After almost two years of litigation and deliberation, a tribunal ruled that the law does not allow transgender children’s charity Mermaids to challenge the charitable status of the LGB Alliance (LGBA), the ‘gender critical’ gay rights organisation set up to represent gay, lesbian and bisexual people on the issue of gender identity.
The ruling was described variously as a “seminal moment for pluralism” (Times), a “lesson in tolerance for the toxic trans lobby” (Mail), a victory for free speech (Spectator), “freedom of thought” (Mail) and “scientific truth” (Spiked).
Mermaids’ appeal against the Charity Commission’s (CC’s) decision to award LGBA charitable status was based on the argument that by publicly criticising Mermaids’ work, the group had caused harm to trans people. It also claimed that LGBA’s opposition to its lobbying “has caused significant interference with our work, consequences for our reputation, and potential financial cost to us”.
From the very first day of LGBA’s existence, the organisation has been exposed to the worst excesses of cancel culture. Some politicians abused parliamentary privilege to make defamatory attacks on the group. Media outlets carried misleading stories about it and refused it a right of reply. Campaigners tried to prevent the organisation from finding space to hold its annual conference. Arts Council England even withdrew a grant to LGBA to make a film about gay life in Britain during the Queen’s reign, with staff at the taxpayer funded quango likening the group to the Ku Klux Klan. And so on and so forth.
“It is astonishing,” wrote Janice Turner in the Times, “how Mermaids, and the wider LGBTQI+ sector, whose abbreviation includes the “T” for trans, could not tolerate the tiniest of opponents. Mermaids has 18 staff, has received millions in public money including a £500,000 National Lottery grant, and its fund-raising cookies are sold in Starbucks; LGB Alliance has three staff paid with small private donations.”
Mermaids’ case was of course backed by Jolyon Maugham’s Good Law Project. Earlier this year, Mr Maugham published a book which Prof Yuan Zi Zhu, reviewing it for the Times, described with commendable restraint as “unbearably boring”. Its title? Bringing Down Goliath: How Good Law can Topple the Powerful.
The appeal was intended to address two issues: whether Mermaids had the legal right (known as ‘standing’) to challenge the decision of the Commission to register LGBA as a charity; and, if it did, whether LGBA meets the definition of a charity as set out by the Charities Act 2011.
In fact, standing was the only issue the tribunal ruled on, a point that Pink News was quick to spot, with the pro-trans news site subsequently describing the ruling as one that did little more than allow the “‘gender critical’ group” to “escape judgement on a technicality”.
Not so, says the Barrister Barbara Rich – standing is in fact “an important element in a scheme created by Act of Parliament” (ConHome). As per the Charities Act 2011, an appeal over a decision to register any given organisation as a charity may only be brought by persons who are eligible to ask judges to do so. This is ‘standing’. Who has it? The Attorney General for one, along with various other groups, including “any other person who is or may be affected by the decision”. Mermaids submitted that it fell within that category.
The key phrase there is “affected by”. In its strictly legal sense, the term is interpreted narrowly to mean situations where there may, actually or potentially, be a direct effect on a person or organisation’s legal rights arising from the CC’s decision to register a new charity.
Mermaids had sought to argue that the decision to grant LGBA charitable status gave the group access to funds that made its activities more effective, in particular as regards interference with Mermaids’ endeavours. The “height of the factual case put on behalf of Mermaids”, as the ruling puts it, was that LGBA’s “false claims” about Mermaids were now being taken more seriously and that “people might well think twice about publicly supporting us, working with us, or applying for jobs with us, given the climate LGB Alliance has created”.
It’s fair to say the panel wasn’t impressed with that line of argument, ruling that Mermaids had “no legal right to operate free of criticism, or from having it said that it is undeserving of public money in comparison to another charity”. Elsewhere, the ruling is similarly strong on the importance of freedom of expression, noting that “the fundamental rationale of the democratic process upon which our society is founded is that when competing views, opinions and policies are publicly debated and exposed to public scrutiny, the good will over time drive out the bad and the true will prevail over the false”.
