Sexism/other issues in the Green party England & Wales - Discussion Thread 2

[fromorbit]

Zack Polanski is making things bigger again.

We need a new thread to discuss all his antics and the ongoing situation in the Green party which is getting more ever more bizarre. While it is getting ever strident in denying biology it also has Mothin Ali as deputy Leader who clearly doesn't believe in trans thinking, but cleverly sidesteps round talking about it.

The fight back from Green Women's Declaration,(https://www.greenwomensdeclaration.uk/ ) continues and the court cases against GPEW from Emma Bateman and Shahrar Ali are developing.

In Bristol the Women of Wessex are causing panic amongst the ruling Green council just by turning up and asking questions. This may result in another court case.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5455053-bristol-council-is-about-to-be-sued

With local elections in May and elections in Wales incoming lots more to discuss and call out.

First thread - where you can follow the rise of Hypno Boobs:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5328986-greens-internal-drama-warms-up

Note the Scottish Greens which are a separate party to the Green Party England/Wales have their own thread for all their drama. They split off because GPEW didn't hate biology enough at the time.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5313420-scottish-greens-being-sexist-again?page=1

Sorry I misread that as newsnight. It's gb news 🤯

I seem to have missed the Green bits of Spencer's victory speech. Some aspirational stuff that wouldn't have been out of place in a Con or Ref speech (hard work doesn't pay off like it used to), until the bit laying blame on billionaires and she stole Burnham's 'we do things differently here' line, but I'd never have guessed I was listening to a Green MP.

Depressing. She campaigned as orthodox left and won as orthodox left and the media treats GPEW as Corbyn v2, with better presentational skills and more pizzazz.

Maddie Grant at the Spectator coins the wonderful term "tweeslop" to describe Hannah's Paddingtonian catechism of cliche
Hannah Spencer has mastered tweeslop | The Spectator

Greens plunging to new lows.

Fury as Green Party spin doctor denies women were raped in October 7 attacks

Green Party leader Zack Polanski has hired a spin doctor who denies women were raped in the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.

Abi Wilkinson – appointed just days before the party’s victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election – posted on social media: ‘There is no Israeli woman who’s said she was raped by militants.’

She also tweeted: ‘There’s absolutely no new evidence, there is not a single identified victim.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15602697/Green-Party-spin-doctor-denies-women-raped-October-7-attacks.html

'For their spring conference, Green Party members are calling on Mr Polanski to declare Zionism as racism, calling for the right of Palestinians to armed resistance and rejecting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism.'

To be fair any batshit proposal can be proposed. Lets just hope they dont get voted in as actual policy.

So many motions are put into the Agenda Forum, that there is never enough time to discuss all of them at Conference.

The Green Party hold a prioritisation ballot where members have the opportunity to rank the motions. The motions that end up at the top of the ballot are most likely to be debated. Not all members are aware of the ballot and some will open it and be put off by the sheer number of motions. The ones most likely to vote are the ones that are really motivated by a particular motion.

I have seen quite a few social media posts urging members to vote for A105 (Zionism is Racism). Some SIGs (Special Interest Groups) have asked members to vote for it. I have only seen Jewish Greens asking their members and supporters to vote against it.

On the agenda forum, A105 has 332 supporters. That is massive. Far higher than any of the other motions. It is almost certain to be debated and, sadly, I think that it will be passed.

Synopsis
This motion defines Zionism, recognises its continued harm to Palestinians, and seeks to clarify that the Green Party is opposed to Zionism. It further affirms the right to self-determination and liberation of the Palestinian people and supports the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine.

Motion text
Zionism is a political ideology which called for the creation – and, now it
exists, the continuity – of an ethnonationalist Jewish State in historic
Palestine to the exclusion and/or domination of the non-Jewish population. The
real, material manifestation of Zionism has been the historic and ongoing
dehumanisation, displacement, dispossession, disenfranchisement and destruction of Palestinians. This is based upon European settler-colonial systems of domination and oppression, which has also created racial hierarchies between Jews of different ethnicities in Palestine.

CONFERENCE RESOLVES THAT:
1. The Green Party declares itself to be an anti-Zionist party.

