Greens internal drama warms up

[fromorbit]

New long article looking at the drama inside the Greens over biology suddenly existing again despite their best efforts.

How the Green Party forgot the environment and was torn apart by trans rows
It was a party united by a single mission – to save the planet. But now the gender identity debate has left it divided and in chaos

https://archive.is/TOlNx

The article is already out of date as Zack Polanski of hypnotic breasts fame has just launched a leadership bid against Deyner and Ramsey.

Emma Bateman
It's no secret that big boobs Polanski wants the top job. He is a student politics slogan churner, a self server who distains women and wants misgendering misdemeanours to be grounds for expulsion from the Greens.
He is "LGB with the T"
Still NO DEBATE!

Pro-women Greens article on his background:;
https://concernedgreens.uk/watchlist/zack-polanski/

The existence of biology is likely to be a significant part of the leadership contest for sure so interesting to watch .

Ali Shahrar has launched another legal challenge against the Greens. Gardening needed.

May 27th is the date for Emma Bateman's legal hearing against the Greens.

On May 27th I am in court against Green Party in a case which will expose the contorted lengths the Greens go to in order to shut women up.

It isn't going to go well for the Greens given the Supreme Court ruling. This could be key moment in seeing the ruling's effect on politics and directly impact the leadership contest. It will also be probably be infuriating and hilarious in equal measure.

There is a definite thing in certain areas of nice middle-class people who used to vote Tory switching over to the Greens. Maybe there's a particularly good candidate in their area, or maybe there's just no Lib Dem presence locally.

I don't think these voters are a great fit for Shouty Omnicause Zackism. Maybe with the pre-Polanski Greens where the party ran on its brand and most voters were only vaguely aware of who the leaders were, but everybody these days knows who the leader is.

The Greens gave the Cons a serious run for their money though, the winner got 1521 & despite being a bunch of wingnuts, the Greens made 1245. Turnout was down by roughly 6%.

And as if by magic, Zack is in the Times calling on Sultana to join the Greens.

Gotta say, any party stupid enough to let her join deserves all it gets. Lloyd Russell-Moyle is one thing, but at least Lloyd won't try to blow the whole party up if there's a hint of him not getting his way.

Would he be prepared to make her co leader? That's supposed to be the terms she put to them when she was searching around for options.

It's almost worth it for the expected squabbles

Oh yes, please please join. One single Looneytunes party would be so much easier to keep track of. Also priceless on pure shits and giggles grounds.

Hypno made time

Zack Polanski and Kate Nash among hundreds of activists at Trans Day of Remembrance vigils

https://archive.is/S0syw

https://x.com/emmabatemangpw/status/1991996977996034220

Zack wants to know how to get gc women to vote for him while still holding them in contempt.

That's where the question of personal credibility (and the fact that, as "Hypno-Boobs" he has none) comes in - it naturally increases peoples' suspicion that it's (2).

I’m not sure he could, I think it’s a democratically elected position in the party.

To my enormous surprise, Tom Harris is not a huge fan of Lloyd Russell-Moyle: Labour should be celebrating defections to the Greens

The Greens have leadership and deputy leadership elections automatically every two years.

So Zarah and anyone else joining can go for it fairly soon.

She was parachuted into Coventry South in 2019 as one of the last acts of the Corbyn leadership, and how he must regret that.

She's never been popular in the constituency and has been under almost permanent threat of deselection. I assume she only jumped ship from Labour because it had been made clear she was never going to get back into the fold.

She's not someone who has ever had to fight democratically for a position. Her current conduct in YP, leveraging her control of money and data, and taking to social media to try and bounce Corbyn into doing what she wants, is a preview of how she would behave in the Greens.

You confirm my belief that she & the current Greens deserve one another.

Hypno's recent announcements about the threat biology knowing gender critical people especially women represent to the Greens and developments in Bristol where they have power to attack women who want to say they exist show what we are facing.

The clock is ticking though. Shahrar Ali posted on Nov 22nd about his case.

Shahrar Ali
ALI VS GPEW. Yesterday Green Party finally filed & served their Defence. We will see them in court. If you think banning puberty blockers for kids, resisting ideological capture in schools or saving women's sport from sex test boxing cheats are hills worth dying on,
https://nitter.net/ShahrarAli/status/1992372515134447921

Meanwhile Hypno is getting into arguments with Stella Cressy [who agrees with him on trans] rumours are he wants her seat. Expect that battle to get even more messy.

Zack Polanski goes low in Stow
The Green Party leader is accused of playing dirty amid rumours he wants to unseat Labour MP Stella Creasy in East London
https://archive.is/Kli9J

There’s 3 days to go and the target is very close to being met in that particular garden, if anyone has spare carrots..,

I've planted a few and boosted on X.

