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

Abbrieviations.
SA - Shahrar Ali, claimant
JJ Jeffrey Jupp, barrister
EM Elizabeth McGlone, solicitor, Didlaw

GPEW – Green Party of England & Wales, respondent, represented by Elizabeth Reason and Jon Nott
CC - Catherine Casserley, barrister
MJ - Mindy Jhittay, solicitor, Bates Wells

More discussions from JJ for C - related to issues in the case. The alleged detriments, detriment 2 alleges discrimination on social media by party members. Claimant (C) - no longer advances this as a detriment, GP cannot be responsible for behaviour of party members.

JJ - defence based on Art 11 has been raised for the first time. In a manifestation case articles 10 is always in play. Article 11 appeared for the first time in skeleton argument, I want the defendants to set out how Art 11 applies in this case. And by 9 am tomorrow morning.

JJ cont - we need to know how this will apply in their case and straight away. J - CC what do you say? CC - the court has to consider the claim under Equality and Human Rights Act. Art 11 will need to be considered. We accept that Art 11 will play a large part in this case.

R - we were not expecting to have to deal with this issue. J - that's why it would be very helpful to have it set out in writing as a pleading. CC - I can certainly produce that, J- I would find it helpful, so I will direct that. CC - we will do so.

J - do you have any applications CC? CC - yes, you will see that this is a case where there is a bundle of some 6,000 pages. One witness statements sets out the chronology and how this came about. We didn't have access to that until recently. And it has a great deal of

commentary on the matter that is irrelevant. We asked the C remove, they declined to do so. Now referring to the skeleton argument from JJ. It includes speculation about a conversation at launch event, but it was not about C but about another spokesman.

my concern is that the court ordered one round of witness statements and I don't want corrections to one and then responses to those corrections. CC - I appreciate that, and we should seek to avoid that and avoid taking up time. This is a trial with a vast amount of paperwork

Legally, though? Surely a political party is allowed to discriminate on the basis of political views.

I'm sure they can. I suspect the issue is more about whether they've followed their own procedures. If random party officials have discriminated against Shahrar he may well have a case.

I'm not quite sure what's going on now, they seem to be discussing whether all issues should be covered and the time scales and paper work involved.

Sorry, got to go out, was going to try and keep up with the livetweets but can't!

The defense are attempting to suggest that Shahrar Ali has taken up 'gc' concerns in an effort to get elected, an idea so outrageous I don't even know how anyone would begin to counter it.

CC - and what you're involved in right now is about the rights of women
SA - I wouldn't have put it that way, but yes I can agree
CC - it's an area of public debate, and this stance has raised your profile and attracted attention.
SA - I haven't thought about it that way.
CC - you've stood 20 times (various offices ) with no success
SA - if success is getting elected then no I have not been elected
CC - so your gender critical views might help you get elected.

SA - I had not thought about it in that way.

CC - this is an issue that gets a lot of engagement on social media, both from those who might be called gender critical and those who might be called trans rights activists.
SA - yes it does
CC - that it gets heated
SA - it does

CC - now reading out SA's statement of belief; sex is real and immutable, separate from gender, sex matters, conflation of sex with gender identity
SA - it is my attempt to set it out, it is not the definitive or only expression of that belief

CC - the Eq Act sets out single sex services where it can be based on biological sex SA - if it's proportionate
CC - those are sex based rights?

SA - sex based rights are not uniquely covered in the Eq Act,

CC - but if a woman has a right to single sex spaces it is because of the exception in the Eq Act
SA - I don't think that's the complete definition
CC - but why are you using 'sex based rights' in a way that is not commonly understood
SA - you asked me a question and I'm explaining my view
CC - you support the retention of sex based exception in the Eq Act.

SA - I support the retention of those exceptions
CC - the Eq Act says you can restrict access to a service on the basis of biological sex, if you can justify that, on the basis that it's proportionate, you support those exceptions, those are sex based rights.

SA - I've been asked about my current views. I make the distinction about my current views and what I did say or might have said when I was a spokesperson. Can I also say why the definition of sex based rights that has been put to me is too narrow.

[I'm not copying all tweets, btw, just trying to highlight what seem important to me. And trying to group together in relevant sections.]

