A letter to police chiefs
Well that could change things.
Police forces have been threatened with legal action over their links to Stonewall, amid concerns the controversial charity’s transgender training is impacting their impartiality.
Campaigners have written to chief constables warning they will begin legal proceedings against any force that remains part of the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme beyond a “period of consideration”.
I wonder if Police Scotland is having second thoughts.
Some 250 public authorities, including about half of police forces in England and Wales, pay at least £2,500 a year for advice on gender-neutral facilities and pronouns, which leading barristers have said “misrepresents” the 2010 Equality Act.
It’s an odd thing when you think about it. Who are Stonewall to be giving this “advice”? They’re a campaign group, not a collection of legal experts. Campaign groups are a good thing, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily have a kind of expertise that police forces should be paying for.
I also wonder if any women’s group has ever had this kind of ability to tell the police what’s what.
Now in a letter to police chiefs, seen by The Telegraph, former constable Harry Miller has warned forces that their affiliation with Stonewall breaches police rules on political activity and association with groups that could create a conflict of interest.
That’s another way of saying the above. Stonewall aren’t experts but activists; why do cops get training from activists rather than experts? What’s the thinking here?
The Telegraph understands that two forces are currently investigating officers’ use of Twitter accounts to push Stonewall’s trans stance, including one tweet that said it had “reported” users’ comments deemed “hateful” towards trans and non-binary people.
Finally! We’ve been objecting to this pattern for months and months.
The pressure comes as the Ministry of Justice is leading an “exodus” of Government departments from Stonewall, with Justice Secretary Robert Buckland understood to be concerned about its “dubious” training and approach to free speech.
A Stonewall spokesperson said that “organisations come and go” from their Diversity Champions programme, but it is “continuing to grow” with 30 organisations joining in the past year.
They said they are “confident in our advice on the Equality Act” and “very proud” of their work with member companies.
But who made them the boss of anything? Are they accountable to anyone?
“They’re a campaign group, not a collection of legal experts”
Which makes me wonder whether there are UK laws on the unauthorized practice of law that might apply.
Interesting question.
Some quick Googling suggests not. The UK seems to have a narrower definition of what services can only be provided by licensed attorneys.
I guess it’s like being a queen or a duke. Amateurs welcome; professionals not so much.
I wonder if any of their activities violate the terms of their “charitable” status?
And of course any costs associated with “untraining”, or lawsuits, will also come out of the public purse. But at least now that money is not likely to go to Stonewall.
This move by Harry Miller reminds me of the Nordic model approach to prostitution moving focus to the men who buy sex. In my analogy, Miller moves focus away from challenging Stonewall’s charity status, and moves focus to police political activism that probably crosses clear lines that can be pursued legally.
I knew a lawyer Kurt who worked with advocacy organizations in Washington, DC. An organization can register with the IRS as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) for education, or a taxable 501(c)(4) for lobbying. And an organization may register one or more of each, so their bookkeeping can have an educational side and a lobbyist side. All of that is how the system should work.
Kurt said in practice though, an organization may set up a 501(c)(3), then put their toe over the line lobbying. This goes on, maybe because the infringements are not clearly observable, or nobody cares to challenge them.
Miller’s focus on the police is refreshing.
I do belong to a lobby group (cycling infrastructure) which does offer expert advice to the Council and the police and whose analysis of government budgeting for cycling has been picked up by a government information organisation. But they don’t pay us anything, we fund the leaflets and we are very careful that the information is accurate – it’s important that we keep up a reputation and gain trust. Lobby groups are often very well-informed on their particular issue for which the council/police don’t necessarily have the expertise. Of course the petrol heads think we are all-powerful – would that we were.
Bodies choosing who to listen to is a political decision. There have been scandals in the past eg the charity Kids Company which Prime Minister Cameron favoured receiving a lot of government money which was spent on what looked like dodgy practices. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33788415
the link from The Telegraph didn’t work for me (sign-in/paywall?) – I think this is the same article:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/exclusive-police-forces-threatened-with-legal-action-over-links-to-stonewall/ar-AAKQjSL