Allison Bailey’s case against Stonewall will proceed
Allison Bailey is suing Stonewall Diversity Limited to stop them policing free speech.
She is a barrister and helped to set up a new organisation for lesbian, gay and bisexual people, the LGB Alliance, to provide an alternative to Stonewall. In retaliation, Stonewall had her investigated by her chambers.
In a prehearing on Febuary 11 and 12 Stonewall and Garden Court Chambers argued that her case against them had no reasonable prospects of success and should be struck out. They failed. The judge said she has a good arguable case with more than reasonable prospects of success.
Every aspect of her case proceeds to a trial in June (1-10 June 2021).
As Legal Feminist writes:
During this hearing, it emerged that Stonewall had leaned hard on Garden Court, writing emails which were characterised by the judge as a “threat” of reputational damage to Garden Court, including that for Garden Court to continue to support Allison “puts us in a difficult position with yourselves”, that Stonewall trusted Garden Court “would do what is right and stand in solidarity with trans people”, and that Garden Court must take disciplinary action against Allison or, as summarised by her barrister, face the reputational consequences.
Unsurprisingly, the judge concluded that it was at least arguable that this was “inducing” Garden Court to take the steps against Allison Bailey which it did. She also concluded that the Diversity Champions Scheme provided the requisite relationship, and that Allison had a “more than reasonable” argument that the steps taken amounted to discrimination. She refused the strike out application and granted the application to amend.