How to deal with a complaint 

A guide for members of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) who are subjected to complaints, suspension and disciplinary process 

by Robbie Spence and John Hopes, Greens in Exile, June 2025 

​​Contents
  1. Introduction
  2. Disclaimer
  3. Acronym and jargon buster
  4. How a complaint starts
  5. Suspension pending investigation (SPI) – formerly ‘no-fault suspension’ (NFS)
  6. How is SPI decided?
  7. Anonymity
  8. Which complaints go to the Disciplinary Committee?
  9. How to respond to the complaint against you
  10. Disciplinary Committee investigation and hearing
  11. Outcomes, appeal and further action
  12. Summary of your rights
  13. Support Available
  14. Where to Find More Information
1. Introduction

This guide is for Green Party members who have received notice of a disciplinary complaint – with or without ‘suspension’ – through the Green Party’s formal complaints and disciplinary procedure. It aims to explain the process, set out what you can expect to happen, what your rights are, and how to access support. It should be read in conjunction with the party’s Complaints Procedure guide. Note that this and the step-by-step process guide that goes with it are both now available on the party’s public-facing webpages, not behind the members’ login – which is helpful to members whose login has been suspended as part of the complaint against them.

Our guide is based on the party documents listed there, including Standing Orders for Party Discipline (SOPD), as well as the experience of members who have been through the disciplinary system. It is up-to-date at the time of writing but note that the party does change the rules from time to time.

The two key national committees involved in the complaints, suspension and disciplinary process are the Disciplinary Committee (DC) and Green Party Regional Council (GPRC). GPRC is involved because its role – as distinct from GPEx, which has no role in party discipline – includes looking after the well-being of the party and its members. But when this task became too much for GPRC about ten years ago, the party hived off most of the complaints-handling work to DC. GPRC still has a role hearing appeals from DC and it retains a power to suspend or expel in extreme cases (Constitution paras 4(vii) and 4(viii)).  

2. Disclaimer 

This leaflet is not legal advice. It is a summary guide. For full information, please refer to the official policy documents on the party’s recently created pages about process that are mentioned above in the Introduction and below in Where to Find More Information.

 3. Acronym and jargon buster 

CoC – Code of Conduct 

DC – Disciplinary Committee 

DCRG – Disputes and Complaints Referral Group 

GPRC – Green Party Regional Council 

NFS – no-fault suspension (aka SPI – see 5) 

SOPD – Standing Orders for Party Discipline 

SPI – suspension pending investigation (aka NFS – see 5) 

UPVAM (guidance on) unreasonable, persistent, abusive, malicious and vexatious complaints 

4. How a complaint starts 

A complainant (who is usually, but not necessarily another party member) may submit a complaint in the appropriate form to complaints.manager@greenparty.org.uk. It will be dealt with by the staff members under the party’s overall Complaints Manager, who is the CEO, Harriet Lamb. Henceforth in this guide, we’ll refer to the ‘Complaints Manager’ whenever we mean any of the paid staff who deal with the administration of complaints. The person being complained about must be a party member. Henceforth in this guide we’ll refer to the person being complained about as ‘you’.  

In theory, a complaint against you should start at your local or regional level. In practice, this does not happen for several reasons. Firstly, many of the complaints we are discussing here are about behaviour at the national party level. Even though the complaints process is not meant to be used to settle political scores – SOPD calls such conflicts ‘disputes’, rather than complaints and should throw out any dispute that is masquerading as a complaint – in practice, we have found that the complaints process has been weaponised for several years now against members who take a sex-realist or ‘gender-critical’ position. Many of the members who seek to abuse the complaints process in this way are on the key national committees, which partly explains why they use the national-level process. Secondly, many of these complaints seek to put the sex-realist members on suspension pending investigation (SPI), something that can only be actioned by GPRC at national level. (SPI is described below.) Thirdly, most local and even regional parties don’t have a functioning process for dealing with complaints. Lastly, even if they did, it is unheard of for complaints that are submitted to the Complaints Manager to be rejected on the ground that they should be dealt with at local or regional level. 

Before any of the elected party officers deal with it, the Complaints Manager checks that the complaint has been made in the required form. If not, they send it back to the complainant, who has the opportunity to correct the form and re-apply. If the complaint is properly made, the Complaints Manager must refer it to the Disputes and Complaints Referral Group (henceforth the ‘Referral Group’) within two working days.  

Note that the Complaints Manager only considers the form of the complaint, not the substance. It is not their job to check the truth of the complaint, let alone the evidence. These are matters for party officers. That is why it may come as a shock to you to find that the complaint against you has gone forward to the Referral Group, however flimsy the evidence.

