GLP are going after Sarah Phillimore and are going to lose - Part Two

[fromorbit]

The Story so Far

Part 1

The first thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5400132-glp-are-going-after-sarah-philmore-and-are-going-to-lose?page=1

Get the popcorn folks. GLP is getting ready to lose again.

They are going after barrister Sarah Phillimore for referring to a man as a man. They think they are going to lawfare her into silence.

Her blog:
Here we are now: Entertain us
I have had now 7 years and counting of the various tactics used to 'silence' those who won't comply with prevailing orthodoxy. How are those tactics holding up?
https://sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/here-we-are-now-entertain-us?

The only thing is other TAs have already tried this on Phillimore multiple times.

They went to the Bar Council their claims were dismissed. They all failed. More to the point this ‘Kate’ is the same guy complaining again who already failed. Sarah Phillimore knows the law and likes explaining it to TAs and making them lose. So she doesn't even resent the attempt.

As Sarah has stated "They pick on someone who not only enjoys this but has now a vast repository of knowledge about the law in this area."

Part 2

So the Fox Basher decided to tell massive lies about Sarah Phillimore now he faces a defamation action.

GLP's case against Sarah rested on evidence from "Kate" and this turned out to be the infamous man in a dress Sophie Sparkles. A guy who was too obnoxious, chaotic and threatening even for the Scottish Greens to tolerate. Even for someone as incompetent as the Fox Basher this plan seemed particularly bad.

A band of helpful gardeners assembled and planted a lot of seeds and soon Sarah's garden was blooming.

Sarah assembled a huge dossier of evidence about Sparkles showing his instability. She carefully built up her case using her excellent legal skills.

After giving the Fox Basher plenty of time to apologise Sarah took action for defamation in December and her blog outlines the story so far nicely:

Letter before Action
I publish here my letter to Jolyon Maugham. There is no freedom of speech to tell harmful lies about others.

For the background to all of this, please see my response to the complaint of the Good Law Project which they made to the Bar Standards Board on August 26 2025. Shortly after this complaint, Mr Maugham chose to assert to his many followers online that I had ‘led a campaign of harassment’ so wicked that it led a trans identifying man to attempt suicide. I deal with that claim at some length in my response. It is not true.

I asked via email on 30 August 2025 for Maugham to delete, apologise and make a donation of £5K to For Women Scotland. His refusal came a few days later in a series of videos posted to TikTok and Instagram where he was clearly excited about the (false) idea that JK Rowling would be joining me in legal action against him. Being able to tell his followers that he faced attack by the Nasty Billionaire Transphobe would clearly have more cachet and would attract more funds to the Good Law Project than a much less sexy tussle with a junior provincial barrister.

I am sorry to disappoint Mr Maugham. It’s just me. Well me, and the so far 990 very generous people who have helped me raise the money to be able to even contemplate this kind of legal action. My grateful thanks to every one of them. I do not think that anyone has ‘freedom of speech’ to tell harmful lies about another person and certainly not a senior member of a regulated profession, who will rely on his status to give his words power and cause harm.

https://sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/letter-before-action

Now the Bar Standards Board has decided that Sarah has no case to answer and released a letter explaining how the GLP had failed again. Details here:

Right Here. Right Now.

Another stunning technical victory for the Good Law Project shows that sanity is being restored to the public debate about gender identity, slowly but ever so surely.

On 27 March 2026 I received the welcome and to be honest not entirely expected news that the Bar Standards Board was not going to investigate further the complaint of the Good Law Project against me on behalf of trans identifying man Euan Weddell, aka Sophie Molly/Sparkles.

https://sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/right-here-right-now

GLP are planning to release a statement which will no doubt spin what has happened as much as possible in its usual style.

Will the Fox Basher's long history of misogynistic hatred for any women who has knowledge about biology and legal incompetence come back to haunt him again?

If he is defeated it will be a warning to all TAs that this type of bigotry and massive lies are not going to be accepted legally in a country where women and men are legally equal.

Whatever happen's Sarah's bravery once again will pay a significant part in restoring a world in which discussing the reality of the existence of male and female human beings is accepted.

Her garden still needs more plants, and harvest so far has been excellent and you can keep watching this thread for more proof of that.

AskingQuestions, I'm so sorry. That sound immeasurably hard.

Indeed, it sounds beyond tedious. Not sure I could live with someone like that, but understand that you don't have the energy to do otherwise.

