Greens must sack gender-obsessed leaders and focus on environment, says former party boss

A former Scottish Greens co-convener is calling on members to oust the current leadership after a group of rebels was expelled for declaring “sex is a biological reality”.

Robin Harper, who was leader between 2004 and 2008 before tearing up his membership last year, revealed he has been approached by several individuals to see if he would be interested in forming a breakaway party.

It comes after 13 people – including office bearers and some who have campaigned for the Greens for more than 40 years – were accused of making the party less safe for trans and non-binary members.

The group signed a declaration stating women have have a right to maintain the sex-based protections enshrined in the Equality Act.

It added that “women and girls have the right to discuss policies which affect them without being abused, harassed or intimidated”.

Complainants said the signatories broke rules prohibiting the undermining of party policy and behaviours that constitute prejudice and are a threat to others.

The party has had a rule since 2018 that states “trans-exclusionary individuals of any kind are not welcome as members”.

Complaint was ‘laughable’

Harper told The Sunday Post the claim that the group had been expelled to keep trans members safe is “utterly laughable”.

He said: “We went through that letter sentence by sentence to see if there was anything in it that could be represented as being aggressive or critical to trans people. It’s just not there.

“Really what needs to be done now is the party needs to get together and lodge a vote of no confidence in the current leadership and take it from there.

“For all the shape of the party at the moment, which I think is desperately poor, we would be the only country in Europe without a green party if we just imploded.

“Leaving the party is not the way forward. I almost wish I hadn’t come out but I was going to get flung out anyway.

“People should stay in and try to reform the party from the inside, and have the courage to do so.”

We revealed earlier this month how Harper was hauled in front of a conduct committee for trying to delay controversial gender reforms until more was known about the risks.

He claims the party is engulfed in misogyny and his departure was in part fuelled by an incident where he was given a dressing down for attempting to give members a say on whether to wait for a landmark report on gender services.

Dr Hilary Cass’s review found “remarkably weak” evidence for treatments such as puberty blockers and said there is no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.

Greens have been ‘infiltrated’

Despite talks of a breakaway party, Harper said he does not want to be in the same bracket as people like Nigel Farage and Alex Salmond, who “went off in a huff and set up their own parties”.

He believes the Greens have been infiltrated by a group with political views that have little to do with the original aims of the party and hopes members will be able wrestle back control to return the focus to environmental issues.

Harper said: “Most of the people who have been kicked out were long-term members. At least two of them have been members for more than 40 years.

“You can imagine what it’s like for us to watch everything disintegrating in front of our eyes.

“Smaller parties are in a very difficult exposed position as far as entryism is concerned. Far-left parties have tried entryism in the past with the Greens and failed.

“It was perfectly obvious from the actions and words of some of our members that they had a previous political adherence that wasn’t strictly speaking in line with Green Party policies.”

The Scottish Greens said it hoped the expulsion of the 13 members will send a clear message ahead of Pride month that it stands in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community “now and forever”.