I have permission to share the letter here and I blank out words so to be able to post.
Bravo I say to them. Bravo.
Dear X and everyone
Thank you for an excellent zoom meeting of Green Party Somerset groups on Saturday March 13th. I came away full of enthusiasm for helping with whatever local elections we have in the new Unitary Authority Somerset next year. I reported about this to our meeting of Bridgwater and West Somerset officers and key member activists on Tuesday March 16th, and we were all set to take part in the campaign.
However, on Tuesday evening we received the news about Emma Bateman's suspension from the Green Party, allegedly for making the unremarkable factual observation that transwomen are not female. As I'm sure you are all aware, Emma is / was Co-Chair of the Green Party Women's Group. Her fellow Chair is Kathryn Bristow, who is a xxx who wishes to be identified as a woman. Because the Women's Group had been forced by Green Party HQ to accept xxx who wish to be identified as women, Kathryn was able to join the group, whereupon xx put himself forward for election as Co-Chair, was elected, and took up the position. Kathryn has been criticised for xxx role in working for Gender GP, the company that was exposed by a recent Daily Telegraph investigation that demonstrated it was selling puberty blocking drugs to children, with no medical supervision. (The company is run by a doctor who was struck off in the UK and is now based in Spain, and the prescriptions are issued by a doctor in Romania; the only check the company makes on the children is to ensure they can pay.) Kathryn has recently stated that xx intends to lie on the census form, which is an offence liable to a fine of £1000. Kathryn is enthusiastically supported by the Green Party leadership. Emma is suspended for telling the truth; Kathryn is applauded for practising deception.
This was the last straw for me.
It follows the debacle of our Spring conference, which demonstrated the catastrophic state of internal democracy within the Green Party. Out of a membership of over 50,000, very few vote in internal elections or at conferences. Fewer than 1% of the members voted at the recent conference. This lack of member involvement allows any determined single-issue splinter group to form the majority of the voters, so they can not only push through contentious motions, they can also elect their preferred officers and control the elected officers whose positions depend on their votes.
At the recent conference, a gender self ID motion was passed: only 493 people voted, of whom 281 were in favour of it. 281 people out of 50,000 have imposed a policy supporting gender self ID on the entire party. What would the 50,000 have said?
A motion proposing that the GP should support women's sex-based rights, in accordance with the United Nations CEDAW agreement (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women) was voted down. Only 491 people voted, or whom 289 people voted against women's rights, and the motion failed. What would the 50,000 have said?
Because so few people vote, a splinter group can control elected officers, who need their votes to keep their positions. Whatever their personal views may be, none of the Green Party leaders dare to say or do anything to displease the members of the faction. The views of the non-voting 50,000 are disregarded because the 300 or so members of the splinter group must be appeased.
At a national level, Green Party democracy is so catastrophically compromised that it permits the leadership to be kidnapped and the party hijacked by a single-issue group. The system is flawed: it is vulnerable to exploitation by any such group – just now it is the trans rights lobby, but it could have been a pro-Brexit group, or a pro-nuclear group; anything. One solution to this problem might be to raise the quorum for conferences to a higher percentage of the total membership; there could be campaigns at the local branch level to encourage more members to engage in the democratic process.
Many of you will have read the resignation letter from Dom Armstrong, our only Councillor in Sunderland. I am including it below for those who have not yet seen it because it sets things out with admirable clarity and because I share his views.
As a result of all of this, I am going on strike. Not just me: the officers of the Bridgwater and West Somerset branch, along with those active members with whom we work closely on a day-to-day basis, are going on strike. Our acting Secretary, Tony Seaman, has this morning taken the further step of resigning altogether from the Green Party. We are not willing to represent the Green Party in its current dysfunctional state; nor are we willing to ask others to stand as candidates or to take part in election campaigning for the Green Party. This strike will last until, as a minimum requirement, Emma Bateman's suspension is lifted.