Green Party thread 3

[FermatsTheorem]

Previous thread here:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3347925-Green-Party-statement-continuation-thread?pg=40

Will post links to AC's public statement and Caroline Lucas's appalling white wash job in a moment, but for me, Andrew Gilligan nails it yet again:
twitter.com/mragilligan/status/1034776005326581767

ItsAllGoingToBeFine

Brain bleach isn't working over here. Aside from the nature of the beast, the implications it has in terms of the plural "victims" used in several formal statements .....

I lived in Bangkok for years. I worked with some openly depraved people, and lost work as a result of not being able to "adjust" to that. So it's not like I am some innocent who didn't know truly warped people, who do indescribable damage, exist.

But reading it has left me sitting in a gloomy state, because I just don't know how now grown people come back from what was done to them. And what they did to others. Not to mention the reality that some of profoundly damaged have been given carte blanche to shape policy that will place millions at an increased risk of harm is just ... I don't have words.

Quite frankly, if even a tenth of what I am reading here and elsewhere is true, the sooner this happens the better. This stuff should be leading the news.

Seconded.

..........................................

I agree with Lisa Muggeridge.

I've come back full circle on this.

Those in the political and media sphere who used Aimee are similar to David Challenor in the abuse and the damage they have cause Aimee.

CesiraAndEnrico

This is me. Wildly vacillating between fury and pity. Between blame and pathos.

And, of course, the only people should truly be held accountable and suffer the consequences are those who have no fucking excuse whatsoever.

Yes.

The disappearing is interesting.

There is a huge dilemma facing the Green Party.

On the one hand, it is quite easy to defend Aimee Challenor's actions: she was a vulnerable child and then a vulnerable adult. A cursory examination of her family relationships and then an examination of the relationship with her father as a young adult can substantiate that claim.

Until very recently, all of that was easily accessible in the public domain.

Unfortunately, this raises two problems:

Firstly, it casts doubt on the 'affirm everything about Aimee's identity choice' narrative. The same facts that indicate Aimee was a vulnerable child and vulnerable young adult cast doubt on a wholly uninterrogated adoption of the 'affirm only' narrative.

For political reasons, this is not really feasible - there is too much at stake in the culture at the moment for this to be promising.

Clearly, people around Aimee, in the Green Party, sought to foreclose all questioning early on by stating, firmly, that Aimee's Trans identity (and any other identities she might have) had nothing to do with her father's crimes.

Secondly, it begs the question as to why a serious political Party would place such a vulnerable young adult in a position of prominence, with inter-Party and political clout, overseeing matters of importance to Safeguarding - without scrutiny.

And, of course, it might then shed a nasty, retrospective, light on the activities carried out by Aimee in role. For example, all that Terf-blocking begins to look like misogyny, issues with women, odd internet behaviour.

And a retrospective questioning of Aimee's input into any policy developed.

So that defence is ruled out.

Now, a faction within the Green Party would rather keep this as an issue of 'Well, one of our members wasn't very clear with us; they slipped up'. They would like to disassociate with Aimee and move on.

It's quite possible that they might want to use the inquiry to re-orgnaise the Party's communication structure, so that any factions, whose interests may be slightly at variance with the main aims of the Party, are fragmented.

It's quite likely that this faction has a lot less invested in the policies with which Aimee was identified - and is more focused on the old-style eco issues.

Another faction within the Party is not so keen to lose Aimee. They have quite a lot invested in Aimee. They are not happy with the moves by the other faction in the Party.

Again, they can't quite use the 'troubled Aimee' narrative - though I think it is not beyond imagining that they might well try some version of that. They have no wish to let the Party get away with the whole 'It was just one of our members being irresponsible' story - because that means losing Aimee.

So they are going to try and focus on some point in the Party structure where 'information was lost'.

They do not want the Party to quietly ditch Aimee - and they aren't going quietly.

A lot of this faction do not have a public profile, yet. Their agenda is not the one that is typically associated with the Green Party in the public mind (eco issues, allotments, clean air, global warming).

They have a lot less to lose if they blow the Party's structures and reputation apart.

Anyway, it all leads to a lot of Social Media cleaning.

And all of it is pretty disgusting really. Because one of the several elephants in the room is that Aimee was a troubled child and a troubled young adult. And it is an ongoing failure of responsibility to name that.

It's actually pretty damn cynical.

Lisa's video is excellent.

She also did another talking about the dangers of being "nice" - essentially calling out the irony of causing wider and more serious harm through the fear of challenging ideologies and behaviours of groups/individuals on the pedestal of inclusivity and affirmation.

Oh, and let's be absolutely clear, here:

There is a massive reason STONEWALL are keeping silent.

That is Stonewall, of the Guidance to Schools, which pushes the 'affirm, only affirm' narrative for schools. A guidance which runs in direct contravention to Safeguarding guidelines for schools and social work.

