FPFW: ONS concede defeat!

[PandorasMailbox]

"We did it. We won. ONS have conceded defeat and will pay our legal costs.The High Court has now sealed the court order that sex in census cannot be self-identified.

Please share the news!"

fairplayforwomen.com/fair-play-for-women-wins-high-court-challenge-against-ons-census/?fbclid=IwAR0tJbErXe1wtBvuwZeNfyqs71OGlGvXQIoERD5FeBGyzoWmCz7DpkbXlT0

Fantastic news

This is inspiring for all causes - you can take on a Goliath and win (tho it will take more than one stone probably..) Congrats and Thank You FPFW!

I was wondering that as well

I bet Sir James Eadie QC is relieved.

I wonder how much he's responsible for them dropping it - barristers will tell you quite bluntly up front when they believe a case is unwinnable. (So you can't pin it on them if you decide to go ahead. )

It's also a kind of mercy - "if you think what I'm saying about your case is rude, you won't be able to handle what the judge says, believe me."

Great news! Thanks to FPFW and to the members of this board who keep us updated.

Great news, that was money well spent

I wonder when government departments will start reevaluating their relationship with stonewall.

Time after time stonewalls advice/demands result in the law being broken and its starting to make organisations look stupid.

Plus I'm pissed off that women keep needing to pay up just to have the law respected.

334bu if Scotland census is also based on the census act then National Records should take it in board. Whether they will is another question

@highame
The ONS have agreed that they were wrong and FPFW were right. They have agreed to a court order that states that. They are also paying FPFW’s costs. So we have a public body bound by a court order that states for the purpose of the census legislation sex means birth certificate or grc

@Biscuitsanddoombar

Wooohoooo 🎉🎉🎉🎉

And costs awarded too so extra money for women’s organisations 😁😁😆

I do wonder at what point organisations might start to look at their relationship with Stonewall & what they’re getting out of it....

When they realise that it will cost them if they are brought to court. Maybe another case or two.

Will there be a judgement? I thought this hadn't gone to full JR (that would have been Thursday). Have the ONS backed down because they don't want a full JR? Whatever, it does mean that these organisations are going to have to look very carefully at unreliable advice giving way to unsafe actions

I wondered this too. More specifically that I had hoped the final judgment would go further and specify that sex means sex and not legal gender from a GRC.

I am, of course, delighted that FPFW won. But if the definition of sex has now officially changed to include the legal fiction of GRC, then it becomes essential that self-ID never comes to pass.

Otherwise the work done here will need to be done again, and at that point will be much more difficult as the precedent will be set.

I am slightly worried that the ONS has done this in order to cement the compromise position and not risk the possibility of being forced to record sex wholly accurately.

Fabulous news. It's been a rotten couple of weeks. We needed some justice when it comes to our rights.
Shows how badly public organisations have been captured by a certain lobbyist.
Amazing work FPFW.
Just amazing.

Just amazing. I honestly did not think we would get this. I felt stonewell had got too far into public and state organisations. It was a massive job taking on the Govt!!! Well done Hope you will be celebrating tonight - you deserve it.

Amazing work, well done to all involved.

I am slightly worried that the ONS has done this in order to cement the compromise position and not risk the possibility of being forced to record sex wholly accurately.

Sounds plausible, except I don't think this case was ever aiming to go that far. I think recording legal sex is probably as far as we can get without unwinding the GRA2004.

If that act means anything, it means the government records your sex in official records as the modified value, and that would include the government's census.

The single-sex exemptions don't kick in because this isn't a service or anything, it's just a record.

Wonderful news!!

I think the ONS position may have been more pragmatic than strategic. They would be ripped apart by the press if the JR case and judgement went badly. It was clear from the interim hearing they couldn’t win. They don’t want to admit how badly they were stonewalled, how much money has been wasted, how they tried to launch early to derail the case etc.
I think it’s an exercise in arse covering rather than an active concern about the challenge to GRC. (There are so few grc that they are statistically meaningless).

(I think this is different to the case of the prison service, where they should also have information about real sex to apply the GRA2004 single-sex exemptions. What a mess...)

Thanks necessary & Chazs was having a bit of a wobble even though I thought it was firm.

Excellent news.
And awarding costs means FPFW presumably now has a bit of a 'fighting fund'.

Re the paper copies, I guess those may still be relevant if you want to do anything other than ignore the 'gender identity' question?

NISRA’s guidance also is birth cert or GRC so seems likely Scotland will have it too. Thank you to everyone who highlighted the issue, dug, supported

This is such excellent news. I hope FPFW will reserve some of the funds for the inevitable repeat fight when the Scottish census comes up.

Brilliant news! Thank you FPFW. The best twenty quid I've spent in years. Possibly ever.

What wider impact do you all expect this to have across government?

I completed the VAWG Home Office survey yesterday and told them to start by getting Stonewall out as they're giving Departments incorrect guidance!

It sends a message to other organisations that "getting ahead of the law" as advocated by trans lobby organisations is perhaps not advisable and may prove reputationally damaging and expensive.

Dr Nic Williams is an absolute shero

It’s an appalling waste of taxpayer money though - their legal fees and FPFW’s to defend their right to collect incorrect data. Nobody will be held accountable though.

Congratulations to FPFW. What a great success, and getting costs too...fantastic. Thank you for all your work on getting clarity on this nonsense. There will be flouncing no doubt.