Who likes to be told what to do or what to think? There’s a strong libertarian tradition, inspired by John Stuart Mill and others, that maintains the individual is generally the best judge of his or her own interest. That includes the licence to do things, which, by one’s own admission one may live to regret. Making mistakes, and having the liberty to do so, is an essential ingredient in learning to do better and getting to do better in the long run.
Authoritarians think they know best. They are not just unflinching in their promotion of certain causes, but determined to get you and me to act and think like them. Quite independently of the merits or otherwise of what they might be selling, these authoritarians despise any kind of challenge to their worldview. By diminishing your autonomy, they undermine one of the preconditions of human flourishing. Freedom, as George W. Bush said, is a wonderful thing.
The tradition of scepticism, properly understood, is not an invitation to be contrary for the sake of it. It’s an appeal to critical reason, coupled with the investigation of evidence, to establish the best grounds for explanation and belief. The trouble with authoritarians is they act as if they’re infallible, that their beliefs are not subject to correction or review. Therein lies the road to hell; none of us is infallible.
Freedom versus authoritarianism is at the heart of my Gender Critical discrimination case against the Green Party of England and Wales. In February 2022, I was removed as a national spokesperson for the Party following my reappointment in June 2021. A coordinated campaign of harassment and online abuse, perpetrated or facilitated by members, officers and elected politicians at all levels of the Party, followed by the arbitrary construction of additional review processes, were used to remove me from the post. These were ideological extremists in all but name, or those prepared to facilitate the same, who would brook no reasonable disagreement to their way of thinking.
It’s often boasted that Greens do politics differently. By God, we do; but not in a good way. I survived multiple attempts to silence me after fake allegations of transphobia were filed against me and defeated. I stood up to this network of bullies and several members were suspended from the Party as a result of their smear campaigns against me.
As a national spokesperson, I adhered to the Speakers’ Code of Conduct and was duly reappointed following an application process. Imagine having a change in job role or even a new job, then, within weeks of already signing a contract, being required to sign up to a new one, being made to participate in a sort of retrospective probation process, then hauled before a specially convened committee designed to grant a hearing to your detractors. A number of executive board members raised the alarm about the treatment of me and one even resigned ahead of the meeting at which they correctly predicted I would be unjustly removed from the post.
This case will provide insight into how the authoritarian mob was unleashed upon me for daring to express my gender critical beliefs. It will also reveal just how hostile the environment had become inside a political party which claimed to want to speak truth to power.
I stand for human rights for all – equal rights and equal treatment. That did not require me to turn a blind eye when female prisoners were being subjected to the risk of sexual assault after being housed with rapists in the name of inclusivity, which then happened. Nor would it have required me to campaign against an amendment in the Scottish Parliament (as happened to Andy Wightman, former Green MSP, against his conscience) which would have guaranteed that a victim of domestic violence or rape should have had the right to be examined by a clinician that matched their sex.
In 2021, Maya Forstater’s appeal ruling demonstrated that the belief that sex is immutable is a belief ‘Worthy of Respect in a Democratic Society’, as is its reasonable expression. It’s a fact known by us all, on which much legislation relies.
Mine is the first case of its kind to reach the courts to uphold the principle that these are beliefs ‘Worthy of Respect in A Political Party’, too, which would be a clear implication of my winning this case. Party representatives or spokespeople, such as the Labour MP Rosie Duffield, should not be discriminated against by their parties for the reasonable expression of such beliefs. There are other gender critical court cases in the pipeline, including within my own party.
This case has taken a lot out of me, but I would not have been able to take this stand were it not for the hundreds and thousands of citizens, across the political spectrum, who were prepared to support me, often publicly.
As I head for trial next week, I have to make an urgent appeal for more funds. £95,000 has already been raised through two successive crowdfunders and I need to raise another £10,000 over the next few days to make sure all the costs that have already been incurred in preparation for the trial can be paid.
I have put all my life savings into this case and I assure you that your hard-earned money will be spent wisely and effectively in this just cause to defend our political institutions from authoritarian subversion.
Please donate here: Worthy of Respect in A Political Party (crowdjustice.com). I am represented by the exceptional Didlaw law firm.
Dr Shahrar Ali is a British politician and academic who served as Deputy Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2014 to 2016.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The beginning or your problem, from where I’m sat, is that you’re a green.
Seeing bat-shit crazy eco-terrorists tearing each other apart is great fun.
Hoping to be eaten last by the crocodile?
We can never know when the push back started, as the issue became apparent to many or as the tomato sauce was being applied?
I’ll defend the death his right to say what he wants to say… but giving him money, that’s going too far.