In judicial terms, that’s the equivalent of an overhand right delivered during a world title fight by a Tyson Fury who’s just remembered he’s got a table booked at The Savoy in 40 minutes’ time. In just a few short paragraphs, Stonewall’s ‘no debate’ mantra, which maintains that dissent is abuse and words equal violence (thus justifying physical violence in response), is summarily despatched.
All of which only really left Mermaids with its hurt feelings to cling onto; the sense that people had been emotionally “affected by” the LGBA’s words and deeds. But so what? The issue at law was not how many fluid ounces of tears may or may not have been shed into pillows in the small hours of the night, but whether a person or organisation’s legal rights had been affected by the CC’s original decision. As the judgement points out, “the fact that Mermaids and those they support have been affected emotionally and/or socially is insufficient to provide them with standing to bring this appeal, no matter the depth of the feelings resulting from the Decision or the strength of their disagreement”.
Writing in the Spectator, Brendan O’Neill suggests that the case against LGBA has now been comprehensively dismissed. But has it? The judge who made the initial December 2021 ruling that evidence and legal argument on both standing and the full merits review of the CC’s decision should be heard together, thought an appeal on standing was foreseeable.
According to Barbara Rich, an appeal upwards through the tribunal and court system would have to reach the Court of Appeal, with a permission filter at each stage, to have any prospect of changing the current interpretation of “affected by”.
English charity law has always been pluralistic in its accommodation of a range of beliefs. If a less narrow version of “affected by” were subsequently to be established on appeal, it would risk weaponising concepts like “insult” and “offence”, gifting activists in charities up and down the country an opportunity to challenge the charitable status of any groups they happen not to like for purely ideological reasons.
And what, meanwhile, of LGBA? Tying the group up in exhausting, expensive litigation for the past two years has effectively allowed the process to become the punishment. Its legal fees now stand at more than £250,000 and have meant that funding applications for a planned helpline and a history project have had to be put on hold. Were it to materialise, an appeals process would surely prove even more time-consuming and expensive – and all the while, the group would remain in existential limbo until all appeals were exhausted. You can contribute to LGBA’s CrowdJustice fundraiser here.
Dr. Frederick Attenborough is the Communications Officer of the Free Speech Union.
Stop Press: A playwright and journalist called Phelim McAleer has written a verbatim play based on transcripts of the tribunal hearing. Judging from Phelim’s previous work, it should be very funny. He is holding a staged reading at a theatre in Camden Town on 22nd July and those wishing to purchase tickets should click here.
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Climate justice is racial justice.
Wtf does that mean?
It means that if you don’t do what I say you are a bad person, and it would be appropriate to hit you…
and burn down your business
Anyone who owns a business is a covid-denying white supremacist. Especially if they’re black.
it would be hilarious and ironic if it was found the extra pollution came from BLM settings all those fires
And call you a Nazi. And OBVIOUSLY, a Transphobe.
Only a RAAAAAACIST would even consider asking that question!
Black people don’t like cold weather?
Actually, no one likes cold weather. Cold is a much greater killer of humans than heat is.
That is why the Global Establishment is trying to make the planet colder…
I don’t know but I want to set up a separate society from these people so I never again have to ponder what on earth they are on about.
Time to build an Ark Fleet!
Ask a bunch of rich white rune-followers in New York.
Extinction Rebellion is whiter than the Tory party.
Nobody talks like that in Africa, India, Latin America, Asia, or anywhere else outside of privileged white-run places under the USA’s “nuclear umbrella”.
It means that if you’re a white male you are responsible for every wrong in the world as well as everything that is not wrong but the wokes want to believe is wrong.
Exactly. You might as well say “Aubergine freedom is Washing Machine liberty”.
Maybe it’s just bad luck but I can’t see a single non-white person in that pic so I concur, what the chuff are they on about?
“Climate justice is racial justice.
Wtf does that mean?”
It means that the majority of the countries, perhaps all, without the means to produce sufficient electricity to enable their populations to live in a 21st century world are populated largely by people with brown skin.
Frankly, nothing. One could as well use Climate nazis are racial nazis!, weren’t for the tautology in the second construction. It’s a combination of a term with positive connotations (justice) with one associated with the political agenda of the muzzloids (obviously) carrying the poster. It’s supposed to communicate Our’s is the just cause! in order to attract support for it.
