking for the latest news of Noble’s position in the party and on the Lib Dem LGBT committee, though despite having plenty of time to reply we haven’t heard back. It’s worth noting just how unsatisfactory the response from the Lib Dems has been to this scandal, particularly at the national level and by the Lib Dems in positions of power. While Noble’s suspension from the local party was very much welcome, not one Lib Dem MP voluntarily condemned this scandal, with all emails and requests for comment from equality representatives all going unanswered (or statements repeatedly being promised but never actually arriving). Equalities Minister Jo Swinson only condemned Noble’s behaviour after being forced to discuss it during a Facebook web chat and there was even a case of a significant party member tweeting in defence of Noble (though thankfully swiftly deleting the comment). This contempt for half the electorate, not to mention the obvious double standards is a symptom of a fairly clear problem within certain parts of the party, and we’re extremely pleased to see that all in equalities roles within the party who should have been speaking out on this matter deservedly lost their seats in the General Election. Hopefully the next party leader will take issues more seriously.

We’ll post a further article once we hear the outcome of the investigation into Noble’s hate speech.