An Election Message from Matt O’Connor: The Campaign for Shared Parenting Continues.
Without doubt, it has been a difficult night for campaigners who want to see urgent family law reform.
We face profound challenges given there will be another Conservative led administration, which not only broke it’s 2010 election promises to F4J, but will continue to oppose equal rights for dads and support a punitive and discriminatory child support system for the next five years.
The potential consequences of this cannot be overstated.
Worst still, the Conservatives have invested considerable effort in a failed campaign to smear Fathers4Justice which resulted in an apology from David Cameron to us some weeks ago. Several disputes remain ongoing, but we will continue to defend our work and campaign from those that seek to damage us.
We also face ingrained, ideological opposition from many of the other parties (let’s not forget Harriet Harman), a problem compounded by the harsh reality that many of our Parliamentary supporters lost their seats.
Further, we must reflect now on the new political landscape and what our strategy is moving forwards. Our policy of quiet diplomacy will be reviewed given the failure of all campaigners to raise mass fatherlessness as a serious election issue.
Despite this, we will continue to work with politicians from across the spectrum as we build a consensus for Shared Parenting.
Where political parties and politicians oppose our campaign, we will continue to challenge them and hold them to account. Where they support Shared Parenting and Child Support, we will work with them constructively to build a new future for families throughout the UK.
Our children deserve nothing less.
Matt O’Connor, Founder, Fathers4Justice
