Launch of Scottish Green Women’s Declaration

Women’s hard won sex-based  rights are being silenced in the Scottish Green Party, according to a group  of women members, ex-members and their supporters.

“There now exists a chilling atmosphere of censure and fear within the Party, which affects not only free speech but free thought,” they state in an open letter – the Scottish Green Women’s Declaration for Sex-based Rights – addressed to the party’s leadership and published on the website www.scottishgreenwomensdeclaration.scot where signatures can be added to the declaration.

“Women’s rights, based on the reality of biological sex, have been eroded within the SGP, as elsewhere in society. We believe the consequences of this are extremely damaging for women and girls,” the Declaration states.

“We are all members or supporters of SGP, or former members who have resigned in frustration, or been forced out of membership, or have been expelled or suspended because of our commitment to the legitimacy of advocating for women’s sex based rights,” says the Declaration.

The Scottish Green Women’s Declaration group is also opening a petition on the ipetitions.com website to gather further signatures of those who support their stand.

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/scottishgreenwomensdeclaration

GWD Newsletter 14/11/23

Huge thanks to all who joined us for the meeting we hosted on Thursday 26th October to discuss the Green Women’s Declaration (GWD). We were thrilled by the number of attendees!

As you may know, this meeting was originally scheduled as a Green Party Women (GPW) event, until Zoe Hatch (the duly elected GPW co-chair) was issued with a No-Fault Suspension (NFS) and the meeting was obstructed by the remaining GPW co-chair, Chesca Walton, who has previously made several complaints against Zoe, calling for her to be put on a NFS and expelled.

Joe Hudson-Small (acting chair of the Green Party Regional Council) then sent an email to members, insinuating that people may not be ‘safe’ to attend our meeting, because it was chaired by a person on a No-Fault Suspension (i.e. Zoe), concluding that ‘members are free to attend the event at their own risk’. Needless to say, GWD completely rejects any notion that people attending the meeting would be unsafe in Zoe’s extremely capable hands as chair.

Despite all attempts to thwart the meeting, over 160 people came to listen, learn, contribute, and support. Fantastic! We had an open, informative, respectful discussion, where people were free to speak out without being accused of ‘hate speech’ or being disciplined. And it was wonderful to hear Emma Bateman, currently expelled from the party, speaking so eloquently about her situation and about women’s sex-based rights. How very sad that such a meeting was disallowed as a bona fide Green Party Women meeting. We need to get to the point where such a meeting can be held within the auspices of the Green Party.

You can listen to a recording of the meeting here
The Court decides…

Closing statements in Shahrar Ali’s court case are due to be heard on 21st November. We hope that a judgement in favour of Shahrar’s right to hold and express ‘gender-critical beliefs’ in a political party will clear the way for real change inside the Green Party and guide it back towards being a place where healthy, open debate is encouraged, as it should be in a progressive, democratic party.

It’s an emergency…

Let’s get laser-focussed on tackling the Climate Emergency, the devastating damage being done to the natural world, and the pressing need to create an inherently equitable and fair global economy. Fighting for women’s sex-based rights is part of this massive, vital project. Let’s have an end to wasting precious time battling ‘No Fault Suspensions’ and the like. An end to authoritarianism. Let’s get our Green Party back!

If you want to help…

Many people have reached out to us, following our October 26th meeting, asking what they can do to help. Here are a few ideas:
1. You could talk to someone in your local Green Party who you think might be open to listening and see if they’d be up for signing the Declaration.
2. If you feel you have enough support, you could ask to hold a discussion about the Declaration in your local party. Do feel free to contact us if you need further support.
3. You could follow us on Twitter and retweet or ‘like’ our posts.
4. You could donate to GWD. The small group of women who developed and are running the Green Women’s Declaration are doing so entirely voluntarily. However, our work entails some costs which we could dearly do with help to cover e.g. website hosting, fees to MailChimp for our mailing list, developing resources such as our banner & flyers. If you can spare a regular donation, or even a one-off contribution, for our work we would be very grateful and promise to put it to good use in the cause of women’s sex-based rights within the Green Party and wider environmental movement

Please click here to donate

Above all, keep campaigning #ForWomenAndPlanet
Thank you once again for your support.

 

Justice for Green Party Women

Green Party Women are Under Attack – we need to come together and fight back. Join our mailing list now!
Green Party Women have been disaffiliated from the Green Party! All meetings & events are cancelled, access to our members’ mailing list is blocked.
We are organising!

Green Party Women, the special interest group within the Green Party of England and Wales, has been disaffiliated from the party. This means we have been shut down: No access to our email base, no seat at the table for policy formation, no representation at the highest levels of the party – as we have had up until now. 25k+ Women have been disenfranchised and silenced.