That sounds really hard. I'm so sorry.

The line about not paying taxes is bizarre - JKR, famously, is on the record for saying how pleased she is to be able to pay so much in tax.

In fact, you could show him this, though I don't suppose he'd take any notice:

https://www.scottishfinancialnews.com/articles/jk-rowling-contributes-ps475m-in-taxes

"The 2026 Sunday Times Tax List has revealed that JK Rowling contributed £47.5 million to the UK exchequer last year, securing her position as the third-highest taxpayer in Scotland and 36th across the UK."

That's really hard @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime My situation at home isn't quite so bad, I do my (very minimal) TERFing but DH and I don't talk about it, we kind of skate round the topic. We've been together decades and we've never had a no-go topic before but this is definitely the one.

If the subject of JK Rowling comes up at a social event I've found it's effective to say with bright-eyed enthusiasm "oh she is my absolute hero" and look as if I'm about to go on a rant about why. People change the subject pronto and in case they don't there's the Afghan lawyers https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/harry-potter-author-jk-rowling-helped-afghan-lawyers-flee-the-taliban/

Royal Corgi
The line about not paying taxes is bizarre - JKR, famously, is on the record for saying how pleased she is to be able to pay so much in tax.

I found the information about her being the third-highest taxpayer in Scotland, 36th in the UK. to counter his absurd "she doesn't pay tax"; that is one of the things he refused to acknowledge or discuss!

AmaryllisNightAndDay, I'm so sorry you are in the same spot, but a nasty unworthy bit of me feels a little less alone for knowing you're in it too. If there were a "solidarity" thingy to go with the love and thanks ones, I would put it on your post.

I wouldn't dare say JKR was my hero in the circles I moved in before this summer brought it all crashing down, made them unsafe and soiled them for me; my views on her writing being derivative and badly needing an editor to correct the punctuation on the later HP books have been well-known since the late1990s, so I'd be rightly condemned as saying it only to annoy. But I might use the Afghan lawyers; thank you!

Sod being tired and old, plot your escape, it could be very therapeutic.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime sending hugs 🫂. Speaking as a DV survivor it is absolutely lovely not walking on eggshells all the time.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay I agree! And I would add that the early HP books are page-turningly brilliant story-wise but not well written. Though my respect for JKR has actually increased because her work has improved over the years. Frankly she could scrawl out a shopping list and people would buy it but she (and her team?) care enough to work on the books to make them good.

Also her ethics, her donations, her campaigns and her enduring support for women’s rights. ❤️ JKR

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime funnily enough I have a couple of other friends in a similar situation to ours. Solidarity!

JKR really is one of my heroes even though I wouldn't say her books were the best literature ever written (and agree the later HP books needed a stricter editor) but they're still entertaining and better than many. And the first two Harry Potters were great fun to read aloud.

Sarah Phillimore is another hero of course.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16072701/Woke-barristers-hypocrisy-takes-left-wing-campaign-group-Good-Law-Project-offshore.html

Interesting timing.

They're coming for you Jolo 😂😂🤣

"When Tory leader, Rishi Sunak, pledged to crack down on activist lawyers who take legal action to frustrate the will of Parliament. He promised to resist what he called 'lawfare' and listed examples of cases – all involved Mr Maugham."

I thought I read somewhere that the current government were following through on this pledge, although they're taking their own sweet time about it, as usual.

"Criminal barrister Matthew Scott said: 'Although the GLP is not a charity, it constantly wraps itself in the clothing of sanctimonious moral rectitude to solicit, and to receive, millions of pounds – well over £4million in 2024-2025 – from the public every year.'"

He is an expert in Tax law, so he knows all the tricks for tax evasion, maybe HMRC can take a closer look at him.

Had not really looked at it this way before but JoMo's decision to hide the financials of his 'very nearly a charity' really opens him up to accusations of grift.
Is there any mechanism that he can use to show contributors where their money is going that the general public can trust?
Does this undermine his whole 'project'?

This happened some time ago (May, according to the article) as I remember reading about it.

Wonder why it is making headlines now? Perhaps there is more to come?
I do hope so, I cannot abide the sanctimonious git.

Depends if people actually listen to the criticisms this time which have been going on for years. People have posted spreadsheets of the scam again and again.

