Green Party’s diversity workshop urges members to log jokes and audit friends’ backgrounds

Green Party activists attended a diversity and inclusion workshop that encouraged them to keep written records of jokes or comments they find uncomfortable, including specifics like date and venue, and to submit these records to party officials. The training also featured an exercise where members listed their five nearest friends and indicated if they shared the same ethnicity, gender, religion, or education level, highlighting the concept of "affinity bias" and urging the formation of more diverse friendships.

Scenarios presented included jokes about a Polish colleague and a comment about a man's sexual orientation, both framed as potentially harassing. Critics such as Labour MP David Taylor and Free Speech Union chief Lord Young compared the measures to the surveillance tactics of the East German Stasi. The Green Party defended the program, describing it as a routine effort to create safe and welcoming spaces within the organization.