CC - you have attempted to straddle 2 positions, to support both trans rights and sex based rights to please all the people all the time.
SA - It is true that I have supported trans rights and women's rights and I believe that supporting both of them is compatible.
CC - you talk about sex based rights and you talk about the difference between sex andgender. Those are wholly inconsistent with the GP policies. There is no distinction made
SA - we do talk about sex based rights in the health section, they go on to talk about women, men, and children and trans people.
CC - you make a distinction between gender and biological sex.

SA - I usually refer to gender identity not just gender because it's vague. And I don't say biological sex, because it's just sex.
J - can you clarify
SA - important to use clear terminology, gender is an ambiguous term. Sometimes used as a polite way of talking about sex.

CC - now going to back to TMAM, TWAW - you determined that these statements are unreasonable and you determined what you wanted to add
SA - it's up to me how I answer the question
CC - but you're changing the view
J - can you go over that
SA - I put forward a motion to clarify the TWAW, TMAM statement is about gender identify not about sex
CC - it's your view that members are confused or don't understand
SA - no
CC - but that's what you said. If there isn't a distinction between sex and gender identity made it's not because they are confused it's because they believe there is no difference.
SA - it is not unreasonable to suggest that this needs clarification and we should make that distinction
CC - but the policy says there is no distinction and therefore you might not like it, but that is the policy.
SA - My amendments were to assist people in being clear about language - its not deliberate to replace sex with gender identity, I think the language could be improved...
CC - you say...
J - you didn't finish
SA - I did believe that my understanding was the right one and that I was allowed to give that as my answer at the hustings, and that was consistent with GP policies, I was only clarifying

If in a political party you are only allowed to have a single unified political stance on a subject, how did that stance come to be arrived at?
Surely there's argument and debate that gets voted on, and then the policy is arrived at. This implies not everyone agrees with the policy.

That also means that once a policy has been adopted you are never able to challenge or change it, as you are arguing against the policy as it currently stands.

Thanks for the updates ArabeIIaScott

No problem, Warrior - I would suggest reading it all on Twitter, after my last post it went on but the tweets were out of order and I got very confused!

And as if by magic - here is the whole tweet thread:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1693604201845199031.html

Just reading the word "bundle" triggered flashbacks.

Thanks for the thread, I will try to follow tomorrow.

I think they are pretty desperate to try that.

This is messy. The Greens policies on sex and gender are all over the place because they tried to shut down debate so no proper drafting went on. Hoping this will backfire on the party - difficult to argue Shahrar is breaking policy when that policy is not defined properly.

The Greens argument is that SA did not represent party views on gender as spokesman that is why he was fired. Showing the party never defined things out will go a long way I would think to show Shahrar is in the right.

Along with the targeted harassment of him which he will be able to show it seems to me he has a good case.

Thanks for posting the thread, @ArabeIIaScott.

The Green Party seem to be saying that party members can’t have their own views, of if they do, they can’t express them.
I’m sure that must be too simple an interpretation, but it’s my interpretation.

It's Tribunal Tweets doing all the hard work! So grateful to them.

Just read through the unrolled thread. The tone from CC is really quite nasty.

Of course it is. A defensive, aggressive, accusatory approach is all that they have. They can't admit that someone with gc views can be a normal, non bigoted person. They've got to both view them as and make them out to be evil.

Hopefully the tone will back fire. Be interesting when the witnesses take the stand and have to justify the Green position and show they respected SA's right to have opinions. That is where previous cases have gone badly for the gender lot because clearly they can't tolerate people who think differently than them.

I noticed my local Green Party went into overdrive retweeting vaguely green related tweets yesterday. I wonder are they distraction tweeting

Started again at 10am.

https://twitter.com/tribunaltweets/status/1693900162865742170

If there isn't a distinction between sex and gender identity made it's not because they are confused it's because they believe there is no difference.

Wait. The Green party are happy to go on record that there is no difference between sex and gender? Ie that a male person can only be described as "male" which describes both their sex and their gender?

That... is massively transphobic, isn't it? How would they even define a trans person if sex and gender are interchangeable?

Here is today's thread, unrolled:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1693995281279602967.html

Thanks for posting Arabella

FFS, if Sharar wanted to get elected, going GC wouldn't do it, but joining Labour or the Tories might.

Its the being a Green that's the issue, not whether you're a GC Green or TRA one.

I'm glad CC isn't on our side.