Former Lib Dem Senior Executive alleges Party fails its staff by allowing a culture of Racism, Misogyny, sexual misconduct and bullying to flourish
30 Jul 2019: Emma Walker. Team Sheila Ritchie MEP,(including me) firing on all cylinders. It was great to meet our colleagues from our Brussels office after working so closely with them. One of the best moments was introducing Sheila Ritchie MEP to the Head of Conferencing at the hotel and hearing about how much the hotel staff were all behind our mission to StopBrexit.
25 Aug 2019: Emma Walker. Holding down a full time job, client work, and being a mother of a young child is not easy, and the balance is hard. And yet, thanks to the amazing support of close friends who are helping me and my husband out with wraparound care, I’m heading to Shetland for a week to help Beatrice Wishart for Shetland.
31 Aug 2019: Emma Walker. I’m finally back home after an amazing week of campaigning for Beatrice Wishart MSP. Shetland is a beautiful, happy, friendly and kind place, and so she fits perfectly. It was inspiring to watch her and she has motivated me to carry on pursuing my own goals. Meanwhile I’ve had a blast with friends, made new pals, got pecked by a chicken, chapped doors in some of the world’s most beautiful streets and spoken to lots and lots of people about politics. Bliss.
08 Dec 2019: Emma Walker. When I’m not campaigning, I run my own business as a marketing and business consultant. For the past two years I’ve been working with the powerhouse that is James Donald, organising events that support the UK craft and design sector. This weekend we’re hosting “GLOWEdinburgh”, our response to the fiasco that is Edinburgh’s Christmas offering. With more than 1,000 people through the doors already, it’s obvious that there is a clear appetite in our city for events that support the local economy without ripping up trees or intruding into residents lives. I’ve asked to meet with Edinburgh City Council ahead of their internal investigation to offer real alternatives as to how to breathe passion and imagination into our capital city’s cultural life. Come and visit us at Dovecot before 5pm today.
18 December 2019: Emma Walker. When I was 12, I was told that politics wasn’t for girls like me. The Scottish Lib Dems have smashed that. Politics across the UK needs new voices, ambitious candidates and politicians who have experienced the best and worst of life. I want to represent Scottish Liberal Democrats in Holyrood. https://www.facebook.com/100063697335100/videos/490147031635675?so=permalink
01 Dec 2019: Emma Walker. After winning an MEP seat for Sheila Ritchie, Willie Rennie (WR) headhunted me into the role of her Chief of Staff. I didn’t want to take it. I deeply regretted it from day one. I ran her office in Brussels and Edinburgh, based in Scottish Lib Dem HQ.
They put me in every voluntary role you could imagine. I was trusted with private party information. Alex Cole Hamilton MSP (ACH) enjoyed telling people that I was his “best find”. My lifelong dream of running for Parliament was within reach. That is until the Euros in 2019 when I witnessed the toxic culture within the Party. I reported racism and bullying to WR who told me that nothing could be done. I was bullied by a man who was worried that I would beat him in selection.
I was trapped in a kitchen by ACH, MSP and made to listen as he sacked a woman who had uncovered a laptop that was hidden because of its involvement in the Alasdair Carmichael MP’s trial in 2015. She wasn’t told why she was being sacked. She was made to sign an NDA. The laptop was hidden evidence from the Carmichael trial…the one where he leaked Nicola Sturgeon’s memo? A woman sacked by a man for another man’s actions against a woman. And we wonder why more women don’t go into politics. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/10/alistair-carmichael-leaked-sturgeon-
Staff were suicidal and nobody would help me. Christine Jardine MP (CJ) bullying people. People were bullying CJ. It was hell.
People started coming to me to report all kinds of wrongdoing – often sexual misconduct, abuse, bullying and racism. Senior leadership were complicit in cover-ups. I was being told to persevere because I could do “more good in Parliament than out with.”
I was in deep trauma because of everything that was happening around me. Families of staffers would sob to me as they were worried that their child or partner would complete suicide. ACH would come to me to vent about CJ. As would Wendy Chamberlain (WC).
The Man kept bullying me. He told the men who I worked with that he had “an Emma Walker sized problem he’d need to deal with”. ACH and WR warned him off me. So he assaulted me on election night, when he found me on my own and in tears and at my most vulnerable.
I was told by WR et al not to report it as this would lead to The Man winning selection. Apparently local parties in the Lib Dems are filled with old men who don’t like it when women talk about being abused by one of their pals. The bullying of my team continued.
