Lib Dem internal elections .... women only posts ....

[ArabellaSaurus]

https://www.libdems.org.uk/internal-elections

At fucking last. Buried in among alllllll that prevarication and careful phrasing and balancing is the key point:

'The party must interpret ‘men’ here as meaning ‘cis men’, and ‘women’ as meaning ‘cis women’.'

'Women' means women. Not men calling themselves women.

Well done, LibDems.

'Following the Supreme Court decision in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent), the Federal Party has asked the EHRC for guidance about how to approach positive action in internal elections.
In advance of receiving this guidance, given the timing of our internal elections, the Federal Party has taken legal advice about the interpretation of rules 2.5 and 2.6 in the constitution, insofar as they apply to groups with protected characteristics. It is important to say that the constitution asserts the primacy of the Equality Act 2010 in interpreting any rules, and gives authority to the Returning Officer to make reasonable interpretations of the rules in situations where there appears to be a conflict between the constitution and the Equality Act 2010.
Our legal advice is that the Party needs to follow three basic principles:

1. Positive action is permitted up to the point at which a group that shares a protected characteristic is appropriately represented in the Party’s governance. The relevant benchmark for a political party representing the country as a whole is the proportion of people in the country who share that characteristic: i.e. if 10% of the population share the characteristic, then the Party can take positive action until 10% of its governance also shares that characteristic.
2. The Party must treat each protected characteristic as a separate category for the purposes of assessing the relevant benchmark, and mechanisms to take positive action. For the avoidance of doubt, the advice is that the party must treat groups with the protected characteristics of sex and gender reassignment as separate groups.
3. It is reasonable to ‘round up’ to whole numbers in taking positive action. So for a group who share a protected characteristic with a low prevalence in the population as a whole, it is reasonable to specify that one place on a larger committee is reserved for that group.

In practice this means that two clauses of the constitution need to be reinterpreted by the Returning Officer to make them compliant with the Equality Act 2010, in the context of the Supreme Court judgement. In doing so, the Returning Officer needs to be reasonable and follow as closely as possible the apparent intention of the original drafting. Taking clause 2.5 first, with relevant parts underlined : 2.5 Whenever this Constitution provides for the election by party members to a Federal Committee, not less than 40% or, if 40% is not a whole number, the whole number nearest to but not exceeding 40% of those elected shall self-identify as men or non-binary people, and self-identify as women or non-binary people respectively The apparent intention behind this clause is for the party to take positive action for both the protected characteristics of Sex and Gender Reassignment. However it merges benchmarks for these groups, which the Party is legally required to treat separately. In terms of Sex, the Party’s legal advice is that it is reasonable to treat the rule as saying: 2.5 Whenever this Constitution provides for the election by party members to a Federal Committee, not less than 40% or, if 40% is not a whole number, the whole number nearest to but not exceeding 40% of those elected shall be men and women respectively. The party must interpret ‘men’ here as meaning ‘cis men’, and ‘women’ as meaning ‘cis women’.'

I think you are probably right.

In your example, "black women" is fine because they share two protected characteristics. A white woman is excluded because it's black-only, and a black man is excluded because it's single-sex. This is all okay (if there's a justification).

But "black people or women" would not be okay. A white man is excluded not because it's race-restricted (white women are included) and not because it's single-sex (black men are included), and he is being disadvantaged compared to a white woman or black man, so this would be unlawful.

This is a step in te right direction but it's still wrong. Legally it ought to be:

2.5 Whenever this Constitution provides for the election by party members to a Federal Committee, not less than 40% or, if 40% is not a whole number, the whole number nearest to but not exceeding 40% of those elected shall be men and women respectively. The party must interpret ‘men’ here as meaning people of the male sex, regardless of gender, so cis men, transwomen and nonbinary people with male biology, and ‘women’ as meaning people of the female sex, regardless of gender, so cis women, transmen and nonbinary people with female biology.

Restricting the rules to just include cis people is discriminatory, and including any conditions for specific gender identities in rules that are about sex are continuing to conflate two different characteristics.

But hurrah that they have acknowledged that the law does actually apply to them - an idea that the activists at the recent conference voted to refuse to consider but fortunately the actual grownups are in charge.

I think part of the confusion (and can you help me express it clearly?) is this.

Black - a section of those who have the PC of race
Disabled - all people with the PC of disability
Women - a section of those who have the PC of sex
TIMs - a section of those who have the PC of gender reassignment.
Sex - all people with the PC of sex (obviously a group for all people who have a sex is a bit pointless, but perfectly legal!)

It is perfectly legal to have a group for some people (eg black) who have the PC of race, plus some people who have the PC of disability (eg wheelchair users), plus some people who have the PC of gender reassignment (eg TIMs). But by definition if you do this then you are also restricting by the PC of sex (men only), because all TIMs are men, and if you were not also restricting by sex you'd have to be inclusive of TIFs.

In other words you can create a group based which is kind of coherent (black TIMs who use wheelchairs) but it is only coherent because of the implied but not said restriction on the female sex.