This follows a campaign of harassment and intimidation against women that has tarnished the party for years. Now, with nefarious actors seizing control of party bodies such as our regional council, our standing orders committee and the executive, and with the suspension of our co-chair Zoe Hatch, a coup against women’s interests is in full flow.

​Green Party Women was the last stand against corruption and science denial within the party. Women are life givers and life protectors. Our interests are Green interests. Women are the head, hands and heart of the Green Party. We will not be silenced!
​
Join our mailing list to unite with us as we seek justice:

 tinyurl.com/yc8kmmvt

#ForWomenAndPlanet.

 

 

GWD – GPW Meeting Recording

Green Women’s Declaration Q&A Event with Green Party Women 26/10/23

Why we need the Green Women’s Declaration. Discussing Sex and Gender in the Green Party.

Chaired by Zoe Hatch – Founder of the Green Women’s Declaration and Co-Chair of Green Party Women.

With: Imogen Makepeace, Sara Mai and Emma Bateman.

The Harassment of Green Party Women Continues


We reported in our last email that Zoe Hatch, the Co Chair of Green Party Women, has been suspended from the Green Party.

Attempts to Stop the Meeting with Green Women’s Declaration

Following on from this, Chesca Walton the other Co Chair of Green Party Women (who was not suspended despite ripping down the Green Women’s Declaration banner at conference), sent out an email to members stating that attending the meeting scheduled for October 26th between Green Party Women and signatories of the Green Women’s Declaration ‘may pose a risk to members’.

She did not specify what this risk was; whether there was a risk that attendees might be targeted by Chesca and the Green Party Regional Council (GPRC) for future complaints, for example.

The purpose of the email was to dissuade members from attending the meeting. GPRC did not have the ability to close down the meeting altogether, we think this is because it would have been unlawful to do so. Instead they declared that it could no longer be held as a Green Party meeting and the GPRC Co Chair sent out a similar email warning that attending the meeting may be ‘unsafe’.

Removing Green Party Women Email Access

In a deliberate move to stymie the Green Party Women committee, Chesca then arranged to have the email access removed from other committee members, thereby making it impossible for the committee to access the questions sent in by members prior to the GWD meeting.

Despite the efforts to prevent the meeting going ahead, supporters of the Green Women’s Declaration were able to jump in and host the event in their name instead. We are pleased to report it went ahead as planned.

Because the event was no longer hosted under the Green Party banner, suspended and expelled members were also able to attend. Zoe Hatch chaired the meeting, Alison Teal (currently suspended) and Emma Bateman (expelled) were also there, and Emma participated in the Q and A session.
162 people attended, and the feedback was very positive.

The gender ideologues have been attempting to shut down Green Party Women for several years. They have applied a strategy of claiming to be unsafe, bullied and victimised, refusing to engage with Gender Critical members, and submitting a constant stream of complaints against Gender Critical committee members, particularly targeting the Co Chairs.
GPEX Target Green Party Women

Green Party members voted for a majority of Gender Critical committee members, and the committee were doing their best to carry on running events, meetings and clubs despite the obstruction by the minority, however it seems that GPEX are now trying to shut down Green Party Women altogether.

GPEX have removed permission to send out emails from the committee. They have done this with no due process and no warning. Green Feminists think it is unacceptable to disenfranchise members by closing down the only group in the party attempting to discuss the sex and gender rift and the only group solely focused on furthering the interests of women and girls.

The Ongoing Punishment of Gender Critical Members

In addition to the silencing of Green Party Women by GPRC and GPEX, the continued suspension of Alison Teal and Debbie Fink, and the expulsion of Emma Bateman, grind on.

Alison Teal has been on a no fault suspension for over a year. No fault suspensions are supposed to be prioritised by the Disciplinary Committee, and are only meant to be used when there is an urgent need to protect the party. GPRC have voted on 3 occasions to continue the no fault suspension even though the danger Alison poses to the party has never been articulated.
Emma Bateman has been waiting for 15 weeks for a decision on her appeal against expulsion which was supposed to take 2 weeks. Debbie Fink has been treated appallingly and has waited months on end for a hearing.
It is obvious that the process is the punishment and that members of GPEX and GPRC are deliberately prolonging punitive measures against Gender Critical women.

The Extremists Running The Party

GPRC is run by the most extreme trans activists in the party, 2 of whom are also on the Standing Orders Committee (SOC) which gives them far too much power. They are aided by an Electoral Returns Officer (ERO) who was the instigator of the infamous ‘purge’ motion in 2022 designed to kick Gender Critical members out of the party, and whose conduct in her role as ERO has been highly questionable. It is obvious that they are manipulating Green Party processes to further their goal of silencing any dissent.