2. The Green Party rejects attempts to normalise the racist subjugation and oppression of Palestinians; to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism; to deny or minimise Palestinian human rights; to create hierarchies of racism; and to normalise or attempt to justify apartheid, ethnic cleansing or genocide. We affirm that definitions of anti-Jewish discrimination should not equate Jewish identity with Zionist ideology or political practice. As with any ethnicity or faith group, no single political ideology should be ascribed to an entire people.

3. Following from Motion E05, which affirmed that Israel is an apartheid State committing genocide, and Motion E07 supporting reparations and accountability, the Green Party supports the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital, equal rights for all, and the right of return for Palestinians and their descendants.

4. The Green Party affirms the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-
determination, including the right of the Palestinian people to resistance and liberation from Israeli occupation, domination and subjugation, and acknowledges that the struggle to achieve that liberation by all available means under international law is legitimate.

5. The Green Party heeds the call from Palestinian civil society to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era, and calls upon the United Kingdom Government to impose full embargoes and sanctions against Israel.

6. The Green Party calls for the release of all Palestinian prisoners of
conscience (including Marwan Barghouti), the end of the use of administrative detention of Palestinians by Israel, and the treatment of Palestinian combatants in accordance with international humanitarian law, including in particular those provisions dealing with prisoners of war in the First Additional Protocol of the 1977 amendments to the Four Genevan Conventions of 1949 relating to theProtection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts.

7. The Green Party calls for the removal of Palestine Action from the list of
proscribed organisations in Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act 2000 (i.e. de-
proscription).

8. The Green Party calls for the release of all prisoners detained for non-
violent direct action in support of Palestinian rights and the end of the
genocide, apartheid and the illegal occupation of Palestine and supports the demands of the Prisoners for Palestine* *

ACTIONS FOR THE PARTY TO TAKE:
The Green Party adopts the following action points:

This motion will be incorporated into the Green Party’s Record of Policy
Statements as appropriate and promoted in accordance with our rules and
procedures.

Zionism, as defined above, will be treated as any other form of racism,
and this motion will be implemented by the Anti-Racism Policy Working
Group as appropriate and in accordance with its ordinary practice.

We affirm our commitment to explicitly opposing Zionism in our internal and
external communications going forward.

The UK and Welsh Parliaments, the London and Mayoral Assemblies, and Local
Councils and Local Authorities must exercise their authority to end the
genocide, occupation and apartheid. Elected Green representatives will continue
to put pressure on all and any relevant bodies to achieve these goals. This
motion ensures our positions comply with international law, equity, and our
commitment to justice and human rights.

MPs, London and Mayoral Assembly Members, Councillors, and prospective Members of the Senedd should take measures at their respective chambers to create local, sub-national, and national action for Palestine, ending any investments in Israel; demanding peace and accountability, and an end to the egregious violations of international humanitarian law and the genocide conventions, and an immediate move towards accountability, reparations, and justice for the Palestinian people.

On the agenda forum, A105 has 332 supporters. That is massive. Far higher than any of the other motions. It is almost certain to be debated and, sadly, I think that it will be passed.

Thanks for the info.

I have long thought the motion was likely to be a huge drama for the party the fact it is going to conference and looks likely to get voted through is really going to be a major issue for the Greens going forward.

How many supporters does the anti-women's sport motion have do you know,

Abi Wilkinson resurfaces. My, my.

I remember Abi. She started getting writing gigs in the early 2010s, when Laurie Penny was a thing and media outlets were looking for presentable young women with blogs. She's had a sporadic career as one of those opinion writers who speaks for "the left" without ever having been involved in anything that resembles grassroots activism.

If the Greens are going to be a credible national force, they're going to face increased scrutiny. They can't rely any more on the media assuming that they're all nice Quaker ladies down in Bath who want ethically sourced bird feeders. The word has gone out that Zack has some rum people around him.

If Abi wants to discount the eye witness accounts from survivors of the Nova festival who saw young women being gang raped, that just leaves the mutilation and murder of which there is copious evidence.

Reminds me of the reports that Hamas beheaded babies on October 7th. The Hamas apologists denied this, the babies were only slaughtered, as though that makes it better.

Please may I ask a question - I know it's not quite the right place but I don't know where else to ask without, and I feel like I've missed the basics.

Why are people so much more enraged/involved about Palestine than they are about other countries where atrocities are happening?

East Africa/Darfur/Ulghur/Yazidi etc

Is it just because Palestine has been in the news more, and there's been a kind of news spiral?