On the one hand this is not rocket science, on the other hand it is rather difficult to feel you've got your head around it properly. What have I got wrong?

They go on to discuss LGB quota and a quota for GR.

@JamieCannister Get rid of the word “some people” in the group. All the members of the group must share the characteristics as described.

Gay men are politically OVER represented. Why do they need a quota for them?

'The intention behind this clause is for the party to take positive action on larger committees for both the protected characteristics of Sexual Orientation and Gender Reassignment. However, it merges benchmarks for these groups, which the party is legally required to treat separately, and sets a benchmark higher than the combined Census recorded prevalence in the population for both groups (of 3.2% and 0.5% respectively).
The party’s legal advice concludes that it is reasonable for the purposes of these elections to treat the rule as saying:
2.6 Whenever this Constitution provides for the election by party members of ten or more persons to any Federal Committee or other Federal body:
a. not less than 10% or, if 10% is not a whole number, the whole number nearest to but not exceeding 10% shall be from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds;
b. not less than 10% or, if 10% is not a whole number, the whole number nearest to but not exceeding 10% shall be disabled people;
c. not less than 5% or, if 5% is not a whole number, the positive whole number nearest to 5% shall be people from under-represented sexual orientations;'

Relevant bits. I suppose they're assuming LGB are under represented?

Sorry, I get that you can't have a group for women and "some men".

The point being that we can have a group for people with the PC of disability (or some people who are disabled, eg wheelchair users)

We can have a group for people who have the PC of sex (ie a group open to everyone), or we can have a group for some people with the PC of sex (eg women).

I did not mean to imply we can have women plus some people with the PC of GR who are not women.

There's a whole pile of statistics out there demonstrating that gay men are over represented though!!!

Lib Dem trans people: don’t be ashamed of your biology, live your most authentic life, go in the correct sex quota, break down gender stereotypes.

Like everyone else, I'm going to say that the use of 'cis' is incorrect, because being cis is not a protected characteristic. S158 enables underrepresented groups to be given a boost, where 'group' means people sharing at least one protected characteristic (male or female sex in this case).

A PP explained why this could have perverse consequences if a trans person isn't counted at all towards the quota for their sex. This needs to be done in addition to, and independently of, counting them towards the quota for people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

I wasted some time wondering whether we could justify excluding transmen from an all-women shortlist, by pressing Schedule 9 into service (=trans people can be excluded if there is a legitimate occupational requirement). After all, transmen and women may find they are differently over- or underrepresented and for different reasons.

But I think there's no need to be so overcomplicated. It's only necessary to interrogate the entire dataset, to ensure that every protected characteristic falls within its target % range. I might treat transmen and transwomen as two separate quotas though, because their issues are different, in a way that the issues of, say, disabled men and disabled women are not different. This is permissible because each group shares two PCs across the whole group (eg female sex and GR for the transmen).

Rule for associations: you can restrict membership to people who share all of one or more PCs eg women, older men, disabled black women etc (except you can't have an association based on skin colour directly, can only be ethnic or national origin)

Rule for Positive Action exception: positive action schemes can be undertaken for the benefit of people who share one PC. Hence women and MCW can't benefit from same scheme. Can have two schemes operating at the same time ie women-only shortlist, trans-only shortlist, but not list for women+men with PC of GR shortlist.

wondering if could have positive action for Belief PC of gender critical…that would be fun to introduce at LDems 😁

Does India Willoughby not claim to be a “cis” woman? 🙄

The thing that strikes me is that, contrary to what some angry TRAs in the party are claiming, the rules have not been changed - it's just that the returning officer has been obliged to interpret them so as to comply with the law while still not discriminating against anybody. A change in the rules for any purpose once the election is under way might well not be legitimate. Since I approve of the reinterpretation I am glad to find there has been no actual change.

If you are non-binary, who knows what happens!

Who knows indeed. It’s a mystery.

Well, they're likely to be underrepresented relative to population. BSAS indicates GC sentiment standing at 80%

“If you are non-binary, who knows what happens!”

Hmm I wonder where the man with long pink hair and the woman with short blue hair will have to stand? It’s all so confusing 🤷🏻‍♀️

Blimey! If the Lib Dem’s decide they are actually going to follow the law on this (and not work to change the law) I’ll have found a party to vote for!

There's lots of whining about outing again. How can they benefit from positive action on GR if no-one knows who they are? And do people really not know?

I’ll make it easy for the Lib Dems. Select the best candidate. Job done.

That is hilarious. They have actually excluded trans people from all positions. What absolute numpties. I’d love to see Ed justify this.

Your general reasoning may be correct, but you can't use colour as an example. Single-colour associations and services are never permitted under the EA2010. That is, there are no exceptions that ever permit any kind of discrimination on the basis of colour.

(Schedule 16 section 1(4))

None of them seem to have actually grasped that the Supreme Court decision was on this exact scenario, gender quotas. Of all the single sex situations this one is absolutely crystal clear.

unsurprising but depressing that the reaction of most men is to get rid of the quota altogether. After all if men can’t benefit why should women?