Ali and Bateman both seem confident, but Ali's win last time was, if I've understood the reporting correctly, on process (the judgment stated that political parties have the right to appoint spokespeople who support and promulgate the party's political position). I get the impression that his new case is similarly about procedure. Bateman's seems to be bullying and harassment/procedure/maybe also free speech (as a non-lawyer I found her description hard to parse). I'll say again, I'm not a lawyer, but I've read what I could find about all the GPEW cases (because I'm a politically homeless supporter of green politics who hates what has happened to GPEW and SGP) and I don't feel I understand the substance of these cases or what's at stake in the way that I do with most of the others.

Legal Feminist has a post on transparency and trust in crowdfunding.

A key thing about Ali's latest case is it is about two things -

Persecuted for my stance on Puberty Blockers and Age-inappropriate educational materials

This case for expulsion against Shahrar was based on stuff he said pre Cass report and his position was validated by the Cass report being delivered and saying Puberty Blockers were flawed. So the Greens have to argue in court that Cass and the NHS is medically wrong from what I can see. Awkward. Same with the argument over Age-inappropriate educational materials in schools - events have changed on the ground.

He also claims that the Greens failed in following procedure again here.

Disciplined for Criticising Imane Khelif in Women's Boxing

Arguing over Khelif and the Olympics which is an incredibly weak point for the Greens as events have developed since.

Turns out Khelif was a man, his tests results are out Shahrar could use them - remember he was never even claiming to be trans. Turns out men punching women is bad and the Olympic committee now agree with Shahrar.

He also claims that the Greens failed in following procedure again here.

If anything this case looks stronger than last time.

This clip is doing the rounds.

PoliticsJOE

Nov 22
"Transphobia is totally unacceptable in the Green Party. I don't think that's nuanced, I don't think it's complicated."

Zack Polanski has no issues with kicking transphobes out of his party
^https://nitter.net/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1992202652676165991^

@fromorbit None of that is new information to me. As I said, I have a particular interest in the cases involving the UK's 'green' parties and I have tried to read all the information that is in the public domain. I'm not going to speculate about the GPEW defence because I don't have legal expertise; all I will say is that as a political party it may have more latitude on certain matters. You're clearly confident, but you aren't - or can't prove on MN that you are - an expert on this area of law.

If you’re not an expert on the law involved, probably best not to claim authority about these cases. I think they all seem quite strong.

And the majority of EA claims are based on not following policies and procedures.

@Ereshkigalangcleg I am not trying to claim any authority - the opposite. But nor am I going to pay particular heed to the opinions of others who are equally lacking in expertise.

Such are the depths to which GPEW has descended that it would possibly be a good thing for green politics in the UK if it went bankrupt fighting gender ideology cases, but that doesn't mean it will, or that it will lose or even that losing would change much about its stance on gender ideology.

I will read the judgments on these cases when they are published and whatever expert commentary I can find, but until then I'll probably remain cautious.

With what authority do you assert that all these cases seem quite strong? How can I verify your authority on an anonymous Internet forum?

I am not claiming to be an expert I am just voicing an opinion just like you. I agree with you that the case is similar in that both are partially about correct following of internal procedure. Last time the Greens did not follow their own rules and lost. The Greens have form for being shoddy on following legal rules Shahrar and his lawyers say they did the same thing again. He also got a judgement last time which said “he has been subject to unlawful discrimination”.

However you neglected to point out that this time the Greens case does depend even more on arguing over areas where Shahrar can legitimately claim he has not voiced views contrary to party policy. Greens have rules on misgendering trans people, but Khelif is not trans and has never claimed to be for instance. This clearly matters.

Likewise over puberty blockers it is not Green party policy to say you can't discuss medical debates. It isn't clear what rule Shahrar has broken there especially as events since back him up.

There is also the matter of the Supreme Court judgement which obviously could help Shahrar . Also to the point where as previous Green leaders were more cagy in their pronouncements while legal cases were ongoing Hypno is way more mouthy and dogmatic. Are there legal implications from this, I don't know, it seems like risky behaviour though it may not be relevant to Shahrar's latest case as it started before he became leader, though he was deputy leader, unless ZP says something really dumb on the case. Or the case reveals ZP was involved in hounding Shahrar internally.

Also the truth is political parties can't be sexist. The Lib Dems fighting a similar case just gave up part way through because legally they had no solid case.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/27/lib-dems-admit-discriminating-against-gender-critical-candi/

Totally willing to admit I may be wrong, but we shall see what happens anyway Shahrar clearly is all in and ZP obviously will fight to last penny.

The GPEW may lose these legal cases, but I don't think it's going to go bankrupt. That may have been a possibility six months ago, but thanks to the ZP membership surge, the party now has more money than it knows what to do with.

It's possible that Zack will spaff it all up the wall on vanity projects, but for the moment I think they can absorb a few tribunal losses.