Tricky one this. In general people should not lose their jobs for their beliefs, but in this case his expressed belief seems to contradict party policy, and as he had a senior position. That doesn’t seem tenable to me. Might bung in a few quid anyway as he’s clearly been treated badly and I can’t stand the Greens, and he has stuck his head above the parapet.
“The beginning or your problem, from where I’m sat, is that you’re a green.”
I have to agree LM.
And this is where I get stuck. I utterly deplore the Greens and sympathy for those caught in their internal squabbles is decidedly in short supply whatever the merits of the case.
Dr Ali will hopefully win his fight but this will change nothing as far as the Green eco nutters are concerned, they will carry on business as usual.
I will take a back of the pavilion seat on this one but best of luck to the Doctor.
Exactly my position.
According to its program, the Green party asserts that transmen are men and transwoman are women. If this guy disagrees with that, as he possibly does (he isn’t really clear on the issue), he shouldn’t aspire to be a spokesperson of this party as that’s fundamentally dishonest. Makes him a proper Green, I guess, but they’re only supposed to be dishonest to voters and not towards the party itself.
Yeah you’d think he’d want to resign if he hadn’t been fired.
Beware of Greens asking for gifts.
During the campaign for the last general election in Germany, the Greens stood on a platform which – among other things they’ve long since thrown overboard – demanded that delivery of military equipment into so-called crisis regions must immediately be stopped as part of moving towards a world with less armed conflicts. Obviously, in government, they’re now all Standing with Ukraine and have found a lot of good reasons why their erstwhile political principles are just not appropriate anymore.
According to his self-accusation, this guy has been a member of a political party which demands mandatory ‘progressive’ sex education starting as soon as the state can lay its hands on somebodies children and with no opportunity for parents to effectively disagree with the Green views on this topic, for 20 years. If he found nothing wrong with the idea that the state is to ensure that the most intimate aspects of the lives of its citizens confirm with the proper dogma during all this time, he doesn’t need to complain about authoritarianism now.
The private is not political. That’s why it’s called private.
Maybe. Is he not entitled to change his mind though?
I’ve just spent an hour or so browsing through the Green Party 2019 Manifesto. No. I will not fund your case against the party or their defence against the case.
Tried to donate £10 but apparently the universe won’t let me.
Ah well.Green party member. Karma.
In a parallel case, descendants of Ernst Rōhm are looking for crowdfunding so they can take legal action against descendants of those who were unkind to Rōhm and his SA “Brownshirts” in “The Night of the Long Knives” in 1934.
Whilst unkindness is much to be criticised, I would rather take my money, stuff it up my arse and set fire to it, than to give a groat to a Green Party politician.
Toby is perhaps to be congratulated in offering “Free Speech” support to a leading GangGreen politician.
But this, I fear, will be akin to throwing, not buns but people into the jaws of a ravening crocodile, hoping to satisfy his hunger.
Some will suppose my comment above a bit harsh.
But consider to well known comment by Caroline Lucas MP that someone taking their family to Spain for a holiday is no better than someone randomly stabbing a stranger in the street. Consider also her not infrequent trips on the airplanes she wishes to deny to others.
Or perhaps consider the long and infamous career of “Danny the Red” Cohn-Bendit, long “Leader of the Green European Free Alliance” in the EU “Parliament”. Interesting that he has written (1976) and recounted (2013) accounts of his “incredibly erotic” games (and more) with children under his care in a Frankfurt Kindergarten.
A side to Green Politics (especially in Germany) that is not widely understood.
You might even care to read “How Green Were the N(ational Socialist German Workers’ Party)? by Brüggemeir, Cioc & Zeller. (Ohio University Press, 2005)
The Greens have only one MP (Ms. Lucas), but have infected 90% of MPs from the Uniparty with their policies, as dangerous as they are absurd.
I hope Toby won’t be treating us to the defence of a transgressive Islamic Jihadi or a Member of the CCP Politbureau, next.
Fair points.
I wish you luck, but I will not be contributing.
The Green Party is just about the most authoritarian and least democratic political party in the UK. The fact that you were Deputy Leader means you support authoritarianism as long as it’s for a cause YOU believe in.
“none of us is infallible”
Au contraire, all of us are fallible, and wrong most of the time. If we operated on that premise, we’d all get along just fine
This guy is asking the wrong people for cash. How much responsibility do the Green’s take for all the climate nonsense?
Dr Ali is a regular speaker at the Battle of Ideas festival every October. He speaks then listens to the majority view in the room that there is no climate catastrophy and he enters into the debate. I may disagree with him, but he engages and for that I am grateful. I know it is tempting to laugh at his misfortune, but he is the kind intellectual opponent that we need and so I am happy to have supported him.