As long as GLP can claim they will save all the trans, black people and take us back into the EU and make huge profits while actually not doing anything the grift will continue.

Just to take the trans example it is worth repeating again GLP have never won a case in that area. In fact their failed cases are quoted in judgements reinforcing reality. Without GLP the pro-reality cause would be a few years behind where we are now it would be safe to say.

Though JM needs taking down. Lets hope Sarah will finish him off.

Another unflattering article about him in Spiked, although it's behind a paywall.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/08/22/jolyon-maughams-white-saviour-complex/

He seems to be particularly obsessed with the article in the Guardian, he even tried to get it spiked.

"This week, he published a piece on the GLP’s website, attacking the Guardian’s supposed role. Maugham claims that he circulated the open letter to journalists he assumed would be sympathetic. This included the Guardian’s Lanre Bakare, who happens to be mixed-race."

"Bakare, rather than express unbridled support for the open letter, then sent a right-of-reply email to Arday, which implied Bakare was considering his own piece on the scandal. Arday then told Maugham that Bakare was ‘a journalist that I have not previously seen eye-to-eye with (we do not trust each other)’. In other words, Arday was claiming that Bakare was motivated by a personal animosity against him."

"‘So I don’t think there is a legal remedy, but you could write to [Guardian editor] Kath Viner making the point and asking whether it’s consistent with [the Guardian’s] ethics for someone with beef to write the piece.’
As a result of Maugham’s advice, an email was sent to Viner, asking her whether it was ‘appropriate’ for Bakare to write the piece – presumably on the grounds of the pair’s ‘beef’. Bakare’s Guardian piece was published anyway, under the title: ‘Playbooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head: new claims surrounding a star Cambridge professor.’ In Maugham’s eyes, Bakare had presumably committed a great betrayal by contributing to the scrutiny being placed on Arday."

"Let’s hope Maugham’s unhinged rant opens a few more eyes to what he really is – a nasty, self-righteous fool."

There must be a reason for all this, and with JM it must be money.

’Sanctimonious git’, a beautiful pairing with the ‘pompous windbag’ aka RMW

Posted this before but it's highly relevant and it's about time someone in parliament/media picked up on its use by various transactivists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation

Strategic lawsuits against public participation (also known as SLAPP suits or intimidation lawsuits), or strategic litigation against public participation, are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

In a typical SLAPP, the plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit. The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs, or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism.

There could not be a better example by Maugham than the one he's engaging with against Phillimore.

In the UK anti-SLAPP legislation has been increasingly discussed in parliament due to recognition of a growing problem. The first anti-SLAPP legislation brought in focuses on taxation because some of the biggest cases were from Russian Oligarchs.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 was the first of its kind but more anti-SLAPP legislation is expected to cover different areas of law.

The first used of this law was in March this year. It was brought against a tax lawyer and journalist Dan Neidle.

He has a Wikipedia entry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Neidle

Look what it says:
Neidle worked as a tax lawyer at international law firm Clifford Chance for 23 years, becoming its UK head of tax in 2020. Described by taxation law specialist Jolyon Maugham and tax publication ITR as possibly among the UK's leading tax lawyers, his practice covered tax, cryptocurrency, public law and Brexit.

Maugham knows exactly what he is doing. It's deliberate. He is SLAPPing. It's a strategy he clearly knows and understands. He has no interest in helping people like Weddle. Weddle is a useful idiot to him. Maugham has his own agenda and will use people like Weddle.

Watson also SLAPPs. So does Hayden. SLAPPing Linehan didn't go so well for Brooks and the police in the end, but that's essentially what that was.

There's a pattern and it's being used deliberately as a strategy. Sooner or later it will get noticed.

There is a heavy duty story for journalists to have a good look at here for the first one who wants to put the effort in.

When they do, they'll probably end up with an award or something. MN won't get credited. Remember where you saw the point first.

Arday and going after the Guardian. He's ruffled certain feathers in journalist circles. They are beginning to realise he is a threat to free speech by using the justice system and other methods to silence debate.

He is well aware that SLAPPing is a lucrative venture for tax lawyers. SLAPPing in tax legal cases has been cracked down on by the above mentioned bill. Maugham's moves away from tax law have been in line with restrictions being brought in. It's almost as if he realises he saw a lucrative gap in the market which he thinks he can use to assist his activist bullshit whilst also raking it in.