The Referral Group is a group of three officers that wields great power. SOPD para 1.5 states that it consists of the DC Chair (or their Deputy) one of the two GPRC Co-Chairs and a third member who is one of the other GPRC reps (who normally changes at quarterly GPRC meetings).  

It’s worth pausing to mention the ‘recusal’ question, which applies to the Referral Group as well as at other stages involving DC and appeals. An officer who has a personal interest in a case – the most obvious example being where they are the complainant – is supposed to declare that interest and bow out of the process, which is known as ‘recusing’ themselves. The trouble is that it’s up to the officer concerned to decide whether their interest is sufficient to warrant recusal. We know of cases where the principle has been disregarded by officers who are biased but don’t recuse themselves. If this happens in your case, there is not much that can be done in the early stages of your process, but it may constitute good grounds for successful appeal in the end.   

If a Referral Group officer recuses themselves (or is absent or unavailable) the decision may be made by the remaining two. (If the DC rep is the one left out, the remaining two are likely to be the same as the GPRC reps who can suspend you too). 

The Referral Group may reject the complaint if they think it comes under the party’s UPVAM Guidance (on unreasonable, persistent, abusive, malicious and vexatious complaints). We believe that UPVAM Guidance has been used to close down complaints made by sex-realist complainants against gender ideologists but not the other way round.  

If the Referral Group accepts that the complaint is valid, the Complaints Manager will email you a redacted copy of the complaint form that sets out the details of the complaint, which may include SPI (see below). They do not normally tell you how to respond or within what time limit, except to ask you to acknowledge receipt. See our suggestion at 6 below about how to respond.

5. Suspension pending investigation (SPI) – formerly ‘no-fault suspension’ (NFS) 

SPI is supposed to be a temporary measure that is reserved for extreme cases where GPRC needs to protect the party (and/or the members) from the risk that the member being complained about (you, normally) may pose during the time it takes for DC to investigate the complaint. It’s like being arrested by the police and remanded in custody as opposed to being released on bail until trial. We think GPRC abuses and overuses its powers here. Many SPIs have been imposed on sex-realists in scenarios which fall well below the bar to warrant such an extreme measure as suspension of membership. 

6. How is SPI decided?  

If the complainant has asked for SPI, the Complaints Manager must refer your case for immediate consideration (within 24 hours) by the GPRC ‘on-calls’ (as well as submitting it to the Referral Group). They are a group of three GPRC reps, chosen from time to time to be ‘on call’, that is, available at short notice, to consider the urgent and extreme cases that allegedly pose a risk that justifies suspension. Their identity is kept secret from everyone except the rest of GPRC – allegedly for their own protection; this means they are not as accountable as they could be, which may well be a reason why the SPI process gets abused. The other officers involved in SPI decisions are the GPRC Co-Chairs.  

SPI was formerly known as a ‘no-fault suspension’ and, as the name implied, it meant that you have not yet been found guilty of any wrongdoing. Whatever it’s called, SPI is not supposed to be a punishment – although, in practice, chronic delays in the disciplinary process mean that it can last for months (or sometimes years), which leads many of those on SPI to feel that the process is the punishment.

Even if the complainant has not specified SPI, the Referral Group may decide that you pose an urgent and serious risk and refer your case to the ‘on-calls’ anyway. (As mentioned above, both groups are small and their composition overlaps.) The ‘on-calls’ usually decide on SPI within three working days. If they opt for SPI, the Complaints Manager should send you an SPI notice to state the risks that you pose and tell you that, with immediate effect, you are barred from your local party, regional party (except for contacting your GPRC rep) and from the national party (except to communicate about the complaint against you, obviously – and also to pursue your own complaints against other members, should you wish). Your membership login will be cancelled so you won’t be able to read the members-only website. That included Green Spaces, as it was, and whatever replaces it, and any party tools like Microsoft Teams. You must cease acting in any roles you have in the party. (If you are an elected councillor, you remain so but cannot act on behalf of the Green Party.)  

Your SPI should be reviewed at each GPRC meeting subsequent to the date it was imposed. GPRC meets every three months and SPI reviews are on the agenda every time. How thorough the reviews are, we don’t know. Sometimes it seems like a rubber-stamping exercise. Sometimes GPRC reps are not given adequate information about what they are being asked to approve. Sometimes they are biased. Sometimes they are simply too busy and preoccupied with other party affairs.  

What is certain is that GPRC will not consider the substantive complaint against you but will only review the alleged risk that you pose along with any representations that you may submit to them as to how you might henceforth be able or willing to mitigate those risks.  

