Open letter to Daisy Cooper

Dear Daisy,

We watched with interest your response to a question from a caller on the Iain Dale phone-in last September. 

The caller asked you to comment on the fact that gender critical Lib Dem members had been likened - by Lib Dem councillors, senior officer-bearers and activists - to “an infestation of pubic lice”.

“TERFs are like bedbugs, or pubic lice: once you’ve got them you need to actively MAKE them go away.”

The screenshots in this letter were all written by the same activist.

“Good. Cry more, bastards”

Your response was that this was “distasteful” and that those who were offended by being referred to in those terms should “go directly to the complaints process which is independent of MPs”.

As it happens, complaints have already been made about these posts, and the complaints have been dismissed. Subsequently, an appeal was made. The appeal was also dismissed. Nothing to see here, apparently.

We are not able to go into detail about the decision due to Standards decisions being confidential, but it is evident that the panel did not deem the statements to have breached the Members’ Code of Conduct, which can be viewed here.

“Said pubic louse got told to go piss in the wind by the complaints process.

Instead of taking the hint that everyone hates them and all their bullshit works, they set out to prove me right.”

Unsurprisingly, the outcome of this is that the abusive posts have persisted and become increasingly menacing in nature, and the same office-bearing Lib Dems who apparently were not even required to issue an apology for sharing them continue to endorse and disseminate this content.

“My only regret is that TERFS’ metabolisms keep going if you drench them in dimethicone.”

No secret is made of the fact this is targeted at an individual.

These are explicit, targeted threats:

“This post is addressing a specific TERF.”

“You come at the Queen or her friends, you better not miss, asshole.”

More threats:

“Too many people think transphobes can be reasoned with [...] Transphobes need to be FRIGHTENED.”

The abusive and threatening messages were targeted at Liberal Voice for Women Chair, Zoe Hollowood, because Zoe was the person who gave a speech at Spring Conference, in which she had called for an amendment to the part of the Constitution that includes “non-binary” people of both sexes in quotas designed for women. During her speech Zoe endured hecklers’ shouts of “shame” and “bigot”. We know that some of the MPs at Spring Conference witnessed this and some were shocked to see that the abuse observed online is equally obnoxious in real life.

Subsequently, a complaint was made against Zoe based on the fact that during her speech she had referred to some (hypothetical) non-binary people as being of the male sex. Of course this complaint was dismissed as it obviously did not break any rules. But as we know the process is the punishment.

We frequently hear the claim that the sex and gender debate is “toxic” because of bad behaviour on “both sides”. To people who make this claim, we ask if they can see any equivalence between someone referring to certain people as “male” in a context where sex matters (namely sex-based quotas), and describing a fellow member as part of “an infestation” and needing “to be frightened” because of her legally protected belief. The differential standards which gender critical members are expected to adhere to compared to trans activists could not be more stark.

Daisy, we are telling you as we have told you before: this debate is not going away. The “independent” complaints system you referred to in your interview is clearly failing in its purpose. If the party is willing to tolerate the ongoing dehumanisation and targeted harassment of members, then questions must be raised over its fitness to govern. Ed has promised time and again that there will be a “mature debate” about the impact of trans activist demands on women’s rights, but has so far done nothing to facilitate it. How long will this inaction go on?

This situation will not be resolved until party leaders like you and Ed start to lead from the front. We implore you to defend party members’ rights to articulate ordinary beliefs about the immutability and salience of sex, and to call out dehumanising hate speech for what it is.

Our petition calling on Mark Pack to undertake a review of the treatment of gender critical Lib Dem members is still live. Please consider signing it. It would be a small but significant first step in getting beyond the current woeful situation. If you don’t want to sign the petition we would be keen to hear what other solutions you would like to propose.

Yours,

Liberal Voice for Women