I think it means that, instead of bringing the Third World up to a modern, acceptable standard of living, our aim should be to reduce the Developed World back to Third World standards, thereby reducing any requirement for envy on their part.
We would all then ‘own nothing and be happy’, as Onkel Klaus assures us.
It’s obvious, isn’t it?
Not sure but please don’t ask Attenborough, he’ll advocate wiping half the planet out.
Climate change is now firmly embedded in the culture wars surrounding race, identity and gender.
…which is great! If activists keep talking about ‘science’ alone, most people will accept their lies, because it requires a bit of maths to understand what they are doing.
But if they tie their lies to race, identity and gender, they will find that people do not need to know a bit of biology to realise that racing men against women and allowing them into female changing rooms is inherently wrong. And with any luck climate change will go down to destruction together with the rest of their fabricated propaganda…
Mark Steyn is thankfukky on it…Dodgy G
https://twitter.com/abiroberts/status/1526299240900792320?s=20&t=DP0VARYOuwOptEHENPMFeQ
The WHO and WEF overlords meet in Switzerland next week, so its heads down for a horrendous Q3/Q4 2022, were build back better continues to deliver paying far more for way less, Rogan too also gets where this matrix system takes us too.
https://twitter.com/sean_baillie/status/1523643666824278017?s=20&t=DMagxz5G_EoyPy_A40Bxsg
Meanwhile the digital social credit control CBDCs loom ever closer, let’s hope this winter doesn’t see the return of accelerated wealth transfer lockdowns.
https://twitter.com/Wontevertweet27/status/1526229019481583616?s=20&t=abawhOV3d7lxuUzLkfts0g
I’m truly over this draconian era of this vexatious New Normal.
Steyn just gets better and better.
Rogan nails it – after the “crisis” they can relax things a little, but the control over you that they have is greater than that which they had before the crisis – whether it is ‘medical emergency’ (manufactured) war or climate crisis.
Glad to see that Mark Steyn is on this too – GB News in general needs to pick this baton up and keep running with it. GB News appears, in some respects, to have got its mojo back.
DAN WOOTON was just outstanding last night. His opening monologue was on the power grab of the WHO pandemic treaty and was worthy of a journalist of the year award. I almost fell off my sofa with shock – it was like hearing the concerns shared here and across the internet being vocalised in my living room – right over the target. I just wish more people had heard it.
He is appalled at the prospect of UK signing away its sovereignty, thinks UK should withdraw from and defund the unaccountable WHO, who is in the pay and control of Bill Gates and far too protective of China. He shared Steve Baker’s tweet disclosing he had written in protest to Javid about the proposals.
The segment also broadcast footage of Gates being interviewed – which was a bit much to stomach, but showed his absence of any kind of medical knowledge or understanding for what it was, and scarily showed him saying that people will need to be injected against “this infection” every six months or even at shorter intervals. During the panel discussion Christine Hamilton and the other female panellist did a brilliant takedown of the pandemic treaty, but Benjamin Butterworth thought we should sign the treaty so the WHO could continue to “keep us safe”. The only plus was that Wootton shouted him down.
So that is 2 outstanding monologues now on the WHO pandemic treaty.
Keep up the pressure GB News!!! need to make sure the UK public sees through “climate change crisis” for what it is too.
I’ll have to find the GB News one on YT, Milo. You’e sold it to me.
Not a regular to that channel but I’ve always liked what Wootton and Steyn have had to say. Plus I’m glad to see them interviewing people who’ve been damaged by these jabs. Let’s acknowledge the reality at long last!
They sort of went off the boil for a bit Mogwai, but in last 2 weeks have really stepped up. Someone needs to!
Keep a twig close at hand.
A twig.
A f***ing twig.
Here’s an idea. We make a bunch of digital twigs, staple an NFT to them, market them as digital blockchain grounding devices, and sell them by the thousands to the poor stupid sods who need to have one on their desk. They’re happy, we make a pile, everyone’s a winner.
Evidently masks can protect you from the climate change variant too. Who knew fresh air could be so threatening…?
Climate Change Alarmists need to be pointed to model validation.