And those who tried to stick up for me were punished, bullied and driven to suicide attempts. I was feeling very vulnerable. I’d lost three stone in about 6 weeks and I couldn’t process all of the suicidal intentions that I was having to deal with on my own.
I resigned as Mental Health spokesperson after another friend and colleague attempted suicide. I reached out for help. This was so difficult. I reached out for help with my own suicidal intentions twice. Twice they bullied me some more.
I continued to help others in Edinburgh and London with NDAs and tried to protect them from bullies. I wrote so many words to the party begging them to listen, to change, to let me fix it. They responded by lying about me, burying their legal fees from their own Exec. I got out.
The police watch on my home when another man emailed me his plans for my clitoris, the young woman who was shoved up against a wall and throttled, the hand in my face from the MEP/Convenor, the coup against an MP.
I was the most loyal member of staff. I lost 5 stone in 3 months. I refused to go to press for so long. Then the Scotsman approached me and convinced me to work with them. For six months I went over my trauma, I reached out to an FBI whistle-blower for help with my courage.
I shared dark moments with those closest to me for the first time. On eve of publication, after a lengthy heated conversation with Scot Lib Dems, the article was pulled. Apparently it was a non-story. You – the public – don’t care about my mental health resignation letter.
You don’t care about ACH leaking Salmond’s complainants texts to me at midnight on day Salmond gave evidence, months after we’d last been in touch. Do you? They pulled the story and I was devastated. Re-triggered. Scared. Defeated.
But nope, never beaten. I continued to lodge complaints. When every one of those have been mishandled, I’ve lodged complaints about those complaints. Did you know that women can never win? I’m turning that on it’s head. I’m not winning in full public view. Fuck them.
I was very scared, just 12 months ago. It felt the world was trying to stop me from telling this story. Then I was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. I had to stop whistleblowing while I endured the most aggressive chemotherapy. I had time to reflect, read, learn. And realised that the world isn’t against me. Some men in powerful places – be it lawyers, journalists or politicians – are against me. Some Lib Dem members are against me. The treatment from my former pals in the party has made me ill at times.
But I hazarded a guess that the world at large will believe me, will want to hear me, will understand. Because my unheard workplace complaint is one of hundreds of thousands each year that women have to deal with, mostly on their own. Most of us walk away.
I’m now through treatment. I had 17 weeks of chemo, a double mastectomy, there’s another op this autumn. My cancer is a less common one. I worry it will come back. I have to make this time – be it short or long – count. We all do. That was always my motivation to run.
So here I am. I want to show women that you can complain until you’re heard. You can show your anger, your fear, your hurt. You can use dark humour, sarcasm. You can walk away when it’s tough. You can come back and stand in front of your bullies and demand to be heard.
I say this with the privilege that comes with being a white, cis-het woman in her 40’s. Any younger and my career would be impacted or I may not be believed. I’m told by older pals that any older and I’d be invisible.
I’m asking ACH, MSP a simple question: When was the independent investigation into my complaints? You told Holyrood Magazine there has been one. I think I missed it.
07 Jan 2020: Emma Walker. I recorded this video in response to the amazing support I received on twitter following my earlier tweets about why I finally resigned my Scottish Liberal Democrat membership. I have been whistleblowing with The Times Scotland since October, and their story is in the newspaper today. I’m on my way to the paper shop now, and I will be responding further once I’ve read the article. In the next ten years whistleblowing will be seen as the act of citizenship it is. You’re gonna want whistle-blowers on your team. For the record, if I had my time again I’d have done this differently. I’d have been more honest. I’d have been truer to myself. I note now that after everything I’d learnt I was still trying to protect men. I live and learn. I’m not a Lib Dem. I’ve left the party and watch on as the leader talks about mental health priorities as though he doesn’t know what happened to so many of us. How close we were to devastating losses. I have not and will not be campaigning or leafleting for anyone in this election and whilst one or two individuals are awesome, Scottish Lib Dem Women have outdone Aunt Lydia in their attempts to win Patriarchy Upholder of the Year. There was no way I could fix the unfixable so I walked away from that too. https://www.facebook.com/EmmaWalkerEdinburgh/videos/558514458188097/
21 Apr 2020: Emma Walker. A former prospective Scottish council candidate has made accusations of sexual intimidation and harassment against members of the Liberal Democrats. Emma, who resigned as mental health spokeswoman for the Scottish Lib Dem’s last month, alleged she was forced to go to the police after being the target of abuse by one man in the party who objected to her selection campaign. In a video posted on Facebook, Ms Walker said the harassment culminated on Christmas Day last year, when she claimed: “A man, who until recently was a member, phoned me and emailed me to tell me what he wanted to do to me sexually. “It was so explicit, that on the 27th of December, I found myself at the police station, being told that it was a good idea to have a mark placed on my home so that if I had to make a 999 call, the police could respond to me more urgently.”
