SHahrar Ali is taking the Green party to court

[Igneococcus]

Over "fanatical clampdown on legitimate debate"
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1cd0a19a-3e7b-11ee-87d9-ff29f95b54f7?shareToken=743d9060f8ee7dda519c50fb93882b73

I can remember considering voting for them in 1974 but rejecting the idea on the grounds that single issue parties were essentially blinkered. I voted Liberal /Lib Dem for many years as it was the only mainstream party to focus on the environment, electoral reform and Europe.
The current LDs are awful.

So political parties can lawfully discriminate against people with protected characteristics so long as the process is procedurally fair? I wonder if this applies to all the protected characteristics.

A very good question.

IANAL - however I dont read this as ability to discriminate UNLESS you are a party spokesperson or similar. Expelling a person from the party is discrimination because the judge recognised members of political parties have ‘fundamental party rights’ which include the right to disagree, to advocate for and against policies and positions adopted or proposed in the party, and to organise for those who agree with them and against those who do not" - according to the Green Party's own statement. Perhaps they haven't realised that right applies to all their members and they can (and have) discriminated against some of their members.

Oh I see. That makes more sense now :)

It seems to me that you have to allow political parties to expel people if their beliefs are fundamentally at odds with party policy. It's obviously a difficult line to tread but if, for example, you styled yourself as the party of God, and you were promoting evangelical Christianity, and then one of your members turned out to be a Sikh who declaimed loudly that Christianity was nonsense, you'd be entitled to expel them, even though that person has a protected characteristic.

But obviously with the Greens, trans ideology is not a fundamental part of party policy, and people have the right to have different views on certain policies. After all, this is what parties do all the time - they debate a policy, then they agree a final policy position, and at the end there will always be people who don't agree with the new policy and will say so out loud. Lots of Tories, for example, are vocal about not agreeing with their party's policy on Brexit.

I think that the GP would be well within its rights to expel a climate change denier.

So it they re wrote their polices, they could evict anyone who was GC?

Or would those have to be voted on ?

This is the statement from Shahrar's lawyers.
didlaw.com/dr-shahrar-ali-v-gpew

Good article by Joan Smith in Unherd.
unherd.com/thepost/shahrar-ali-wins-gender-critical-case-against-green-party/

Press Coverage coming in so we are starting to see an impact:

Mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13065275/Green-Party-sacked-deputy-leader-believed-biology-real-Court-rules-party-discriminated-against-Dr-Shahrar-AIi-gender-rights-views-pay-9-100-hails-landmark-case.html

Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/09/green-party-incorrectly-sacked-spokesperson-over-trans-rights-views-court-rules

Telegraph;
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240209180441/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/09/ex-deputy-leader-of-greens-wins-gender-critical-court-case" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20240209180441/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/09/ex-deputy-leader-of-greens-wins-gender-critical-court-case/

The BBC report has been extended significantly.

Legal costs for the case will be decided at a future hearing. The Green Party also have 21 days to appeal. Doubt it will from their statement so far.

Blow me down with a feather, the guardian!

Also in the Times:

Well the earth is 4.5 billion years old and the climate has been changing the whole time.

Anyone denying that is possibly akin to a 'flat earther'

Don't see why they should be expelled from a political party though. All views and debate should be welcome.

Different if it's a party spokesperson of course as noted by a PP.

I hope that you're being deliberately obtuse.

Here's the Ali v Green Party judgment for the legally minded:

https://cloisters.com/s/J00CL858-Ali-v-Reason-and-Nott-judgment.pdf

TRAs are arguing over the judgement suggesting that if the Green party followed correct procedure they could have dismissed Ali from his role so it is only a limited win. My understanding is this is correct in that the judgement indicated a party spokesperson should be expected to follow party policy and could be dismissed for not doing that.

However, the judgement indicated that ordinary members were not under the same restrictions from what I make out. There they have a right to their own beliefs and debate. More to the point this doesn't help in their other cases.

Emma Bateman where clearly the party knows they breeched their own rules in expelling her twice. This exactly the sort of procedural breach which lost them this case.

Dawn Furness who seems to have been targeted for being a whistleblower over the Challeonor case.

The Greens cannot afford to keep losing cases. Lots more discussion to come.

They fucked up the headline. Why do they always have to twist it around so it’s about “trans rights”?

“Green party incorrectly sacked spokesperson in part over trans rights views, court rules”

The Guardian did it's best to present it as a loss for Ali. Nonetheless, they had to type this:

'Ali’s views on transgender issues – he has described the biology of sex as “real and immutable” – are contrary to the party’s official stance and have been at the centre of previous internal rows over the issue.'

Implying that the Green Party's official stance is that sex is unreal and changeable.

I do hope the sunlight is helping.

However, the judgement indicated that ordinary members were not under the same restrictions from what I make out. There they have a right to their own beliefs and debate. More to the point this doesn't help in their other cases.

I believe this is correct, see:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/schedule/16

where sub-paragraph (5) says that although you can exclude people from an association on the basis of a protected characteristic, you cannot do so if the association is a registered political party.

Green Women's Declaration's statement on the result

https://greenwomensdeclaration.uk/statement-on-the-judgment-in-shahrar-alis-case/

The glorious highlight:

Immediately, we call for:

The resignation of the GPEW CEO and the Chair of GPEx and an apology from Party Leaders to all ‘gender critical’ members.
The immediate disbandment of the GPEW’s failing Disciplinary Committee.
Disciplinary investigations to be outsourced from now on, lawfully conducted, without bias and fully compliant with the ‘ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary Grievance’,
The immediate lifting of disciplinary sanctions that have been imposed on GC members through No Fault Suspensions and expulsions, including Emma Bateman’s 3 expulsions, on the basis that the Party has been acting unlawfully and all such decisions are now rendered unsafe.
Immediate out of court settlements in favour of the three GPEW ‘gender critical’ plaintiffs with pending court cases, so that GPEW members’ money is not further wasted on legal costs.
A statement of welcome from the GPEW leadership to all members, inviting them to exercise their lawful right to express their beliefs and opinions.

They’d be mad not to settle those cases out of court. The chances of Bateman and Furness having been treated procedurally any better than SA are slim. If they settle they’ll avoid hundreds of thousands in court costs and a lot more embarrassing press coverage. Question is will they be able to make the changes they need to avoid this happening again in the future. And if they are to become overtly anti-woman will they start losing support.

@RoyalCorgi It's an interesting debate - but it might need to be more than an opinion on one aspect of a party's policy and the opinion has to be WORIADS. I believe you can be expelled from the labour party if you suggest people vote conservative, that seems fair. Corbyn was pushed out for being antisemitic, he was a holder of office in the party.

TRAs are arguing over the judgement suggesting that if the Green party followed correct procedure they could have dismissed Ali from his role so it is only a limited win. My understanding is this is correct in that the judgement indicated a party spokesperson should be expected to follow party policy and could be dismissed for not doing that.

Correct procedure isn't just some technicality, its how you ensure fairness. If they'd taken SA through a proper procedure they'd have had to show exactly what policy he was in violation of.

I suspect that most of the statements he was targetted for (that sex is real and women's rights matter) were not thing the GP actually has policies against.

The reason Genderists are losing every time is because they can't follow fair procedure and get the results they want. They act by bullying, tittle tattle and mob mentality.

I hope that you're being deliberately obtuse.

Quote from JanesLittle Girl post earlier.

My comment is not obtuse nor is it intended to be.

It's stating a scientific fact and the need for freedom of speech and debate.

No one should be excluded from political parties on the whim of another person who holds different views.

That's the whole point of this judgement.