Winsford councillor made to leave event at Storyhouse in Chester

Cllr Mandy Clare, who represents the Winsford Dene ward, appeared on GB News last Sunday discussing an incident which occurred at Chester Storyhouse's Women Weekend on March 2.

During one of the talks, Cllr Clare asked a question of speaker Patsy Stevenson, accusing her of being 'hypocritical' about her stance on the freedom of speech and 'lying' about a group of protesting women, who had been 'disinvited' as stallholders at the event.

After receiving an answer from Ms Stevenson, Cllr Clare and fellow CWAC councillor Simon Boone, who filmed the exchange, were escorted from the theatre.

Police were also called and confirmed the protest was 'largely peaceful', but a number of people at the event, who had been asked to leave, were given advice.

Re-iterating the Storyhouse theatre's trans-inclusive stance, a spokeswoman confirmed audience members and visitors are only asked to leave 'if they engage in disruptive behaviour'.

Speaking to GB News, Cllr Clare, who recently joined Kellie-Jay Keen's new Party of Women, said: "I'm kind of known locally as a councillor who raises concerns and issues around women's rights, women's dignity, our language, child safeguarding concerns etc, in relation to the debate around sex and gender.

Protesters at the Storyhouse Women Weekend (Image: Mandy Clare)

"I attended Patsy Stevenson's panel event and while I was in that event, I noticed she tweeted and described the women as 'GC' [gender critical], she didn't say 'GC women or people'.

"She said: 'there's a group of GC outside the event, really sorry to any of my followers, please don't speak to or engage with them', and that she understood 'they were there to aggressively challenge and create social media content', which they weren't.

"I just asked her some reasonable questions. I asked her because she had earlier commented she was in favour of freedom of speech and the right to protest regardless of whether people agreed with her views or she agreed with theirs.

"In principal she was in support of that but then she denigrated these women and lied about them.

"So I asked her, given that basis, 'why did you do that? Are you aware they're just outside leafletting because: they don't want women to have to refer to their rapist as 'she' in court; they don't want disabled women to be forced to have intimate care from men if that's not what they want; and they don't want women to be intimately strip-searched by male police officers who are claiming that they're women.

"That's what the women have been disinvited for."

Ms Stevenson's tweet read: "Right now there are a group of GC trying to goad people into getting aggressive so they can film it for content.

"It’s just outside Storyhouse where I’m doing my talk today, I apologise to any of my followers who have to walk past them, please don’t interact with them."

The Storyhouse spokeswoman said: "Storyhouse’s position has never wavered. Storyhouse is and always will be an inclusive, safe space, and is proudly trans-inclusive.

"As an organisation, we only partner with organisations who share our values.

"Storyhouse will only ask audience members or visitors to leave if they are engaging in disruptive behaviour, contrary to our rules and regulations.

"We apologise to Storyhouse Women audiences that there was disruption during an event on Saturday, March 2.

"Storyhouse Women Weekend was a brilliant, positive and empowering weekend of communities coming together to celebrate women."

A Cheshire Police spokesman said: "On Saturday, March 2, police were made aware of a small protest outside the Storyhouse in Chester.

"Officers conducted regular patrols in the area and the protest was largely peaceful.

"No offences were reported, although a small group of people were asked to leave the building and given words of advice."

Cllr Mandy Clare with Kellie-Jay Keen at the Standing for Women event in Liverpool last summer (Image: Supplied)

In her GB News interview, Cllr Clare also discussed her new political party, saying: "Party for Women is Kellie-Jay Keen's organisation.

"She's set up a brand new political party, which is for women, it's about women's rights, it's about women's dignity, our freedom of speech, all of these things we have found have been crushed in this way.

"What I'm going to be doing is working with Kellie-Jay to to try to encourage ordinary people to come forward as candidates and not think it's something beyond them.

"If you are someone who cares about these issues and you are willing to speak up on it, we're there to support you and you're already better than anyone else in your local council chamber in all likelihood."

The Party of Women’s website states that it was founded to ‘safely say’ that ‘no woman has a penis’, ‘no man has a vagina’, there’s ‘no such thing as non-binary’, and that 'transitioning children is abuse’.

Patsy Stevenson was approached for a statement, but declined to comment further.