Emma, who had been a prospective council candidate for Drum Brae/Gyle, in Edinburgh, said she “didn’t expect the backlash” that she received from “so many” of the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ male members when she campaigned to be selected for the Holyrood elections, “nor the lack of much-needed support”.
In the video, she alleged one man tried to intimidate her for more than a year in an attempt to stop her running for selection, she said: “This culminated in him putting his hands on me on polling day in a manner that made me question what was going to come next,” In a separate incident, she claimed another Liberal Democrat had lodged malicious complaints against her with the party. She said the man “spent a significant amount of time trying to encourage me to accept him as my campaign manager, and he encouraged me to raise funds for a selection and an election campaign. But when I refused to do something he asked of me at an event a few months later, he then made a complaint against me for raising those funds that he had advised me to raise”. She continued: “All Parties have a problem with gender and equality and I think that’s partly because, as a society, we believe that 50/50 representation is about the number of women we put on stages to give speeches, or the number of women we have sitting on parliamentary benches, but true equality means tackling those hidden things that damage and destroy women’s careers.”
03 May 2020: Ruth McElroy, Chair of Scottish Lib Dem Women. Tackling everyday sexism in the Lib Dems. I love Emma Walker. I really do, and not just Emma the badass who stunned the Scottish Party with the first known use of the word “vulva” on the conference stage or her tales of intrepid recruitment adventures, including everyone’s favourite bra fitter. The Emma I love is someone who in the two years I’ve known her has stood beside me in every step I’ve taken in my Chair of Scottish Liberal Democrat Women, who has bought me more pizza than I’ve ever returned, and who’s dried my tears so many times whenever I’m overwhelmed or heartbroken, no matter what she was dealing with in her own life. It’s that Emma who has stunned so many this week with her brave video detailing some of the gender discrimination she has faced within the party, ranging from the mundane to the allegedly criminal. Her post has now been viewed thousands of times and has triggered an avalanche of support. It’s hard to describe how I’ve felt watching women and men comment on the post expressing their shock, sadness and support. Too many have said they have experienced similar problems within politics. The bravery of the women who have sent me their stories, insisting I use them to do anything in my power to effect change has had me crying over my laptop more than once. Truly, the “GirlsSupportingGirls” spirit is out in force. Our party has done so much good work on gender equality, and I have been proud to watch Lib Dem legislation such as Shared Parental Leave and Pay Gap Reporting make a real difference to people’s lives, and I know that our party is bursting at the seams with principled and passionate intersectional feminists willing to do the hard work to make our society fairer and more equal for everyone. That work needs to start in our own back yard. For all of the great people we have and the great work we do, too often we see women discouraged from putting their heads above the parapet because of careless words or actions rooted in bias. This bias is often unconscious and unthinking, but its effects over time can be devastating, and we need to seize this opportunity to assess how we can improve our own practice. I’m pleased to be working with the Scottish Party leadership on how we can proceed and address the issues relating to gender balance and equality in our own ranks.