Stonewall, who are associated with the petition to ban Transgender Trend from use in schools.

Aimee was associated with Stonewall and used by them as its poster child.

The elephant - the bloody great huge elephant - in the room here is that AFFIRMATION AND ACCUSATIONS OF TRANSPHOBIA HID ABUSIVE BEHAVIOUR AND BOTH PERMITTED AND HID SAFEGUARDING FAILURES. Both by Aimee and of Aimee.

Of course they are silent. Aimee is no longer a poster child but pretty much a story of why that approach is so damn dangerous.

But, here's the thing, the narrative is SO STRONG, and there are so many vested interests in this, that IT IS WORKING.

No-one is going near this.

It's out there, in plain sight - but there barely exists a language with which to say it, without falling foul of charges of transphobia, and there is no-one brave enough to say it.

All of which leaves a troubled young adult just where she is: a troubled young adult who has been used by far too many people.

Is there a point at which any independent investigation is going to conclude that nothing and nobody was at fault?

AC as a troubled young person narrative (as per PPs above). - At any point, how could the GP have raised this as an issue without it seeming intrusive? Would blocking AC's participation be seen as discounting the lived experience of someone with a portfolio of 'equalities topics' an acceptable simulacrum of expertise in the issues for which AC was appointed a spokesperson?

Similarly, having taken AC into their inner core of senior officers, at what point could GP raise concerns about DC and TC as members of AC's family and some unwise public-facing actions/tweets/activities or possibly sanitised versions of criminal charges?

If there was a failure to disseminate relevant information...At what point should the GP have noticed that their internal comms team were all in danger of potentially appearing to share a conflict of interest on some matters? How could they have fixed this without seeming to run a quota system for non-binary people - even if there were other volunteers ready to take over their duties (debatable if there were more people available or if they'd have acted differently given the prevailing climate of unquestioning support)?

If any of the activities/hobbies/lifestyle choices of adult AC seemed likely to feed into an unattractive narrative that might create difficulties for the GP - at what point would their own 'libertarian' values allow them to intervene, and on what grounds?

Given the GP's treatment of people who wanted a discussion (the injunction against Healey; Olivia etc.) - did members feel safe to raise a dissenting voice? Look at Caroline Lucas' own comments about her status and role conferring now privileged powers to allow her to intervene over the blocker.

AC had an unpaid voluntary role on the Executive. Same with LBGTQueeretc

Anyone can start a "common interest group" (Senior Greens, Greens4Business, GreensofColour etc) and tweet. They don't represent the views of the party, they represent themselves.

Young Greens, LBGTQueeretc and Green Women are slightly different because they are mentioned in the Constitution and have advisory seats on the Executive. Again, all volunteers without pay.

Nevertheless, despite being 'official' and having influence (but no responsibilty) at the highest level, the latter groups are autonomous and tweet on their own behalf. No comeback on the Party for what they say on social media, in other words.

Yes I agree with thecatfromjapan re Sian Berry's deletions.

It's about disassociation. Although the RTs of AC are fairly innocuous she's realising AC is not going to come out of the growing public scrutiny at all well to put it mildly (regardless of what happens in the internal investigation) and as someone who considers themselves a serious player Sian Berry does not want to appear to be endorsing AC in any way. Of course, the more sensible thing to have done (even if you wanted to avoided a vicious confrontation with the trans lobby as others have suffered from) would have been to have recognised what a problematic, troubled and thoroughly unconvincing individual AC was right from the very beginning of her meteoric rise and never retweeted her or had photocalls with her in the first place.

Sian has not sat on any of the national bodies for a number of years so I doubt she would have had any access to any notifications about the Challenor family or taken part in any procedural matters. The deletions are about public damage limitation for her.

Of course, assuming Sian takes over from Caroline Lucas as Co-Leader next week the whole awful debacle is going to become very much her problem (alongside the hitherto silent Jonathan Bartley).

theotherPam however the Greens are set up internally an ordinary member of the public will consider all those groups to be speaking on behalf of the party. It's pretty dishonest.

It places doubt on why the BBC, theGuardian, the Huffington Post, the Independent would help the meteoric rise of a vulnerable young adult from a family background that was shocking by anyone's standards especially after that vulnerable young adult's father was charged with torture and rape of a 10 year old girl.

ALL the candidates for this leadership election will be FOREVER tainted with having stood with Aimee Challenor, a vulnerable young person who should NEVER have been given the power and positions held. Shocking.

ALL the candidates for this leadership election will be FOREVER tainted with having stood with Aimee Challenor, a vulnerable young person who should NEVER have been given the power and positions held. Shocking

The people who were pushed or jumped however, are starting to look like real contenders in comparison.

