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

That’s what it’s meant to be @ArabellaSaurus but many parents of all political stripes do not believe this. They are compelled to raise mini-me’s. All about control.

The Economist is not wrong about the party bases. It's well known that Reform is scooping up votes in the left behind areas. And the emergent Green base seems anchored in 25-40 graduates who feel screwed by student debt and the housing market.

But.

There's a documentary movie called Get Me Roger Stone that came out after Trump's first election, looking at the career of the notorious Trump associate. It's well worth a watch, but it had me yelling at the screen, and not for the reasons you'd think.

Roger Stone is a sleazy, dishonest, unscrupulous dirty tricks operative, and he doesn't care who knows it. He's also extremely entertaining to watch. You could just point a camera at him for 90 minutes and let him talk, and let the viewers draw their own conclusions about his character.

But the filmmakers felt the audience needed to have a message hammered home, so huge parts of the film are taken up with talking head contributions from liberal media bods - Jane Mayer of the New Yorker, some guy from the Daily Beast - boring on about what an awful man Roger Stone is, and how he represents everything bad about America, and I was just going "Don't you think you played any role in how we got Trump? Why don't you take some responsibility, you morons?"

That's kind of how I feel about anti-populist think pieces in the Economist, which has its own brand of voodoo economics in the form of "let's import another million Deliveroo drivers and watch that GDP graph go up, and then sneer at working class voters who are too dumb to see that society is getting richer". A bit of reflection would be nice.

David Prescott, son of late Labour DPM John, switches to the greens

https://news.sky.com/story/john-prescotts-son-joins-greens-13515586

He's been in the news before. He seemed to have be something of a princeling in the party, unironically. Corbyns office as leader stopped his Labour membership being suspended

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/02/labour-mps-overhaul-complaints-procedure-david-prescott-allegations

There's now a steady trickle of Labour councillors defecting to the Greens. Not quite as big as Tory councillors defecting to Reform, but it's become more regular than occasional.

Labour's princeling caste has got to be a bit of a problem for the party. Backbenchers are already restive because of the polls, and might become more restive - and more likely to defect - if Starmer can't even offer them jobs in government, because all the jobs are being taken by the spouses and siblings and children of Cabinet members. The Labour elite are so nepotistic they give Newham council a run for its money.

@SionnachRuadh I’ve been moaning at the DH about the same thing ie "Don't you think you played any role in how we got Trump? Why don't you take some responsibility, you morons?"

In all likelihood, we would not have Farage (still!) or Polanski or Johnson before that or Trump in the US but for the journalists all giving them disproportionate airtime. And why do they give them airtime? Only because of the clicks. Seeking out sensationalist interviews for inflammatory headlines.

No more ‘no news’ for us!

And agree that once vaunted journals such as The Economist have also succumbed to the temptation of clickbait headlines and topics but taking no responsibility that they create the news as much as Fox does. Not to mention that it was surprising to read that it was their journalists to ‘out’ Professor George for his supposed bias. Not their usual scope of reporting so evidently infiltrated by the misogynists masquerading as the bekind brigade.

Adding that WH contributes to the misogynistic bs by also promoting inflammatory comments simply to get a reaction. Wed (I think) where Anita Rani was talking about the study and read out a listeners’ quote from a ‘not my nigel’ DM with two sons saying women’s rights had gone too far etc.

That quote was not for balance. It was to provoke a reaction but in doing so she also contributes to this outrageous and dangerous myth that women’s rights have ‘gone too far’.

Great article. Looks at the huge issues facing the Greens because they deny biology exists:

The Green Party’s War on Reality: Why Biology is Not a ‘Fantasy’
The dossier reveals that the Green Party spent £190,000 on legal battles in 2024 alone. A further £350,000 was allocated across its 2025 and 2026 budgets to defend against claims from current and former members. The party’s own lawyers warned that these sums constitute what they called a ‘substantial proportion of the Party’s actual and projected income’ and that they are restricting funds needed for staffing, political campaigning, and the payment of local party capitations. In plain English: the Green Party is spending more money fighting its own women than it is spending on elections.

The same dossier flagged that the party’s guidance on identifying ‘queerphobia’ is ‘highly problematic in its current form,’ carrying a serious risk that it unlawfully discriminates against members with gender-critical beliefs. It noted that expulsions of members questioning gender ideology had not always followed due process, and that disciplinary actions appeared, on occasion, to be driven by ‘individual hostility to gender-critical beliefs, or assumed beliefs.’ It even cited a social media post from a current co-chairman of the Green Party council stating she had stood for election in order to ensure the ruling body could ‘protect the wellbeing of the party by sanctioning members who engage in transphobia.’ That a party officer should openly declare her intention to use her position to punish those with legally protected beliefs was not, apparently, considered disqualifying.

This is not disorganisation. It is not oversight. It is a deliberate and sustained campaign to drive a legally protected class of women out of a supposedly progressive political party. The legal basis for the GWD’s challenge is entirely robust. Following the Forstater and Miller cases, and now cemented by the Supreme Court’s April 2025 ruling, gender-critical beliefs are protected philosophical beliefs under the Equality Act. To marginalise, suspend, or expel members for holding them is not progressive politics. It is against the law.
https://labourheartlands.com/the-green-partys-war-on-reality/

Meanwhile mass entryism into the Greens is occurring.

Pro-Palestine supporters flood Green Party to force ‘Zionism is racist’ policy
Left-wing activists accused of ‘entryism’ in bid to push anti-Israel agenda at spring conference
https://archive.is/pss70

It is all going to go crazy at the Greens Spring conference end of the month.

