Mick Hartley

Was yesterday's news from Stonewall, about job losses because of the Global Equality Fund (GEF) cuts by Trump, perhaps just a useful and politically expedient cover for its already plummeting fortunes? Joan Smith at UnHerd:

There’s something about these events that doesn’t add up. According to The Times, Stonewall’s chief executive, Simon Blake, warned last week that up to half of the organisation’s 114 staff might lose their jobs in a “restructuring” exercise, something that has been blamed on Donald Trump’s cuts to foreign aid. Yet American money makes up a relatively small proportion of the organisation’s annual income of almost £7 million.

Stonewall’s financial problems existed long before Trump’s second stint in the White House. Organisations have been leaving its “Diversity Champions” scheme in droves, belatedly realising that the annual fee isn’t good value for money, given that Stonewall’s advice often reflects the law as the organisation would like it to be, rather than it actually is. Private donations and money from wills are falling, and its accounts for 2023-24 showed a deficit of £858,461, up from £574,269.

Local authorities, health trusts and other publicly-funded bodies have discovered that disciplining employees who don’t toe the Stonewall line is likely to land them in expensive — and reputation-damaging — employment tribunals. The organisation has squandered its good name through overreach, piggy-backing the demands of trans activists onto an outstandingly successful campaign for gay rights.

The question that has to be asked is whether Stonewall’s hand-wringing is an attempt to secure access to yet more public funding. Money from UK “Government sources” is one of the few metrics that has increased in recent years, rising from £572,868 to £618,757 last year. That’s almost three times what Stonewall received from the US (£233,583), and several of the donors, including the Scottish and Welsh governments, are as dogmatically attached to gender ideology as ever.

Stonewall has also enjoyed a close relationship with leading members of Keir Starmer’s Cabinet: Health Secretary Wes Streeting was formerly a campaigner for the group, while Women and Equalities Minister Anneliese Dodds seemingly uses its prescriptions as a guide for Labour policy. Trump is a hate figure for many within Starmer’s party, but the Government should not allow him to be a scapegoat for problems Stonewall has brought on itself.

It struggles on then, Stonewall, awaiting that final stake through the heart.