‘It’s history!’ Thousands fight back against ‘ridiculous’ woke plans to rename ‘offensive’ pub
Thousands of people are fighting back against “ridiculous” plans to rename a beloved pub after a university lecturer labelled it “offensive”.
Last week, owners Greene King said The Midget pub in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, would have to be rebranded after the lecturer – who has dwarfism – called its name “disablist hate speech”.
Liverpool Hope University’s Dr Erin Pritchard, a senior lecturer in disability studies, started a petition in January – and said at the time: “I have dwarfism and like the majority of people with dwarfism find the word offensive.”
“I doubt anyone would tolerate a pub with a name containing an equally derogatory slur against another group of disabled people or an ethnic minority,” she claimed.
Dr Pritchard had in the past successfully pressured Marks & Spencer to rename its Midget Gems product.
But the pub, which opened in 1974, is named after the MG Midget, the iconic mini sports car which was once manufactured in Abingdon.
Greene King then rebranded its venue to “The Roaring Raindrop” in a tribute to another MG car, the EX 181 – but now, residents have fought back, and The Midget’s original name may yet survive.
A counter-petition launched only six days ago has already received over 3,000 signatures, while the original has 1,344.
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The petition reads: “I’m sure a lot of people will disagree with this decision and, in my opinion, I think it is ridiculous – the naming is part of Abingdon’s history.”
Locals have lashed out at the lecturer’s renaming drive. Amanda Buckingham said the name was “only offensive if it is used as an offensive term about a person”.
“People don’t go into the pub and think that it’s about a person – there’s a sign with a picture of the car outside, the decor of the pub is all about cars,” she added.
“Changing the name is not going to stop people from calling it The Midget, and it’s not going to stop people using the term in a derogatory way.”
But Dr Pritchard claimed that pub names “change all the time”, yet the venues “still remain a piece of local heritage”.
She said: “The people in Abingdon might say ‘oh it’s because of the MG car’, but it’s still putting that word out in society.”
“Where do you think the name for the car came from? The word midget was derived from the Victorian freak shows to refer to people with dwarfism,” she said.
Greene King’s managing director Zoe Bowley, has said the company had thought “long and hard” about changing the name.
“We hope that making the change in this way helps to preserve our pub’s historic links to Abingdon’s past while simultaneously ensuring our pub can be a place where everyone feels welcome,” she said.