Consider this paper from Nature.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01192-2
04 May 2022. Climate simulations: recognize the ‘hot model’ problem – The sixth and latest IPCC assessment weights climate models according to how well they reproduce other evidence. Now the rest of the community should do the same, by Zeke Hausfather ,et al.
Zeke Hausfather was also co-authored another Nature paper that said that scientists should not use the RCP8.5 because it was unrealistic. Zeke Hausfather & Glen P. Peters, Emissions – the ‘business as usual’ story is misleading: Stop using the worst-case scenario for climate warming as the most likely outcome — more-realistic baselines make for better policy. 29 January 2020
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00177-3
But also consider comments by Roger Pielke Jr. regarding the AR6 WG1 report, and how the unrealistic scenarios have undue prominence in the report.
https://twitter.com/rogerpielkejr/status/1424718032279011339
This study by Dr. Scafetta also reviews the CMIP6 models against recent measured temperatures.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1029/2022GL097716
Have to ask, but what period in time is the climate datum point taken from. If there is a climate crises then where are they measuring it from so they can say the worlds temperature is x above the datum point?
I must be a racist to ask such questions.
It’s good that hedge fund managers and global financiers who dictate public opinion and money flows care about the environment. Today’s demonstrations at the 5* Mayfair hotel give it the opportunity to claim property insurance, which may help against losses made in 2020/21.
Its also a 6 minute walk from Sir Christopher Holms’ hedgefund headquartered on Clifford Street. I guess its all about keeping it local.
I have theories. Here’s one. The body has been rendered obsolete, by our obsession with smart phones and everything else. We now see the physical element as an upgradeable, disposable, reconfigurable, hackable, optional base element to existence, taking back seat to our mental nature, which is the operating system. I mean, the body is starting to look pretty out of date, right? Only two genders, when everyone knows its a spectrum. Comes in different colours, which creates all kinds of problems. Obsolete and crappy immune system which needs digital replacement. No USB, no headphone jack. So we’re now moving past the body into the AI/bot/cloud world. What could possibly go wrong. So now that we have untethered ourselves from physical reality, we’ve gone loco. Boys are girls, girls are boys. Faces are to be masked. The weather is catastrophic. Everything true and fair and good is wrong and ugly and should be smashed. Calling someone mother is hate speech.
Anyway, whatever, I’m loving the Amber Heard show. She seems to represent the spirit of the times, the lying spirit of deep stupidity, where everything is whatever you want it to be, where pledge is synonymous with donate and words mean nothing. All you want, really, like Harry and Meghan, is for your family to be safe, which is code word for the far right white supremacist racist climate deniers are waiting at the door to eat our children.
I can’t remember now what my point was. But it’s in there somewhere.
“I can’t remember now what my point was. But it’s in there somewhere.”
Very postmodern. Have a Vegan Fruit Pastille.
It just feels to me like there are various cults all eagerly recruiting and pushing themselves into the limelight at the same time. Although these people have been around for years, the climate change people, the woketards, the trans extremists, the vegan militants, BLM and now the Covid zealots ( list not extensive ), it’s like they’re all becoming emboldened simultaneously, possibly off the back of the chaos brought about by the last couple of years, at least it feels like this has been the catalyst.
I barely registered these people before but now they’re everywhere all of the time, in your face on a daily basis. I think the Covid shambles has really been the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of tipping many over the edge, now the majority feel the need to choose a cult, align with that ideology, grab a pitchfork and play the part of devoted acolyte to their chosen cause.
I never imagined the ‘zombie apocalypse’ would look like this.
Yes Mogwai (excellent summation of it BTW), but it also seems as though they are being officially encouraged, by the establishment/government, which adds a fire to the whole thing.
Think of ALL the events of yesterday and yet lead story on BBC News last night was “professional footballer comes out as gay”, almost elevating the guy to level of deification or sanctification.
I’m not homophobic, or meaning to come over that way, I’m just saying was that the most important thing that happened yesterday and did it merit that level of prominence in the news headlines? And if it didn’t why then did BBC do that? Hard to avoid conclusion that some subliminal agenda is being pushed.
Thanks.
And yes, you’ve nailed it, I agree. The msm are the mouthpiece, with strings being tightly pulled and controlled from behind the scenes by those who fund them, so they have max influence on the gullible. It’s the people who religiously still watch/read this drivel and believe it’s all the gospel truth I despair of.
