The Telegraph on Jolyon Maugham’s campaign to destroy women’s sports.

Almost two weeks ago the Maugham-led GLP announced it had begun legal action against the England and Wales Cricket Board over the latter’s transgender participation policy. The threatened lawsuit is the latest attention-grabbing case taken on by the GLP, which was founded by Maugham, an arch-Remainer, in January 2017 in the wake of the Brexit referendum.

Best known for defeating Boris Johnson’s government at the Supreme Court over the then prime minister’s 2019 prorogation of parliament, the group is now determined to overturn the same court’s ruling that only those born female should be deemed women under the 2010 Equality Act.

It seems such an abject tautology, doesn’t it? That only those born female should be deemed women?

Confirming the GLP’s legal challenge would focus on the “grass-roots” level of cricket, he said: “We will say that if you have a team that has a trans player and that team is happy to have a trans player in there and their opponents are also happy to play a team that has a trans player, why is it anyone else’s business?”

News flash: the other team won’t be happy. Why? Because that would be an unfair advantage. His hypothetical is like asking if the other party is happy to be robbed or assaulted or slandered.

He went on to reveal the GLP had “been in touch with football players” and teams who were “upset” about losing trans team-mates since the FA banned those born male from the women’s game. 

Yes, because they’re losing their unfair advantage.

And he warned the FA it faced being sued as well if the GLP won its case against the ECB. “If it doesn’t fall into line in a world in which we have won, we will certainly bring proceedings against the Football Association as well,” he said, indicating the ECB case could be the first of many.

“It’s a test case brought at the grass-roots sports level, but I think it does have implications for all sporting codes and, indeed, at all levels. There is no basis, we think, in law to adopt a hard-and-fast rule that trans people aren’t allowed to compete.”

That isn’t the rule though.

The GLP’s legal action was condemned by Sharron Davies, a leading campaigner for the protection of the women’s category in sport. “I’m horrified,” she said. “Yet again, this is all about shoehorning males into sport for females. The law has made it clear, and science has proved, we cannot remove all male physical advantage. In a sport like cricket, where a male can bowl considerably faster and harder, it’s not safe or fair to have non-conforming males in any level of female cricket. We’ve already seen male-on-female injuries.

“We find girls and women self-exclude when they are treated as less worthy of protection. And we know including males excludes females from female sport. Females are constantly told they ought to move over, stay quiet and give up their rights. This can’t be allowed to happen anymore. It’s up to all sports governing bodies, including in cricket, to make non-conforming males feel safe and welcome in male sport.”

But Jolyon Maugham somehow manages to disagree with that.