Johann Lamont

Johann MacDougall Lamont (/ˈdʒoʊæn læmʌnt/; born 11 July 1957) is a Scottish Labour Co-operative politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2011 to 2014. She was previously a junior Scottish Executive minister from 2004 to 2007 and Deputy Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2008 until her election to the leadership in 2011. In addition to her ministerial and leadership roles, she has been a campaigner on equality issues and violence against women throughout her political career.

Johann Lamont in 2022

Quotes

• I used to run everywhere. My first memories of being an MSP were running down that hill [the Royal Mile in Edinburgh] at a hundred miles an hour so that I could get back home.
  My mother was alive at the time and she helped hugely, as did their other nanna [with child care].
  You have to keep your feet on the ground. It wouldn't matter what great speech you made, you had to get back in time to pick up the kids from after-school care, or get them to Brownies.
  That's a really healthy thing - family will always protect you from yourself.
  • Extract from an interview, as cited in Marianne Taylor "Johann Lamont: From the heat of the classroom to the heart of Scottish politics", BBC News (25 April 2014)

• I feel very strongly that sometimes when you say something out loud there's a common-sense reaction you should listen to.>br />We're being asked to accept that the Scottish Parliament wants to address hate in our society targeted at specific groups, but we want to exclude women from that legislation despite the fact that all the evidence shows that women experience misogyny and hatred in their lives at a level which everyone accepts is very serious.
  This is an issue that's exercised women and women's groups and organisations, who are currently campaigning on this matter, for many years, and there's no explanation given on why women who daily experience hatred are not included in legislation which wants to give people further protections and to educate people about the corrosive nature of hatred in people’s behaviour.
  • Addressing the Justice Committee of the Scottish parliament, as cited by Gina Davidson "Fight to add protection for women to Hate Crime Bill goes to next stage", The Scotsman (3 February 2021)
  • Ms Lamont's eventual amendment to the bill (now the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021) to include the word "sex" in the list of protected characteristics was defeated in a Scottish parliament vote.

• I think there's a lot of people, particularly on the side of those who are very strong advocates for trans rights, trans allies, who have taken it upon themselves, the responsibility or the challenge of being the people who push really hard.
  And it is as if the trans community all speaks with one voice. We know that's not true.
  And they, and I have to say it's very often young emboldened men, have almost been given permission to push back pretty aggressively against arguments about women's rights.
  • "Johann Lamont: The Scottish Parliament has not improved the lives of Scotland's women", Holyrood (15 April 2021)

• I was told 40 years ago by young men that now is not the time, that there were other campaigns that matter, other people that are vulnerable. And I said then if you don't address women's inequality, we will never have true equality and that is as true now as it was then.
  These young men may think they are speaking for progressive politics. I am telling you, their brothers 40 years ago, who said women's role was to stay at home, are in the same tradition. They need to wake up and understand where real inequality is.
• I never imagined that a Scottish minister, challenged not about trans rights, but about loopholes through which male predators would move, that a Scottish minister would say that no man has ever pretended in order to access vulnerable women.
  Well, I don't know where you have been. Do you not know about the coaches, the teachers, the ministers, the priests, and the people in care homes? Are you not listening to what has been said at the national inquiry into child sexual abuse, that is going on at this very moment.
  This is not about the rights of any particular group, but it is about understanding the way in which predatory male behaviour has blighted the lives of far too many, for too long. And it ought not to be the Scottish Parliament, which is open, transparent, and committed to responding to the rights of people in this country. It ought not to be them, who give a green light to this predatory behaviour and dismiss and mock those who have the courage to speak up.
  • At the Scottish Women’s Rally of For Women Scotland outside the Scottish parliament building, as cited in "Johann Lamont warns MSPs they must 'understand the laws of unintended consequences'", Holyrood (6 October 2022)
  • The majority of MSPs on the Scottish parliament's Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee had agreed in broad outline to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. The bill was later blocked by the Westminster government from receiving the Royal Assent.