29 Apr 2021: Emma Walker. I don’t know if it’s the Scottish election but I’ve noticed that my vid is picking up views again. So for the record, if I had my time again I’d have done this differently. I’d have been more honest. I’d have been truer to myself. I note now that after everything I’d learnt I was still trying to protect men. I live and learn. I’m not a Lib Dem. I’ve left the party and watch as the leader talks about mental health priorities as though he doesn’t know what happened to so many of us. How close we were to devastating losses. I have not and will not be campaigning or leafleting for anyone in this election and whilst one or two individuals are awesome, Scottish Lib Dem Women have outdone Aunt Lydia in their attempts to win Patriarchy Upholder of the Year. There was no way I could fix the unfixable so I walked away from it. https://www.facebook.com/EmmaWalkerEdinburgh/videos/558514458188097/
06 Oct 2021: Emma Walker. Women desperate to be heard, are still ignored. Uncomfortable, but if not me then who? https://www.facebook.com/100063697335100/videos/288130822912512?so=permalink
07 Jan 2022: Emma Walker. I recorded this video in response to the amazing support I received from strangers on twitter following my tweets about why I finally resigned my Scottish Liberal Democrat membership. I have been whistleblowing with The Times Scotland since October, and their story is in the newspaper today. I’m on my way to the paper shop now, and I will be responding further once I’ve read the article. In the next ten years whistleblowing will be seen as the act of citizenship it is. You’re gonna want whistle-blowers on your team. For now, thank you kind strangers of twitter. https://www.facebook.com/100063697335100/videos/509935370406381/?so=permalink
13 Apr 2022: Alec Cole-Hamilton, MP. Holyrood interview. I ask ACH about whether there is a “toxic culture” in his party, as reported in The Times earlier this year. The newspaper spoke to Emma Walker, a former staffer, who has made a number of allegations against the party, including claiming there were instances of “racism, bullying and sexism”. Cole-Hamilton himself made an apology last year after swearing at then children’s minister Maree Todd on a video call during a parliamentary committee. Does the party have an issue with bullying? “No, not that I’m aware of, any time it’s been suggested that we have, it’s been directed to the complaints process. We actually recently overhauled our complaints process in the last couple of years and it’s very robust and functions well. I think it’s fair to say that in any political party, tensions always run high, especially at election campaigns. Sometimes people don’t treat each other with the respect they deserve, but I don’t think the Liberal Democrats are any different from any other political party. Any complaints that have come forward about anybody in our Party are always dealt with appropriately and handled independently. We are proud of our robust complaints handling process. So no, I don’t think there is a toxic culture of complaints in the Lib Dems.” Despite only being in charge of his party for a few months, ACH believes he has a strong platform from which to build, thanks in large part to the work of his predecessor, WR. The new leader is confident going into next month’s local elections. “Nobody is talking about our extinction anymore. I’ve spent the last seven months focusing on what will be our first electoral test, the council elections. I was anxious we wouldn’t necessarily go forward in this election, but I’m now confident we will.” https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,alex-colehamilton-i-regret-cancel-culture-very-much-its-not-a-liberal-place-to-be
27 Apr 2023: Emma Walker. “Do I have to die? Is the silver lining of chemo not working that I’m eventually heard? You wonder why I won’t go away?” The moment in Feb when I told another whistleblower my plans in the event that I didn’t survive cancer. What women go through. https://t.co/KoW1bx0MEC
02 May 2023: Emma Walker. If you saw me being assaulted on the street, would you ask my politics before intervening? Don’t walk by me. Reasons why an independent investigation is necessary. https://t.co/lhlVX4TTwp
03 May 2023: Norrie Hunter, Caledon Radio interviewed the former Chief Exec of the Liberal Democrats in Scotland. In the interview Emma lifted the lid on a somewhat unprincipled party machine. Her story should alert women that any form of abuse towards you is unacceptable. https://caledonmedia.scot/2023/05/03/emma-walker-interview/
20 May 2023: Emma Walker. Staff were abused until their mental health was a threat to their lives, women are assaulted and slut-shamed, people lost their careers in order to protect the leadership. https://t.co/ePBB3nrfdf
22 May 2023: Emma Walker. This is not easy to talk about. I hoped that somehow the media would find out. Just as well as I wasn’t aware of how little they would. https://t.co/xefXEo7uVZ
23 May 2023: Emma Walker. Follow up: I posted the October 2021 video on the night the Scotsman told me that they were not going to print Scots Lib Dem lies. I think I was addressing only myself. https://t.co/rTwAQHkVSE