It also begs the question: why is he seeing Russian Oligarchs as an inspiration? Whilst shouting a lot about the mythical 'far right' in Western countries.

Sending to AskingQuestions, you can always come here to feel the support and good wishes we have for you. Not a complete escape, but at least a place you can always come where you'll be understood and supported, and where you'll be reminded that you are right and he is wrong - and we have the facts and figures to prove it!
Do whatever you can to take care of yourself, I suppose buying a 2nd hand yacht and taking off for the Caribbean is out of the question?

From what I understand, in very basic terms, he is claiming that black people are "naturally" less intelligent than white people, is that not so? How do you back that up, considering that there are many intelligent black people in the world and many not so intelligent white people?

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime
It's very dispiriting, and makes me dislike him rather a lot when I think about it. And I am too old and tired to leave.

It was the main reason why I left. There were many reasons tbf but that's the one that actually pushed me out of the door aged 60 (ish). His sheer misogyny and hatred of women/girls was unmasked by the WII spa incident and I no longer wanted to be in the same house. You are never too old ❤

Is he claiming that or are others claiming he's saying that. You could read one of his articles and judge for yourself.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09515089.2019.1697803#d1e209

He's an American, who's a Philospher in Biology, he's seeking to understand why Black Americans, as a cohort, not individuals, don't do as well as others in America. It's not just Black and White, it's Hispanic's, Asians etc.

Maybe the subject is sensitive, maybe nobody should be trying to find answers, but just because he has tried to examine the problem, it doesn't make him a racist.

"Proscribing the study of group differences undermines the integrity of huge swaths of work in biology, psychology, economics, sociology, history, and moral and political philosophy. If we accept that truth is intrinsically valuable, then this is a cause for concern. Second, if not all groups have identical distributions of potential, then it is unjust to assume that some people must be blamed for average differences in performance among groups."

And he wasn't sacked for his subject, he was sacked because the usual suspects flooded the university with complaints, in other words he's been cancelled because of the Self-righteous Lefties.
He was sacked by a man who's been accused of dodgy academic practices himself, he used AI-hallucinated quotes in his inaugural speech and is now believed to have used it to write the letter he sacked NC.

Here’s the archive link to the Daily Mail article
Interestingly, at the bottom under “83 comments” is the message “No one seems to have shared their thoughts on this topic yet”. 😂

And I could read the Spike article with no paywall.

💐💐 to BiologicalRobot and AskingQuestions.

That article has an interesting tactic - pretend that there is a field of study that considers the role of race genetics in intelligence (which there isn't, because it has no scientific basis), acknowledge that no such connection has been found, and then claim that the only reason that no such connection has been found is because the right research hasn't been done yet/isn't yet possible, and so propose that in the future a connection between race/genetics and intelligence may be found. And obviously he is the brave scholar searching for the Truth, which is likely to be that race differences have a substantial genetic component, particularly as regards brain structures.

To quote:

"But if work on the genetics and neuroscience of intelligence becomes sufficiently advanced, it may soon become possible to give a convincing causal account of how specific SNPs affect brain structures that underlie intelligence (Haier, Citation2017). If we can give a biological account of how genes with different distributions lead to race differences, this would essentially constitute proof of hereditarianism. As of now, there is nothing that would indicate that it is particularly unlikely that race differences will turn out to have a substantial genetic component. If this possibility cannot be ruled out scientifically, we must face the ethical question of whether we ought to pursue the truth, whatever it may be."

And:
"There is a danger for the philosophical community in putting our credibility on the line over the claim that race differences are entirely environmental. If work on genetics and neuroscience within the next decade produces convincing evidence that differences in measured intelligence among groups have a significant genetic component, there will be no way to conceal this information. The hereditarian explanation will have to be accepted, and people will know that philosophers were on the wrong side of the issue both scientifically and morally"

He's basically saying that just because no one today can present any evidence to show that "race differences" in "intelligence" are genetic, as opposed to social/"environmental", that doesn't mean that it won't be possible to demonstrate this scientifically in the future and everyone will have to accept it because it will be proven to be the Truth. All of this is predicated on the notion that white people are more intelligent that black people, which is bs.

I remember the same stuff being said back in the seventies. It was linked to IQ tests, and many people retorted that it just showed that IQ tests were a lousy way of determining intelligence, and that being good at them could be (and was) taught rather than being innate.

Eysenck was comprehensively deplatformed over it, with violence.