Is it because of the religious influences?

I feel like I've missed the beginning. I'm aware of Palestine/Middle East/Israel issues - what I don't understand is why there is so much focus on them here, compared to similar issues in other areas of the world.

Thank you!

Bit of a deep dive here @StellaAndCrow .

That's the great dividing line. The key thing used to be "if Americans support it, it's bad"

I think it's a sort of 'forced teaming'. For instance. The main anguish over Khameini being assassinated on social media is from the more avowed Pro Palestine activists. They were also keen to claim the reports of death tolls in the thousands in the Iran crackdowns were fake news of the sort they'd abhor if it was from a pro Israel source about Gaza. They do know that the regime there was repressive ( not least for LGBTQ), but to say something like that now would seem "disloyal", I think is the vibe

With regard Iran specifically there was a soft spot that the god fathers of post modern and anti imperialist theory had for the previous Ayatollah. British Palestinian writer John Aziz

https://johnaziz.substack.com/p/michel-foucault-and-the-islamic-revolution

It's a strange one. Jewish friends (who usually have quite conflicted feelings about Israel themselves) are careful to say that it's not always, or even mostly, driven by antisemitism, but anyone who's been involved in Palestine activism knows that, whatever the good intentions of most people there, the conspiracy theory and the blood libel are never too far away.

I've known people who have gone into Palestine activism because they're left wing people who have generic anti-imperialist instincts, they make Palestine their hobby, they become obsessed with it, and eventually they reason themselves into being unironic antisemites. There's something about this one cause that takes relatively sane people and turns them into cranks.

You do get people on the other side of the argument, like Douglas Murray who seems to regard Israel the same way 1970s Maoists used to regard Albania, but they're rarer and usually not so obsessive.

A25 End gender-based blanket bans in sport (ie let men compete against women in women's sports)
67 supporters. Nowhere near the support for the Zionism is Racism motion but still a lot.

Comparison with other motions to show how the Green Party has moved away from its core purpose and how gender ideology and Gaza are priorities for the entryists:

A16 - The GPEW and the National Emergency Briefing (in support of an education campaign about the severity of the climate and biodiversity crises) - 24 supporters

A44 - Restrict antibiotic use in agriculture
13 supporters

A77 - development of alternative economic indicators
14 supporters

Think of the fun the other parties will have pointing this out at elections. I think I'll start stocking up on popcorn now.

Abi Wilkinson – appointed just days before the party’s victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election – posted on social media: ‘There is no Israeli woman who’s said she was raped by militants.’
She also tweeted: ‘There’s absolutely no new evidence, there is not a single identified victim.’
Has she wondered why there were eye witness reports but no complaints of rape from victims? Did she think they were gang raped then allowed to go on their merry way?

Of course Abi's line on the rapes is identical to that of her Green Party comrade Little Owen Jones.

Interesting substack from someone who briefly considered joining the Greens.
The Green Party - Oooh, they are awful.

That was covered very starkly in the Roberts report.

I am loathe to post excerpts because its disturbing and upsetting.

But there was post mortem evidence of sexual violence. Most victims were murdered, either before, during, or after the abuse.

Green Party spin doctor denies women were raped in October 7 attacks
I know there are still a handful of decent people in GPEW. I understand why they've stayed, although I disagree with that decision, but I simply don't understand how anyone decent can allow this to be said in their name. If you don't draw the line here, where will you draw it?

If anyone has the exact date Wilkinson was appointed could she post it here please? I'm going to write an obituary for the party for another site I use.

Aah the good old days when the Greens had environmental policies.

This is truly shocking.
https://x.com/Never_Again2020/status/2028134670462841089?s=20

It doesn't look like that's true - the photo is from a week ago during the by-election campaign.

Though I wouldn't put it past her to do something like that - there are outright cynics in the Greens, but I genuinely think she doesn't realise what kind of people she's allied with.

Apologies for sharing the tweet before I had fact checked. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be true. After seeing Mothin Ali at the anti Trump/pro regime rally, I was too quick to take it at face value.
I'm trying to post a link to Grok's reply to the tweet but the app isn't letting me paste it.
(edited to correct a typo)

yes I'd like some source for this that isn't the Daily Mail
Im not on twitter so I can't look it up