Meanwhile what look to be a bunch of right wing male twats were harassing Hannah Spencer in Manchester and scuffling with police. Politics UK calls them "anti-trans protestors" so there is a chance they can be confused with women saying they exist.

Men shouldn't harass women for saying things. Muslim men, left wing men, right wing men this is their joint agenda.

https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/2030693982846484777

Green Women’s Declaration women talking about their experiences on Free Speech Nation on GB News last night.

https://www.youtube.com/live/Bp-SVyBcVQQ?si=1o5HKrEyCFXJvs7t

Fairly Good reporting from the mail.

Moment Green Party MP Hannah Spencer is forced into the back of a police car after violent brawl amid trans rights protest in Manchester

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15626533/Green-Party-MP-Hannah-Spencer-police-violent-brawl-trans-rights-protest-Manchester.html

It missed out on one detail though.

It seems that one of the men with Hannah Spencer was Unison Equality Officer and Stand up to Racism activist Ameen Hadi who during the scuffle punched a woman in the face. See footage here

https://nitter.net/DaveAtherton20/status/2030910039850954909

This is the woman who got hit:
https://nitter.net/mybrakedontwork

https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/2030693982846484777

You can’t see what actually happened in that video other than it looked like everyone involved was pushing so Greens not some shrinking violets. But interesting in how the need for police and origins of the pushing are not clear.

Basically too much testosterone around. The footage I just posted above clearly shows Ameen Hadi punching a woman though. It seems this was after he was scuffling with other guys then he decided to go after a woman a bit later.

Interesting survey

Green youth surge driven by progressive values, not economics
By Eric Kaufmann

By contrast, when asked whether trans women (those born male who identify as women) should be permitted to enter women’s sporting competitions, 60% of younger Green voters agreed, in line with Polanski’s views. This compares with just 25% of Labour voters, 8% of Tory voters and 2% of Reform voters the same age. Evidently, the Green Party stands out far more on cultural issues than on housing.
More generally, income, marital status and employment status do not predict a Green vote. Views on whether housing is too expensive, whether young people are disadvantaged in obtaining a house compared to previous generations, and the importance of the cost of living do not distinguish Green voters from Labour supporters when controlling for other factors.
https://archive.is/8k5uh

And yet there's also surveys showing gen Z well males are more conservative in values esp with regards to women.

So presumably these are more likely the left ish young women

Polanski is even more impressive than his talent for increasing bra sizes.
He can get the most socially conservative religion en masse to vote for his atheist hyper liberal policies
He can get women en masse to vote for total access for men into their protected sex based spaces.
That's quite some going.

I guarantee there's a cohort of young men who are pretending to be super left wing Zack Polanski enjoyers because that's where the young women are at.

We've all seen the Scottish Greens. What right minded even vaguely normal young person would want to spend anytime with these people? Lol.

The GE may really come down to how many Zoomers and Millenials the Greens can mobilize to come out and vote versus how many older Gen X and Boomers voters Reform can motivate.
Traditionally, 18-24s talk a good fight before GEs, and then stay in bed or go to parties on the day of the GE. And older right voters boast down the pub they're marching to vote Tory or Reform, but on the day of the GE march to...the pub.
Will 2029 buck the trend? Because turnout will be decisive one way or the other.

Very revealing interview.

Zack Polanski: “There’s A Lot Of Inauthenticity In Politics, But It’s Not Coming From Me”

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/zack-polanski-theres-lot-inauthenticity-politics-its-coming-me

By Polanski's reasoning, Farage isn't inauthentic either. They're flipsides of the same coin, easy answers to complex issues.
What flavour of populism do you want?

Says Mr former Lib Dem, actor and hypnotist

I wish Gareth Roberts would get off the fence and tell us what he really thinks

The Green party is barking mad | The Spectator

Dog licencing would have been a typical Green policy back in the day when Greens had ecology and animal welfare at its heart.
Today? It's simply an add on to a party that has ditched ecology for Corbyn 2017 vibes Omnicause.
So, as Gareth says in his Speccie piece, let every illegal migrant in, but have you got a licence for your Cocker Spaniel?

Polanski Dave has actually said he'd aim to be the Farage of the left. It's capitalising on how much people want to believe. This knock off Messiah with the gaptooth will do for many people.

I hadn't realised the greens were like that on pet ownership, mind.

I suppose it's a small motivated group pushing the pet stuff. So much of public life is just small groups of cranky people pushing their hobby horses.

There's a woman on X whose neighbours bought a wood burning stove. She doesn't like it. She's elevated her personal beef with her neighbours into a whole online persona of being a crusader against wood burning stoves. She's online every day banging on about the menace of wood burning stoves.

Basically nobody in the country wants to ban wood burning stoves, but there's a good chance it might happen because, if this woman and her followers on X can bully the government into having a consultation, they'll be making all the submissions while everyone who doesn't want to ban wood burning stoves will be getting on with their lives.

The Greens have always had that kind of person. I don't know if Zackist entryism has made the problem worse, although he does now have an MP who flogs heat pumps.

Argh to both of these. We just saw off a Scottish Greens attempt to ban wood stoves. Your description of random cranks with axes to grind makes perfect sense.

Many 'Green' issues are new territory and full of greenwash and ill informed.people trying to work out new and untested delivery models and new tech.

Even the most well intentioned can't be sure of longterm issues as its all new and shifting.