Cos the Greens are good for political balance (even if my albeit fantasy vote would go to the MRL party before them). It would be a loss if they disappeared leaving a void. Those worth donors' and voters' money and trust have shown themselves by being resolute in the face of brickbats, insult and attempts to bully/sanction into silence. Some of them took some heavy hits in the process and did not cave.

They stood up for the party, reason and responsibility where the leaders, movers and shakers did not. Now is the time to count, name and support them. Because if there is a flyable phoenix that can rise from the ashes, with lessons learned from the past welded to the new party structure, they are the best bet as a presence in the cockpit.

TheOtherPamAyres

'Young Greens, LBGTQueeretc and Green Women are slightly different because they are mentioned in the Constitution and have advisory seats on the Executive. Again, all volunteers without pay.

Nevertheless, despite being 'official' and having influence (but no responsibilty) at the highest level, the latter groups are autonomous and tweet on their own behalf. No comeback on the Party for what they say on social media, in other words.'

And that, you see, is the structure (or lack of) which

• allowed a faction boosting Aimee to form
• allowed an 'alternative communications network' to arise within the Party (the role of the Comms team is quite significant in all of this)
• prevented scrutiny of the actions of members (Caroline Lucas didn't seem to knw about BlockTerf; AC's father's role wasn't scrutinised)

-impeded scrutiny of members -allowed significant conflicts of interest to form

• and in parrallel to the above, prevented dissenting voices (with all the safeguarding and oversight implications of that) from being heard within the Party.

I'm sure there's more.
TheOtherPamAyres

But that loose, decentralised structure appears to have functioned both to evade responsibility for individual's actions and simultaneously channelled the flow of power in unaccountable ways.

With worrying consequences.

Obviously, an enquiry should look at that. But I'm guessing it won't.

Now - does the Green Party really want people to know that this is the (lack of) organisation behind the nice candidate, with the nice policies they are voting for?

This is why one faction would probably like attention to turn away from Party organisational failure, and be turned a little more towards 'an individual failing'.

Even at risk of losing some credibility in that individual's policy area and (temporarily) riding out the storm from some of it's voters and members (and there is always the possibility that the 'attention' can be blamed on 'transphobes'). they probably figure they can ride out the storm.

Meanwhile, the other faction, for whom that individual and their policies is hugely important, have more - far more- invested in that individual, and would rather turn attention to the Party organisational failings - even if it means the Party as a whole sustains a lot of damage. they probably figure that, long-term, the gain will be a shift in the identity of the Party, around their chosen policies.

Hence the significance of the Women's Group message.

Anyway, they all seem a bit unpleasant viewed in this light.

And at the heart of it is a big safeguarding failure.

The elephant - the bloody great huge elephant - in the room here is that AFFIRMATION AND ACCUSATIONS OF TRANSPHOBIA HID ABUSIVE BEHAVIOUR AND BOTH PERMITTED AND HID SAFEGUARDING FAILURES. Both by Aimee and of Aimee.

Yes. This is what the dissolution of safeguarding and the concomitant free-for-all looks like.

As I, and many of us, have been pointing out for fucking years now.

Nothing to do with transsexual people. Everything to do with the protection of children, women and vulnerable adults. Everything to do with preventing abuser infiltration of organisations and institutions.

Well, here it is folks. You don't want this disastrous, damaging farrago happening everywhere you look? Think on, virtue signallers, think on.

Anyway.

Stonewall.

Stonewall are stonewalling.

I want to put that on a flag and fly it in the street, LangCleg.

SAFEGUARDING FUCKING MATTERS.

Honestly, I'm not posting that much at the moment. I really can't. I'm so angry I can barely see to type for the tears of absolute fucking fury.

By the way, I had a fortnight's worth of arguing with you @MNHQ, when you gave me a fucking strike for saying exactly what I said just up there. Yes, you took away the strike, but you didn't reinstate the post. I fucking hope you're fucking ashamed of yourselves now.

Argh. I must go. Before I get myself banned.

Stonewall are stonewalling.

That is just about perfect.

Nothing to do with transsexual people. Everything to do with the protection of children, women and vulnerable adults. Everything to do with preventing abuser infiltration of organisations and institutions

Applauds LangCleg and shares her complete despair

Stonewall is stonewalling.

Not in Storme's name.

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/remembering-storm%C3%A9-the-woman-who-incited-the-stonewall_us_5933c061e4b062a6ac0ad09e

Let’s set the record straight (no pun intended): a lesbian was responsible for starting the Stonewall riot.

In terms of removing safeguards, I'd be arguing at this point that the lack of them in the Green Party allowed the political exploitation of a young person.

If individuals in the 'nice' party are willing to do this to advance their own careers without any regard to the consequences, imagine what that looks like in a party where social values are not even part of the language?