Support for libelled Green Party councillors
Support for libelled Green Party councillors
Latest: Aug. 28, 2022
Media coverage to date:
Media coverage:
https://www.countercut.co.uk/p/disgraced-labour-cllr-jack…
Read morehttps://twitter.com/jackedeakin/status/1558168845709344770?s=21
On 12 August, 2022 Birmingham City Labour Councillor Jack Deakin retweeted a positive article about former Labour councillors who moved to the Green Party, BUT He added his own comment
“The Green Party – proud to host your antisemites for you. Put that on a billboard, bab.”
He is clearly referring to the Green councillors named in the link to the article he retweeted.
We have contacted him and submitted a Code of Conduct complaint to Birmingham City Council. He has refused to apologise. The tweet remains live at the time of writing.
Who are we? - Councillors for the Green Party: Ekua Bayunu, Jo Bird, Kevin Frea and Heather Skibsted
Summary -Please support Green Party councillors in their libel challenge against Labour councillor, Jack Deakin.
Call to action - We are asking for donations towards our legal costs to commence legal action against Mr Deakin. We need your support: please contribute and share this page now!
What are we trying to achieve? -
We have learned from many people’s bitter experience, that to take no effective challenge to smears increases the risk of further libel and damage - no matter how vexatious or evidence-free the allegations are.
Such allegations undermine all forms of anti-racism and could be damaging for many elected Green Party representatives and members.
We want to nip this in the bud and send a clear message to everyone that Anti-semitism is a serious form of racism and casually throwing around unfounded allegations undermines the real struggles by Jewish people and their allies to fight real cases of antisemitism.
What is the next step in the case? -
Having exhausted the direct approach asking for the tweet to be deleted and an apology issued, we have now sought legal advice and have been informed that our claim has reasonable prospects of succeeding.
We now need to commence the legal action, pre-action stage, which we need your assistance with.
How much we are raising and why? -
Unlike MPs, local councillors are not well paid. We have allowances, not salaries. We are asking for contributions towards our legal costs. Whilst further amounts may be required, at this stage, £3,600 is required to commence the claim and we have put some of our own money on account towards this sum.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and please donate to support our legal action.
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Councillors for the Green Party: Ekua Bayunu, Jo Bird, Kevin Frea and Heather Skibsted
Aug. 28, 2022
Media coverage to date:
Media coverage:
https://www.countercut.co.uk/p/disgraced-labour-cllr-jack-deakin
If you see any coverage locally or nationally. Please post links in the comments.
Also please pass on to the journalists in your networks.
Thank you.
Councillors for the Green Party: Ekua Bayunu, Jo Bird, Kevin Frea and Heather Skibsted
Aug. 28, 2022
Over £3000 raised in less than 4 days!
We’re half way to our extended target!
£6,500 is the amount we need to ensure we can follow up quickly and with precision after Cllr Deakin receives our first action.
We hope he sees sense and responds quickly to our demands to have a public apology for his outrageous defamation.
But with your help, we will be ready to move quickly forward piling on the pressure.
We have had so much support. With over £3,000 pledged in 3 days. We can now truly see how much we have all needed to to see grassroots members like us stand up to these types of outrageous and frankly racist behaviours.
Thank you ,
Ekua, Jo, Heather & Kevin
Here as promised all 4 of our videos.
Kevin: https://youtu.be/icB-GTvNBtw
Heather: https://youtu.be/-m_viwEUnqg
Jo: https://youtu.be/N7v0Btg0F_c
Ekua: https://youtu.be/52y5oK-C54s
Councillors for the Green Party: Ekua Bayunu, Jo Bird, Kevin Frea and Heather Skibsted
Aug. 27, 2022
THANKYOU! Initial target reached!
Thank you everyone who helped us reach this massive milestone.
Adding this money to the money we’ve each put in individually means we can instruct the solicitor to act immediately!
We shared the cost of the first action as £3,600 and with your help we hit the £2,500 contribution towards it in 48hours.
We are uplifted by this support.
Now if we get an immediate positive response from Councillor Deakin.
Removing the Defamatory Tweet.
Issuing a retraction AND an apology on Twitter
That will be an end.
If we reach £6,500 on here, we can get some of our money back and our solicitor can do the follow up work.
So we have set an expansion target of £6,500.
However we will close this campaign as soon as we are satisfied that our message (and we take from your messages of support, that it is now All OUR Message) has been heard!
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