Mick Hartley

The state of the Greens:

The leader of Newham’s Green party walked out of the borough’s full council meeting on Monday night after being repeatedly misgendered by Labour councillors.

Danny Keeling, who is non-binary, accused colleagues of discrimination following the meeting.

The Stratford Olympic Park councillor was speaking against Newham Labour’s budget plans when they were referred to as “he” by council chairman Winston Vaughan.

In his apology, Mr Vaughan again misgendered them.

“I’ve been informed that I’ve been misrepresenting the councillor,” Mr Vaughan said. “I should have said ‘them’ rather than ‘he’. So I do apologise for that. And I think that’s what affected him, is it? Them, sorry. So my apologies to him. To them. Sorry.”

Oh dear. Tragically, the misgendering continued:

Keeling was again misgendered by council finance lead Zulfiqar Ali, prompting them to walk out of the meeting.

Afterwards they said: “Discrimination in the workplace and workplace bullying should never happen. These meetings are public and live streamed, what message does this send in LGBT+ history month.”

“My local councillor and chair of [council] attempted to apologise to me by misgendering me once again.

“I am beyond annoyed and upset at this point. I should not come into this chamber to be dealt with like this".