Green candidate quits party after Stock campaign questions
Tom Pashby
A newly-selected Green party candidate has announced they have quit the party after reportedly accusing another member of “intimidating” questions over the campaign against a philosophy professor.
Tom Pashby was widely quoted supporting the campaign against Professor Kathleen Stock, which led to her quitting the University of Sussex.
The campaign, which featured masked figures setting off flares and posters describing her as transphobic being put up across the campus, was investigated as harassment by Sussex Police and condemned by the university.
Some Green party members objected after Mx Pashby, who identifies as non-binary, was selected as a candidate for the Regency ward for next year’s elections.
On Saturday, the local party met to be introduced to all its new candidates.
But Mx Pashby walked out after being questioned by another member, Steve Moses, as to whether they were critical of the campaign against Professor Stock.
This afternoon, they posted on Twitter: “I have resigned my membership of the Green Party of England and Wales, and from my role as a candidate for Regency ward in Brighton for the 2023 elections.
“I won’t be making any further comment at this stage.”
In a series of tweets posted on Saturday, Mr Moses said: At the end of the meeting I asked if he was at all critical of the intimidation and harassment used against Professor Stock that lead to her leaving the university.
He said ‘No I’m not.’ I said I wouldn’t be able to support his election or campaign on his behalf. At that point I left.
Another member then asked if he’d read Stock’s book Material Girls. I’m told he replied ‘No way’.
“He then stated that my questions to him had constituted intimidation and left the meeting himself.
“I accept that my ‘gender critical’ views do not reflect current GP policy. That many members support self ID and the rights of trans women to share spaces and opportunities set aside for women and girls.
“But I won’t support a Green Party candidate who was spokesperson for a campaign of harassment and intimidation against a woman who’s only crime was to speak up for women’s rights.”
Brighton and Hove Green Party and Mx Pashby have been approached for comment.
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Another controversial Green Party candidate. Is it not enough to have non domicile councillors and a carbon burning flight jetting leader without selected candidates abandoning the sinking ship.
Was he pushed or did he realise the party is finished.
This city deserves better.
Katy your Labour friends have even more unsavoury characters.
Some kicked out, some let back in and others defected because of local Labour and their AS focus.
Your Labour kept the Greens in power here with an alliance of your own.
No matter how you attempt to deflect, Labour is as guilty as the Greens.
That will be remembered.
This is really upsetting . Tom would have been the ideal fit for a Green councillor in Brighton . . with his vast experience of life , politics and commerce , and his mild-mannered outlook on life, he would have brought so much to the table.
Its seems they would not be if they can’t handle a few probing questions from their own party members. The Tories would tear them to shreds.
Do you support harrassment, intimidation and bullying of people you disagree with too?
Nothing in this article suggests Green party members harassed, intimidated or bullied Tom. Tom was asked some difficult questions about their involvement in the campaign against Prof Stock and rather stand by their involvement in it, Tom simply left the meeting of their own choice.
My point was that politics is incredibly rough and that if Tom couldn’t handle a few questions from the friendly side, then they likely couldn’t handle much tougher questions from the opposition and therefore was an unsuitable candidate.
Given that he supports intimidation but can’t handle receiving it, it makes him a hypocrite. He would therefore have fitted in well with the other hypocrites in the Green Party. Flying to the Climate summit, anyone?
This is a tiresome argument – calling someone hypocritical for producing carbon emissions while trying to work to reduce them is a classic nirvana fallacy. Like saying we can’t use electric vehicles because fossil fuels were used to produce them. It conveniently ignores the fact that the end result, while not perfect, is better than the status quo. And travelling to contribute to a climate summit, by any means, is more laudable than sitting at home typing snarky comments on a local news site.
Silas
I’ve just checked the date and it’s not April 1st.
I can only assume then your comment is sarcastic and one that made me laugh.
If not, I would highly recommend getting help if that is your view.
Rest assured – it was , indeed, sarcasm! No help required
Oops. Totally went over my head.
“Mild mannered”. He took part in a campaign of intimidation that was so bad a women had to quit her job & her employer called in the police!
Good riddance! He is anything but mid-mannered. He is a bloody nuisance, happy to ruin other people lives if they are not in agreement with him and his crazy party. And please may we now have an end to all this “woke” nonsense, constantly being perpetuated by the Labour/Green morons, and the idiots who support them. Many of us are completely fed up with being told what to think and what to say – a tiresome process constantly perpetuated by a narrow and feeble minded community that would not be out of place in the old Soviet Union.
Harassing people out of their jobs for the ‘crime’ of believing in biological reality is not something that should celebrated.
He would have brought so much more trouble to the table.
Mild mannnered? Bully more like. Good riddance to him
So your idea of an ideal candidate is someone who
1) Supports the hounding and harassment of a lesbian academic and thinks that shouting slogans, letting of flares, putting up posters accusing her of hate all around her place of employment, graffiti-ing her door of her office etc. etc. is totally fine.
2) Thinks that someone politely asking if they support the above and whether they have read the academic’s book (and by implication are engaging with the issues not an ad hominem attack) is such a dreadful and insupportable attack on their personal safety that they have to leave the party?
Okay, sure….
Perhaps the Green Party can now find someone that has had a job and has had decent and relevant life experience to becoming a councilor. I am shocked that after the way this decent academic was treated and the bad publicity this protest gave to the transgender movement that he was not deselected straight away. There should be no place for someone like this in mainstream political parties.
Disgusting that he was even selected. He expects a lesbian feminist academic to put up with rape threats, death threats, and masked men in her workplace, yet a question at hustings constitutes abuse?
And to add to that, he celebrates targeted harassment yet has failed to read the book he objects to?
The Green Party has a serious issue with ensuring their inclusion policies do not include under qualified misogynists taking up positions of responsibility
Poor Max ! lesson #1 in politics/life . . . if you can’t take it : don’t dish it out
it is shame it is not the miraculous writing on the wall for the green party: Max kicked thimself out and the green party will quickly find a replacement….
Yes – it’s just a question of going to the fruitcake shop and getting the biggest one
Ah! I’ve just got it! I thought he was called Max, but it’s Mx.. . . Kool!
Inclusivity is sure excluding a lot of rational people.
Thin skinned and completely unsuited to public office. Let us hope common sense comes to the fore at the next election with a tranche of independent councillors standing who don’t identify as Unicorns. I doubt it though.
More of this please.
It’s great to see some internal party action.
Far too many members and officers have taken positions against women’s rights and against any woman who dares speak up for women’s rights.
Men like Steve Moses can help to stop the Green Party from it’s slow backslide to the values of 1800’s male chauvanism.