What would all these cults do without social media platforms?
Into the mind of the zealot. I wonder if anyone has done a deep psychological analysis of why some people are determined to believe the most extreme explanation of any scenario. Be it climate, covid, vaccine use, masking, racism. I mean take away the money aspect of people at the top driving it and look at the ordinary person in the street. There are what could be described as intelligent people who want us all masked and vaxxed, believe the earth is about to go up in flames, and that every white person is inherently racist. No amount of real world experience and data seems to have any impact. You could explain the Sweden data to them and the harms of lockdowns, and they would still rather have lockdowns and a zero covid approach. I really struggle to understand what their thought processes are. Is there such a clear divide between the critical and non critical thinker. Is inherent fear the driver?
Obviously i am not considering here the people who dont have the ability to understand what is really happening, and look to what they think are trusted sources of authority.
Multiple factors – in terms of climate change, its like bad weather; it is simply more exciting than a normal sunny day – but climate change over decades is also boring, so they exaggerate and turn it into a focus on extreme weather. There is also the research grants – super computers and satellites are very expensive and scientists can exaggerate a problem to shakeout the hundreds of millions of our money from the politicians, many of whom majored in Arts and Classics at Uni and are clueless.
Common sense isn’t very common
I read in the Daily Mail yesterday how Tom Cruise felt so threatened by the crowds at Windsor he needed police protection.
Funny that, as I was stood about 3 feet from him for nearly 15 mins and he was relaxed and very happy to chat with the crowd. All extremely good natured.
The Media has to insert fear to sell advertising.
If it bleeds it leads
The number of people who die in natural disasters of absolutely any kind has utterly collapsed in the last hundred years. The doom mongers are mentally ill.
One gets the impression they need to have something to feel anxious about – or they become uncontrollably anxious.
If only we could see the world through their (compound) eyes…
The thing about ‘Extreme Weather’, is that it never seems to happen where I am. All about me is just ‘weather’, sometimes more weather, sometimes less weather, but never ‘extreme’ weather
Look at all the morons wearing masks in the fresh air! That alone tells me all I need to know about these idiots.
Deleted as someone else got there first with the same comment.
Global warming ran out of steam about two decades ago, although the phrase is still a constant incantation. Statistics are cherry picked and temperature databases are remodelled to supply extra heating.
This is so deceptive it is close to being an outright lie. It relies on carefully cherry picking on behalf of the sceptical community plus a certain element of ignoring what is one front of your nose. Even Spencer’s UAH satellite temperature record for the lower troposphere shows over 0.1C warming per decade and it takes a very special kind of determination to declare that the attached chart does not show a continuing upward trend. The surface records of course show much stronger warming trends – they may have been adjusted but it is a lousy argument to declare the adjustments must have been fiddles because they don’t support your case.
You use the term ‘cherry picking’ without the slightest sense of irony!
I was deliberately using the same term as Morrison. Whether that counts as irony I am not sure.
The obvious criticism of this would be
Hence, whatever either of both reportedly shows doesn’t matter.
This mathematical method is a so-called digital noise filter designed to eliminate randomly distributed measurement errors from repeated measurements of the same quantity. Applying it to non-repeated measurements of different quantities is just nonsense.
Are you claiming that means (and other averages) are nonsense unless they are applied to “randomly distributed measurement errors from repeated measurements of the same quantity.”. That throws out a lot e.g. average height of a population, average mpg of car, average times between buses – the list is endless – all of them “just nonsense”.
You’ve understood that correctly: Assuming measurement errors are randomly distributed, they’ll tend to cancel each other out when adding measured values together. That’s now this method accomplishes noise reduction. Whether or not this works for a given situation would need to be determined.
Eg, in my opinion, average delay of busses on a certain line stopping at a particular station would make some sense. But average height of some people living in the vicinity of … doesn’t. And neither does average temperature of Sahara and Antartica, to reuse a simplified example I already used on the past.
So, imagine you are going on holiday and you are told that destination A has an average maximum daytime temperature in the relevant month of 27C, for destination B it is 19C. That is just meaningless for you?
“The surface records of course show much stronger warming trends – they may have been adjusted but…”
Enough said.
