Mick Hartley

Meanwhile, in Bristol:

The leader of Bristol city council has said his colleagues “have the right” to hold up trans rights placards and walk out of public meetings when women raise concerns about their safety in single-sex spaces.

Tony Dyer, of the ruling Green Party, told a council meeting that his party colleagues did not have to listen to opinions they found offensive.

“This is a democracy,” he told a woman in the public gallery. “You have the right to come here and make statements. Councillors have the right to decide whether those statements are offensive to them and how they want to respond.”

They’re councillors. They were voted in to listen to the people they represent. What kind of democracy is it if they walk out, like spoiled children with hands over their ears, rather than listen to people with perfectly reasonable points to make that they don’t happen to agree with?

Bristol city council has criticised the Supreme Court ruling that for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, the words “woman” and “man” refer to sex at birth. Last month 18 Green councillors walked out during a meeting of the full council whenever members of the public questioned gender ideology.

At the next full council meeting, on Tuesday, members of the public who raised the Supreme Court ruling and the conduct of councillors were met with a display of handwritten placards and Pride flags from the Green benches and a number of councillors walked out.

It’s the old “no debate” line that’s been a favourite tactic of trans campaigners for years now. It’s getting stale. People are seeing through it. Not the Greens, though.

And when it comes from elected councillors, it comes with an unpleasantly totalitarian smell.