In a move that has shocked precisely no one outside of a certain sun-scorched corner of West Africa, Ghana’s parliament has decided to double down on humanity’s favourite pastime: persecuting people for loving the wrong way. Their brand spanking new anti-LGBTQ+ bill, a legislative masterpiece of institutionalised spite, has earned them a sternly worded telegram from the mother of all parliaments. Westminster, in a rare display of moral clarity, has declared this bill a ‘threat to Commonwealth values’. Cue the slow clap from the gin-and-tonic set in SW1.
Now, let us pause to savour the irony. The Commonwealth, that jolly post-imperial club whose members include such paragons of LGBTQ+ rights as Brunei, Pakistan, and Uganda, has suddenly discovered its spine. They have issued a statement. A statement, I tell you! No doubt penned by some underpaid clerk on a lunch break, this document will change minds and hearts from Accra to Takoradi. It will be framed in the Ghanaian parliament, right next to the portrait of the last British governor, presumably, as a reminder of who still keeps the stern upper lip.
The bill itself is a masterpiece of legislative monster-making. It criminalises not just acts but identities, not just deeds but desires. It makes LGBTQ+ advocacy a crime punishable by up to ten years, which is roughly the same sentence you’d expect for, say, embezzling from a children’s charity. Ghanaian lawmakers, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that the greatest threat to the nation is not corruption, not poverty, not the creeping collapse of the cocoa industry, but two people of the same gender holding hands. Bang goes the economy, but by God, we’ve saved the souls of the sodomites.
Westminster’s response, as is tradition, is a model of restrained indignation. They have ‘condemned’ the bill. They have ‘expressed concern’. They have, in the finest tradition of British diplomacy, sent a strongly worded email that will be promptly deleted, filed under ‘Things We Must Pretend to Care About’. Boris Johnson, the man who once compared gay men to ‘tank-topped bumboys’ and who has the moral authority of a damp kipper, is said to be ‘deeply disappointed’. Indeed, the entire cabinet is said to be ‘reviewing Commonwealth relationships’, which means someone will write a memo and then forget about it over the summer recess.
But let us not be too harsh. This is, after all, the Commonwealth. A organisation that has perfected the art of saying nothing with great formality. They have values, apparently. Values that include ‘democracy, human rights, and the rule of law’. Also included: ‘will not actually do anything to enforce these values if a member state with nice beaches decides otherwise’. Ghana will still be invited to the next CHOGM. The Queen’s portrait will still hang in the High Commission. And the gin, sourced from the finest British distilleries, will continue to flow.
Meanwhile, in Ghana, the real victims are, as ever, the people. The LGBTQ+ community, already living in the shadows, will now be forced to live in deeper, darker shadows. The bill’s supporters, a coalition of religious leaders, populist politicians, and people with too much time on their hands, have declared victory over Western imperialism. They have, in their minds, stood up to the decadent, morally bankrupt colonialists who want to destroy their culture. The irony, of course, is that the very concept of ‘colonial values’ they reject is precisely the homophobia they have enshrined in law. But who has time for nuance when there is moral panic to be milked?
At the end of the day, this is just another chapter in the never-ending story of the Commonwealth’s irrelevance. A toothless tiger, a talking shop, a place where values are discussed and promptly ignored. Ghana will do what Ghana will do. Westminster will tut and move on. And somewhere, in a bar near the House of Commons, a journalist will order another gin and tonic and wonder if we’ve learned anything since the last empire collapsed. Probably not.
The bill’s fate? It will pass, of course. It will be signed by President Akufo-Addo, who has just enough political savvy to know which way the wind is blowing. It will be celebrated in churches and condemned in tweets. And ten years from now, when some other country is passing some other horrendous law, we will have forgotten all about it. But the people it hurts won’t forget. They never do.
