An exclusive piece for Freedom Alliance by Miri Anne Finch

Last weekend, I received a phone call from my friend and fellow Freedom Alliance member, Rebekah Curtis-Haries (who stood as a Freedom Alliance candidate in the May 2021 local elections), inviting me to accompany her on an underground tour at a local museum. Rebekah had initially planned to take her two children, but last-minute homework assignments meant they couldn’t come, so Rebekah asked if I’d like to go instead.

I’d heard great things about the museum in question – the National Coal Mining Museum – and, as a native of Stoke-on-Trent, a city founded on mining industries, it is always a subject that has fascinated me, so I was happy to take Rebekah up on her invitation.

When we arrived at the museum, we were welcomed at the entry reception by a staff member who verified our booking, and then directed us to the back of the museum where the tour would commence. When we arrived at the location from where the tour was to start, a tour guide asked us to put on face masks, to which we politely replied that we were exempt.

The law surrounding mask exemptions is, in 2022, typically much more widely recognised and well understood than it was when masking rules were first introduced, so we expected the tour guide to simply acknowledge our exemptions and move on, as that is what the law requires them to do.

Therefore, we were astonished and appalled to be informed that exemptions “don’t apply” on the underground tour and that we would be obliged to wear masks anyway.

We explained to the tour guides that this was an illegally discriminatory position to take; that mask exemptions apply everywhere there are mask rules, and cannot be overridden by the preferences of private companies.

The staff were not receptive to our position and began to argue with us, in front of other customers, including young children (who were all masked, despite the fact the law exempts children under 11 from wearing masks).

Read the rest of the article at Freedom Alliance's site: https://freedomalliance.co.uk/divisive-disabilities-discrimination-at-major-yorkshire-tourist-attraction/