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