“The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.” ― George Orwell, 1984

Liberal Democrats who are pushing back against the ideological capture of the party by transactivists face re-education to correct their beliefs. This is the story of how it is carried out.

In 2020, the disciplinary sub-group of the party’s Federal Board, drafted a ‘Definition of Transphobia’. The sub-group comprised Candy Piercy and two Federal Board colleagues. The Transphobia Definition was envisaged as a device that could be used to ‘educate’ or purge party members who fail to accept the mantra, “Transwomen are women”. Its wording draws heavily on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, with key words substituted as required. This similarity caused raised eyebrows in some quarters.

The sub-group’s new Definition was then approved by the ‘Steering Group’ of the Federal Board, which is chaired by president Mark Pack. It was never discussed by the full board or debated or considered by any other party body – a surprising absence of democracy, some might say. On the 19th September 2020 its adoption was announced to the readers of Liberal Democrat Voice as being ‘key to supporting the Party’s disciplinary processes’, as though it had just been handed down to Moses on the peak of Mount Sinai.