A letter to police chiefs

Well that could change things.

Police forces have been threatened with legal action over their links to Stonewall, amid concerns the controversial charity’s transgender training is impacting their impartiality.

Campaigners have written to chief constables warning they will begin legal proceedings against any force that remains part of the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme beyond a “period of consideration”.

I wonder if Police Scotland is having second thoughts.

Some 250 public authorities, including about half of police forces in England and Wales, pay at least £2,500 a year for advice on gender-neutral facilities and pronouns, which leading barristers have said “misrepresents” the 2010 Equality Act.

It’s an odd thing when you think about it. Who are Stonewall to be giving this “advice”? They’re a campaign group, not a collection of legal experts. Campaign groups are a good thing, but that doesn’t mean they necessarily have a kind of expertise that police forces should be paying for.

I also wonder if any women’s group has ever had this kind of ability to tell the police what’s what.

Now in a letter to police chiefs, seen by The Telegraph, former constable Harry Miller has warned forces that their affiliation with Stonewall breaches police rules on political activity and association with groups that could create a conflict of interest.

That’s another way of saying the above. Stonewall aren’t experts but activists; why do cops get training from activists rather than experts? What’s the thinking here?

The Telegraph understands that two forces are currently investigating officers’ use of Twitter accounts to push Stonewall’s trans stance, including one tweet that said it had “reported” users’ comments deemed “hateful” towards trans and non-binary people.

Finally! We’ve been objecting to this pattern for months and months.

The pressure comes as the Ministry of Justice is leading an “exodus” of Government departments from Stonewall, with Justice Secretary Robert Buckland understood to be concerned about its “dubious” training and approach to free speech.

A Stonewall spokesperson said that “organisations come and go” from their Diversity Champions programme, but it is “continuing to grow” with 30 organisations joining in the past year.

They said they are “confident in our advice on the Equality Act” and “very proud” of their work with member companies.

But who made them the boss of anything? Are they accountable to anyone?

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