It seems that their latest wheeze is to go after Molly Scott Cato, an ex MEP who is the Green Party GPEX external comms officer. Green Feminists understand that a GPRC vote has begun with the aim of recalling Molly. Whilst Molly Scott Cato does not hold gender critical beliefs and has given little or no support to Gender Critical members, she disapproves of the “no debate” stance. The fact that she is being targeted appears to be an extension of the witch hunt against Gender Critical members to include those who are more broadly critical of “no debate”.

Meanwhile it seems that Green Party leaders are seeking advice on trans healthcare policy from a trans identified male pop philosophy YouTube influencer with no medical background.

Green Feminists doubt very much whether the leadership will be looking for alternative viewpoints that might challenge their adherence to gender ideology. Carla and Zack in particular have made it clear that they don’t want Gender Critical members in the Green Party.

The Good News Nuggets

It would be easy to imagine that the Green Party leaders and officers pushing their anti women agenda are having it all their own way. This is not the case and there are some reasons to be cheerful.

The Equality and Diversity GPEX election was won by the moderate candidate, Kefentse Dennis. If you voted, thank you! The margin was very close (12 votes) so every vote counted. Please remember to vote in internal elections, these seats really matter to the internal democracy of the party. Nefarious actors in the party rely on a low turn out as a way of seizing power and we need ordinary members to do all they can to counter this insidious entryism.

Ria and Kelsey, the extreme gender ideology candidates, lost despite being endorsed and promoted by Sian Berry, Amelia Womack and other prominent Green Party gender extremists.

In other internal elections, sensible people have recently won seats on GPRC (though the extremists still hold the majority) and on the disciplinary committee (though again, this committee is still dysfunctional and dominated by extremists). We understand that it is not going to be easy to re-establish Green Party values and practices in these committees and throughout the party but it is vital work, and we wish these members all the best in their new roles.

Green Women’s Declaration

The Green Women’s Declaration continues to grow and has been signed by over 1220 people so far including Sir Jonathon Porritt a founder of the Ecology Party. If you know others who may want to read and sign the declaration please share the link:

https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/greenwomensdeclaration

Green Party Women

Ordinarily we would post details of upcoming Green Party Women events but as GPEX has shut down the committee there are no forthcoming meetings. At the moment it is unclear how long Mary Clegg the Green Party CEO intends to prevent Green Party Women from functioning, but given that she was responsible for arbitrarily removing the Gender Critical Greens members space and has done nothing to stop the abuse against Gender Critical members, we imagine that she won’t be in a hurry to allow Green Party Women to function. Green Feminists will be sure to keep you posted.

Green Feminists UK is an informal grouping of people in the Green Party of England and Wales and the wider environmental movement, who know that in some situations #sexmatters in the lives of women and girls, and that male needs and desires still dominate in our society and across the world. Join the wider discussion here
Green Feminists Facebook page
twitter.com/GreenFemsUK

This is not an official communication of the Green Party of England and Wales

 

 

 

 

Green Women’s Declaration meeting – 7pm Thursday 26th Oct

As most members of Green Party Women are now aware, some members of the Green Party created the Green Declaration for Women’s Sex Based Rights which went live in August. Members of the Declaration emailed Green Party Women to ask if we would like to learn more about the Declaration and we had also had correspondence from members.

At a committee meeting, the Green Party Women committee voted in favour of inviting representatives of the Declaration to talk to our members. This meeting was due to be hosted by GPW Co-Chair, Zoe Hatch. However, since then, Zoe has been placed on a NFS (no fault suspension) after a complaint was made about an email which she sent out to our members, informing them of events which had occurred and which affected GPW as a whole and the committee members in particular.

As the recent email by Zoe’s fellow co-chair, Chesca Walton, points out, members of the Green Party who are on NFS are not able to host official Green Party meetings. However, as Chesca also pointed out in her email, we want to make clear that if the Green Women’s Declaration wish to hold their own meeting, that is their choice, and you, as members, have a right to attend.”

I am delighted to announce that the Green Women’s Declaration have agreed to host tonight’s event; they encourage members of Green Party Women to join them and they have asked Zoe Hatch to chair the meeting.

If you have already registered for the event, your existing registration is still valid and the link will work. If you have not registered for the Declaration event but would like to attend, you can register  here.

[UPDATE 13.00]

Joe Hudson-Small (sole remaining co-chair of GPRC) doesn’t seem too keen on encouraging free speech or debate. Quite why he thinks there may be a risk in attending a Zoom meeting is puzzling.

He says:

“For the avoidance of doubt, the Green Party or any constituent part of it should not be encouraging members to attend an event where a member on suspension is known to be hosting the event, as we have the safety of our members to consider.

Members are free to attend the event at their own risk.

Thank you for understanding.

Joe Hudson-Small

London representative to and acting chair of Green Party Regional Council”