Of course the satellite records are adjusted as well.
It is very easy to decode. I’m surprised that so many people are baffled by it. If you understand the nature of the joint stock corporation and you understand their dynamics then this should be as clear as day. Just the way your engagement on social media is monetised, the monetisation of everything. Just think about antecedent events and the mechanisms developed after 1992. It all makes sense, even the ‘ACME Brick Company’ leaving palates of bricks for BLM activists to use.
One hopes those bricks were on pallets, or BLM could develop a taste for them…
They were.
Shouldn’t that be: ‘Being taken in by the ubiquity of climate nonsense within the MSM (this decade’s Oscar goes to BBC) is leading to anxiety and distress in those slow enough to trust those sources.”?
We know there is no climate emergency because the governments in power in the UK since 2010 wouldn’t have imported at least 8 million people, overwhelmingly from places with lower and often much lower per capita emissions.
In the same way, their partying tells us that they knew the virus posed little threat to them and that there was no need for lockdown.
Watch what they do rather than listen to what they say.
It is a misunderstanding of the dynamics. Those who seem devoted to this cause genuinely believe in it. And this belief comes from an appraisal of our affairs and a conviction that we are in an exploitative relationship with nature. Which is of course true and this is the highest appropriation of the human essence. If you just dismiss these people as if they are freaks then you are part of the problem.We have the opportunity to develop genuine true relationships with the biosphere. You have to allow the deeper thinking in.
Temperature graphing tool
http://realclimatetools.com/apps/graphing/index.html?offset_x=-0.015389916233094523&offset_y=-0.10705221573687182&scale_x=1.081803718325295&scale_y=1.081803718325295&country=UK&state=UK&id=UK000000000&type=TMAX&month=0&day=0&unitsF
The central England temperature since 1881.
Stroke a rock?
What in God’s name?! I think about these groups and how impenetrable they have become for anyone who is a somewhat run of the mill regular Joe with a concern for the environment.
You just wouldn’t cut it would you? You’d be viewed with suspicion if you are not petrified of what lies ahead, masked up, fully gendered, suitably guilt ridden and appreciative of your undeserving privelege.
It sounds absolutely exhausting. With work, the kids, and a bit of exercise I enjoy, I’ve not really got the time.
No me either – I can just about cope with covid and a bit of great reset theory, but add in Ukraine, climate change and the whole wokery business and I am exhausted trying to keep up with the multiplicity of agendas.
I think it is deliberate – if TPTB spawn enough “issues” for people to delve into they think people won’t notice what is going on.
Meanwhile, apparently there is some kind of plan to cull sheep in NI because of CO2.
Here’s my climate change news. ” Day trippers in shock as record numbers of ice cream cornets melt in Spring sunshine on Blackpool beaches. Minority groups disproportionately affected” I’m available to WFH if any news websites need a hand turning out more claptrap.
Never before have so many been fooled by so much crap for so long. (aka government lies and propaganda).
It doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
Climate “crisis” = Bollocks of the highest order.
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2022/05/UKWeather2020-21.pdf
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-02243-9
The climate crisis scam has been building since at least 1970 with apocalyptic warnings. These warnings, by non profits and other activist fake charities, generate tax free donations which are used to fuel more warnings. The degree of severity of the warning is directly proportional to the amount of donations. Some estimates put the whole climate crisis annual revenue now at close to a trillion dollars. The climate crisis only occurs in rich western countries that allow abuse of their tax systems. This climate crisis scam will not go away until this abuse of the tax system is stopped and the funding dries up.
If anyone wants to take the time to find out about the real information about CO2 they should watch and listen to Dr Patrick Moore (the Canadian one) in this long but really good presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX1z_6pvM-Q
If only I could force our politicians to watch this and come to a more accurate view instead of the rubbish they seem to believe.
Replace the term ‘climate change’ with “weather manipulation”.
The 1976 UN Weather Weapons Treaty by itself proves the existence of weapons that have been manipulating the weather for many decades: Haarp, Chemtrails, ionosphere heaters and direct energy weapons. There are already enough good documentaries and books unmasking and explaining this reality, plus those who know how to use their heads, know that CO2 is the gas of life.