Rise and fall
The Guardian ran an excited piece about Aimee Challenor back in early June:
Aimee Challenor has raised her sights since she became a Green party member three years ago. She didn’t think she was suited to politics then. “I’d stopped going out because I was worried about how the world saw me. But politics has been a kind of rehabilitation,” she says. “I was a 17-year-old trans girl in Coventry. I thought I’d deliver leaflets at the general election.”
Far from not suiting politics, she is now standing to be deputy leader of the Green party. Voting takes place in August, when members will also select a new leader, after Caroline Lucas, the party’s first and only MP, announced last week that she was stepping down as the party’s co-leader. If elected, Challenor will be the first transgender person to hold the deputy role – and easily the youngest, at the age of 20. Is her age not a barrier? Challenor understands that people might see her as too young. “But just look,” she says, “at the amazing work that is being done by young people: by the SNP’s Mhairi Black in parliament; by young volunteers; by students coming together and campaigning.”
Or one could look at the fact that it takes time to acquire the education and experience needed to be a useful and effective politician.
Shortly after joining the Green party in 2015, Challenor became its equality spokeswoman, – a position she has held since 2016 – speaking mostly about LGBT issues. “I want us to get to a place where a young person doesn’t have to wonder if they’ll be bullied or made homeless when they come out,” she says. To start with, Challenor is campaigning to make it easier for non-binary and trans people under 18 to get legal recognition: “Without that change to the birth certificate, misgendering can lead to stress and other difficulties at school.” This would involve reform to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), on which the then-education secretary Justine Greening promised a consultation last year.
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Challenor lives with her parents in Coventry and was a Green party parliamentary candidate for Coventry South in 2017. Although she only got 1.3% of the vote, she says support is growing…
Her anger about cuts to benefits and local public services is also personal: she helps care for her mother, who uses a wheelchair. “The move from the disability living allowance to the personal independence payment has been a shambles. My mum has not been able to get the support she needs.”
A rising young member of the Greens has pulled out of the race to become the party’s deputy leader after her father, who was previously her election agent, was jailed for abusing and raping a child.
Aimee Challenor, the Greens’ equalities spokeswoman, who was among the frontrunners in the leadership contest, said she had had no idea about the crimes, but was withdrawing to prevent the election process becoming “dominated by what my father has done”.
David Challenor, 50, was jailed for 22 years last week after being convicted of torturing and raping a 10-year-old girl in the attic of the family home in Coventry. He had served as Aimee Challenor’s election agent when she stood in the 2017 general election and in the local elections in May this year – after his arrest.
After his arrest.
And
Yup. No way she didn’t know about all of this (even if she was unaware of the facts of her father’s behavior prior to his arrest–that’s still possible, as unlikely as it might seem).
On the subject of Aimee’s age–what does a Deputy Leader of the Party do, precisely? That can matter greatly. If it’s largely a pulpit position, where you speak strongly and rally the base, then a young person can often carry that kind of passion as well as someone several years their senior, if not better. If it’s an actual policy-making role, of course, then there’s more to the critique that she was too young.
Putting aside the hideous nature of the abuse for a moment, It seems distantly possible that Aimee didn’t know what her father was doing. I can’t actually imagine being quite so oblivious though. Even if you’re not in the house when shit is going down, an attic dungeon seems like a hard thing to miss and there will always be behavioural cues that will not ring true. However, Not taking prompt action after his arrest, and not notifying the Green Party, is inexcusable. Quite apart what it says about Aimee from a moral and ethical standpoint; from a political standpoint it just shrieks of such appalling judgement that there is no way they could stand for even tea making duties let alone a leadership role.
As far as the Deputy Leader role goes, in any serious political movement it’s critical. Not only does the DL get to stand in for the Leader under a wide range of circumstances, but they also take a strong policy, administrative and management load off the Leader. Youth does not automatically preclude one from such a role, but a young person will always be at a disadvantage to an equally able opponent with a few more miles on the clock. A less than sure pair of hands in the deputy role just makes the party look like it has a short bench.
Rob, I don’t think anyone is accusing Aimee of knowing about the abuse; rather, that the charges were known yet the father was still hired. Which is ecpecially vile given the massive double standard displayed – another member was ousted for using the wrong pronouns.
Holms, the ousted member used the wrong pronouns for a trans individual. The father was merely busted for abusing a girl child (presumably cis, since the news didn’t mention any different). Where are your priorities?