In practice, there are several problems here. You may not agree that you ever posed a risk to the party, so it’s hard to apologise for something you don’t agree that you have done. Then there is the understandable worry that any apology you make here may be used against you when it comes to the DC hearing of the substantive complaint. Or you may not know when and how to submit your reasons.  

We recommend that you do contact both the secretary of GPRC and your GPRC reps to say why you no longer pose a risk that merits SPI and you make it clear that you are mitigating risk rather than submitting your defence against the substantive complaint. We know of cases where GPRC reps have helped as well as where they have failed to help members on SPI, maybe because they are too busy or incompetent or ideologically opposed to your position.  

When it comes to quarterly GPRC reviews, you may well find that the Complaints Manager sends you a standard email saying how sorry they are that your SPI has been extended. You may well remain on SPI until DC hears your complaint. But sometimes GPRC does accept pleas in mitigation and will lift the SPI and allow you to resume your normal membership role while you wait for DC to investigate the substantive complaint against you. What have you got to lose by asking GPRC to lift your SPI? 

7. Anonymity 

Complainants often ask for anonymity and, if it’s a complaint against a sex-realist, the Referral Group often approves the request. Complainants don’t seem to have to justify why they want anonymity. They probably do it to unsettle you.  

8. Which complaints go to Disciplinary Committee? 

Technically, there are only two grounds of complaint (as set out in SOPD 1.2), namely that a member has contravened the party constitution and/or has breached the members’ Code of Conduct (CoC). But the CoC is broad: paragraph 7.3 states: “Members should take care to not bring the Green Party into disrepute by engaging in unethical conduct.” Effectively, then, bringing the party into disrepute is also a ground for complaint.  

If the Referral Group decides that the complaint is valid (and it doesn’t reject it under the UPVAM guidance) it may choose one of two options: refer it to DC or propose that it is dealt with via mediation, which is handled by the Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee (ADRC).  

In practice, the mediation route has rarely been taken in the cases that this guide is about. Participation is voluntary and there are no penalties for declining to take part so, even if you want to opt in, mediation won’t happen if your complainant declines.  

9. How to respond to the complaint against you 

The complaint against you will usually take the form of an itemised list of breaches of the CoC, each with supporting evidence. Our suggestion is that you go through the list of alleged breaches and refute them one by one and dispute the evidence as best you can. The latter is often easier than you might think because it’s often flimsy or subjective opinion or hearsay.  

Hearsay is when the complainant says, for example, that someone else told them that you said or did something. For example, the complainant says so-and-so told him that you said something transphobic to so-and-so. What was it? Has the complainant repeated it correctly? How reliable is it? Hearsay evidence does not normally stand up in court unless the witness who heard or saw it gives personal testimony to that effect.  DC is expected to disregard hearsay evidence. If they don’t, you’ll have a good chance of winning an appeal against a decision against you based on it.

10. Disciplinary Committee investigation and hearing  

The disciplinary committee (DC) is comprised of two reps from each region plus two elected by conference, which equals 22 members in all. This should be enough to deal with the cases before them in a timely manner. Sadly, that is not so. The reasons can only be guessed at because DC has a lamentable record of failure to publish minutes of its meetings, a task it is required to do like all the other party committees but has not done for a year or more. (DC is also meant to publish timely anonymised reports of case hearings but, again, it is a year or more behind in doing so.) 

Another likely reason for delay in your case is that not all the DC members who should be investigating and hearing cases are given cases to deal with. The allocation of cases is in the hands of the DC co-chairs and they seem to favour some members and ignore others. Furthermore, there are chronic delays in electing DC reps. Reps are elected by their region and some regions seem to lack the will or capacity to arrange DC elections in good time when vacancies arise.   

DC’s two essential tasks are investigation and hearing. The normal investigation process is for your case to be allocated to a team of two investigators who will interview relevant parties and witnesses and collect evidence and prepare reports for the hearing panel. On occasion, however, DC may decide that a case may be decided ‘on the papers’ under SOPD 4.2, that is, where there is enough evidence in the complaint form and supporting documents and the response for DC to hold a hearing and make a decision without further investigation. 

SPI cases are meant to be prioritised under SOPD 4.1, but this does not seem to happen in practice. The DC co-chairs, whose job it is to prioritise cases, are not accountable to your GPRC rep or anyone else. (In a sense they are accountable to Conference in a vague and general way: like all party committees, DC chairs must provide a report on overall performance to Conference, but the one in 2024 was so controversial that a couple of DC reps issued their own minority report that disagreed with it.) 

