MP Joanna Cherry threatens legal action over cancelled show

SNP MP Joanna Cherry is threatening to take legal action against an Edinburgh venue which cancelled a Fringe show in which she was due to appear.

She says she will take "whatever legal action is necessary" unless The Stand admits that it acted unlawfully, issues an apology and reinstates the event.

The venue had cancelled the show after staff said they were not comfortable with her views on transgender issues.

The Stand has not yet responded to Ms Cherry's comments.

The Edinburgh South West MP had been due to take part in a series of In Conversation With... events in August.

Ms Cherry is a critic of Scotland's gender recognition reform plans, which make it easier for people to change their legally-recognised sex.

Last week she told BBC Scotland she felt she had been "cancelled and no-platformed" because she was a lesbian who holds gender-critical views.

She said she had been "greatly heartened" by the support she had received since the story became public, and had decided to seek legal advice.

"I am prepared to take whatever legal action is necessary to vindicate my right not to be misrepresented and not to be discriminated against," she said.

"This is not about money. My primary goal is to have the actions of The Stand acknowledged as unlawful and to ensure the event proceeds.

"I have asked The Stand to apologise to me too. If they don't agree with my reasonable requests, I intend to ask the court to decide on the issue."

Ms Cherry said the decision to cancel her show was symptomatic of a wider problem in society.

"I am very concerned that those who hold perfectly legitimate views on a variety of issues, including women like me, are regularly being misrepresented, de-platformed and, in some cases, facing damage to or the loss of our livelihoods," she added.

"This is often accompanied by online abuse and threats.

"The debate on gender self-identification is a very important one which must be allowed to take place, but I am a woman of many parts who was engaged to talk about my political life in general and I see the cancelling of my one-hour event as the thin end of the wedge."

The Stand said it would not be making any further comment until it had discussed the matter with its solicitors.

In a statement released last week, the venue said that a number of its key operational staff - including venue management and box office personnel - were unwilling to work on the event.

The statement said: "We will ensure that their views are respected.

"We will not compel our staff to work on this event and so have concluded that the event is unable to proceed on a properly staffed, safe and legally-compliant basis.

"We advised the show producers, Fair Pley Productions, of this operational issue and they advised Joanna Cherry that it is no longer possible to host the event in our venue."

The Stand - which was co-founded by SNP MP Tommy Sheppard - said it did not endorse the views of any participant in the In Conversation With... series, which is organised by independent producer Fair Pley.

Mr Sheppard, who sits on the venue's board and is believed to be one of a number of shareholders, said it would be wrong to characterise it as a dispute between him and Ms Cherry.

The Scottish Events Campus in Glasgow was ordered to pay almost £100,000 in damages to a controversial evangelical US preacher after axing his event in 2020.

Franklin Graham's appearance at the Hydro was scrapped following pressure from Glasgow City Council, Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie and campaigners over his views on issues such as homosexuality, Islam and Donald Trump.

Venue staff had claimed the move was due to security and protest concerns but a sheriff ruled that Mr Graham had been discriminated against and that the SEC had breached the Equality Act by not letting him perform.

In his ruling, Sheriff John McCormick said: "The pursuer's right to engage a speaker at the evangelical event - in furtherance of a religious or philosophical belief - is protected by law".