I joined the party in 2014. Almost immediately I was appointed to the new Governance Review Working Group, set up after a successful motion at conference to modernise the constitution.
In 2016, a job-share and I were elected unopposed to the Green Party Executive Committee (GPEx) as Management Coordinators and stayed in post for two years, although my job-share resigned in despair at the end of the first year.
These first years in the party introduced me to identity politics for the first time and also to a clear understanding of the weaknesses in the party’s governance and management arrangements. I decided to stand as Chair of GPEx with the aim of professionalising the party. I served for four years, stepping down in 2022.
Just one male member has complained about me in ten years, submitting three complaints from 2016 to 2020 (alongside a fourth from ‘anonymous’). The first was dismissed by Disciplinary Committee as vexatious. In 2019, the second and third complaints were made and at a hearing held in my absence, and contrary to the investigators’ reports, Disciplinary Committee suspended me for three years. I took my case against these two complaints to the Appeals Committee but it rejected my appeal.
I had no choice other than to employ a solicitor and, within three months, on the advice of the party’s lawyers, GPEx declared the decision against me null and void. Three months after that, on 1 September 2020, I was re-elected as GPEx Chair with a large majority.
In September 2020, the same male member who had submitted the three complaints since 2016 re-submitted them with a multitude of added and un-evidenced extras. Three years and two months later(!), Disciplinary Committee heard these complaints – in a distinctly ill-disciplined way – and suspended me for four years in mid-December 2023.
I waited a year for an appeal hearing to be arranged for 17 November 2024. In the meantime, to my astonishment, I was informed on 23 October 2024 that I had been expelled by GPRC in July because I had breached the terms of the suspension of December 2023 . I had helped deliver leaflets for Ellie Chowns’ campaign in North Herefordshire. Apparently, volunteering to deliver leaflets was a breach of my suspension – whose conditions only excluded me from holding officer posts in the party
Kafka-esque comes to mind. But not to worry, a week after the appeal hearing, I was informed by Appeals Committee that it had concluded that four years’ suspension was inadequate and increased the sanction to expulsion!
So here I am with two suspensions and two expulsions (suspension from 2019 to 2022, which GPEx declared null and void and suspension from 2024 to 2028, which GPRC Appeals Committee upped to outright expulsion) – and a mountain of evidence for lawyers.
This woman will not go gently into the night……
My exile ended and my full membership was restored on 8 September 2025.
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