Investigation reports should be completed within two months under SOPD 4.9, but this does not often happen in practice. When they are done, the Complaints Manager will send them to the members on the hearing panel, the respondent and the complainant two weeks ahead of the hearing along with relevant supporting documents (SOPD 4.10). 

Most hearings nowadays take place on Zoom or Microsoft Teams. SOPD provides for DC to cater for the accessibility requirements of the parties. Despite that, DC is sometimes inflexible about rearranging hearings that they set for dates when you are unavailable. (Past examples of DC inflexibility include booked holiday or recent bereavement.) Our suggestion is that you to argue for postponement on accessibility grounds and make it an appeal issue if you are refused.  

DC hearings usually involve a panel of three to judge the case. Others may be present, including a minute-taker and maybe another DC member who is observing because they are new to the role. You must be allowed to attend and speak, obviously, but precisely when and how is up to the chair. Some ask the investigator (if there is one) to lead off. Others may go straight to asking you for your response. It varies. That is why it’s a good idea to be accompanied by another party member for support. They are like a McKenzie Friend in court, someone who can help by giving you moral support, taking notes and quietly giving you advice, but who is not normally allowed to speak to the hearing panel unless permitted to do so by the chair. The fact that they have to be a party member obviously excludes many people with experience and expertise in dealing with hearings who have already been suspended or expelled. Ironic.  

In our experience, complainants are frequently absent from the hearing, especially if it is a weak case and the damage they sought has already been done by putting you on SPI for months.

11. Outcomes, appeal and further action 

After the hearing DC should advise you of the outcome in writing within five working days. In practice, this will be by email from the Complaints Manager. Often this does not happen in time.  

The outcome may be that DC dismisses the complaint entirely or that it applies a sanction. The sanctions range from formal warning (a metaphorical slap on the wrist) to suspension from certain privileges for certain durations (for example, you can’t stand for an officer role for two years) to outright expulsion.  

Your right of appeal is to the GPRC Appeals Subcommittee. You can only appeal on technical grounds, for example that the decision was procedurally unfair, or based on incorrect information, or the punishment was disproportionately severe. You do not have a right of appeal on the ground that you disagree with the decision and you want a fresh panel to hear the evidence all over again. (That said, one of the possible outcomes of an appeal hearing is that it directs your case to be re-heard by a fresh panel of DC reps.) 

You may be able to take legal action against the party. Some members who have been discriminated against have done this or are doing this. But the process is expensive, stressful and subject to time limits. 

12. Summary of your rights 

As a GPEW member, even while on SPI, you have rights under the party’s Complaints Procedure and under the Human Rights Act 1998, above all, Article 6, the right to a fair trial. You have the right to: 

  • be treated fairly and according to the rules of natural justice, which cover the right to be heard by an independent and impartial decision-maker 
  • be given all the relevant information about the complaints against you 
  • respond and submit evidence in your defence 
  • have your suspension reviewed by GPRC at quarterly reviews 
  • a fair hearing within a reasonable time 
  • reasonable adjustments for disability or physical or mental ill-health at your hearing 
  • appeal from DC to GPRC, for example if the decision against you was procedurally unfair, or based on incorrect information, or the punishment was disproportionately severe 
13. Support Available 

We have produced this guide because we know how distressing, depressing and discombobulating it can be to find yourself suddenly hit with a complaint – often with a suspension – out of the blue. Some of us have suffered mental stress and ill-health, especially where we have been devoted and committed party members for years, taking on responsible jobs and making friends with other Greens.  

Having all that taken away from you – especially by suspension – is hard and it’s the reason why many of us hold that the process is the punishment.  

In theory, the Complaints Manager can provide guidance about the process. In practice, we have found them unresponsive, which is no doubt due to the fact that they are drowning in paperwork caused by malicious complainants compounded by a Referral Group that fails to triage and reject complaints as it should. In practice, you may as well go straight to the party’s (recently created) Complaints Procedure pages as wait for the Complaints Manager to tell you the same.  

We have a number of suggestions for what you can do if you need assistance: 

  • Try for mediation through the ADRC. See 5 above.  
  • Speak to trusted party colleagues (as well as friends and other people who can support you, obviously). They may have experience and insights that can help you with your response or reassurance as to what the likely outcomes are.  
14. Where to Find More Information 

Key documents are available on the Green Party members’ website, mainly via the Complaints Procedure guide (but note that some of the links are behind the login screen, which means you cannot see them if you are on SPI).

Greens in Exile
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. Read our privacy policy.