23 May 2023: Emma Walker. Whistleblowing with The Scotsman. The process. Why I wavered my anonymity. When The Scotsman blew my cover and told the Lib Dems that it was me who was whistleblowing. https://t.co/WoIgycKcae
23 May 2023: Emma Walker. I was concerned about my friend (WC) blocking me. WC and ACH are scared, but I am not going away. https://t.co/oWjU3hwqMaACH
24 May 2023: Emma Walker. Alex Cole Hamilton’s behaviour at Holyrood Awards, after immediately finding out a senior staffer was whistleblowing about him to The Scotsman, is manipulation. A Lib Dem staffer has told me that I’m wrong. What do you think? https://t.co/AS1TADoaYy
24 May 2023: Emma Walker. The aggression of WR floored me. The Lib Dems were delighted when I took a job as 3rd sector CEO. thinking I would stay silent. But my chair supported my whistleblowing. https://t.co/XaaNUEb7W3
24 May 2023: Emma Walker. ACH’s messages about CJ were insufficient to prove she was a bully. His texts to Alex Salmond’s complainant telling her he was thinking of her as he questioned Salmond weren’t enough to prove he had poor judgement. https://t.co/xBaNO1uceu
24 May 2023: Emma Walker. ACH’s behaviour at Holyrood Awards, after finding out a senior staffer was whistleblowing about him to The Scotsman, is manipulation. Thoughts? https://t.co/AS1TADoaYy
24 May 2023: Emma Walker. The penultimate Scotsman video: More manipulation from ACH. My story was pencilled in to run in Scotland on Sunday 10th October. The Editor-in-Chief pulled my story. https://t.co/P3zU4d2lz9
24 May 2023: Emma Walker. When The Scotsman caught Scottish Liberal Democrats in a lie. Why wasn’t it reported? I’ve never had a straight answer other than it’s “an editorial decision.” https://t.co/6Uitoe8vKY
25 May 2023: Emma Walker. When I complained to Ipso about The Scotsman. I was told that the majority of women lose their cases when they report the press to Ipso. Of course they do. https://t.co/f0LoV7qA6h
25 May 2023: Emma Walker. 2 days after the Editor-in-Chief of the Scotsman pulled my story, he allowed this one. https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/hard-to-see-nicola-sturgeon-in-office-after-2026-scottish-lib-dem-leader-says-3412157 In it, Alex Cole Hamilton refers to the SNP as “Nicola Sturgeon’s viper’s nest.”
25 May 2023: Emma Walker. It probably goes without saying Neil McIntosh, Editor-in-Chief of the Scotsman doesn’t have same opinion as me. In interests of balance, he told me an EIC will decide to run a story based on a) significance to audience, b) compliance with IPSO, c) compliance with law. He told me that it isn’t uncommon for stories to pass legal checks but fail for other reasons. I guess that means because my story passed legal checks, it’s not deemed to be of public interest or it didn’t comply with IPSO. I’d assumed it would be covered under public interest, but I’m not an EIC. I’ll never know.
25 May 2023: Emma Walker. It’s an easy question. Alex: “Where is the report from independent investigation you referred to in your interview with “HolyroodDaily”. Except there never was an independent investigation.
27 May 2023: Emma Walker. I was so worried about admitting that my friend WC, blocked me. You all believe me. This feels so different now. You’re seeing them too. WC & ACH are scared, but I’m not going away. https://t.co/oWjU3hwqMa
28 May 2023: Emma Walker. Do you think there is merit in my story? Was it enough for the Scotsman to just tell me there was no merit after everything I’d been through? https://t.co/vMEgkqH5BB
28 May 2023: Emma Walker. Ipso asked the Editor-in-Chief of the Scotsman to investigate his own behaviour. I’d been told by Ipso that less than 40% of women’s complaints are upheld. Not great for me. https://t.co/BCbSisVaDE
29 May 2023: Emma Walker. ACH told me CJ had history of abuse towards staffers. This was in 2018. When the times ran a piece about me in 2022, Lib Dem Scot lied saying it had been GE2019 fever. https://t.co/JKxrLMrWII
29 May 2023: Emma Walker. WR said that there are divisions in independence movement. In Edinburgh West this led to such a toxic workplace staffers contemplated/attempted suicide. https://t.co/Wt71cSL9gy
30 May 2023: Emma Walker. Yesterday’s video was hard. I don’t like feeling I’m ‘going after’ Christine in any way. Then I counted up how many people ACH told me Christine has bullied. I found nine people. That’s before we get to mine. For everyone’s sake we need an independent investigation.
30 May 2023: Emma Walker. OMG. On way home from child’s sports day, energised as neighbours are supporting me. I bumped into ACH’s and Cllr Kevin Lang’s deliverer. He’d broken GDPR to text me abuse. I confronted him. He’s a coward. Is there a way to share voice memos on twitter? have tagged kevin Lang and ACH into tweets about this guy and they still have him on my neighbour’s driveways delivering their leaflets. It’s Sports Day part 2 this afternoon so looking forward to informing my community.
30 May 2023: Emma Walker. CJ, went “fucking intercontinental” at ACH. He “lost his shit” at her, telling her to “stop being such a fucking dick to your staff.” He said she’s “certifiable.” https://t.co/sMhHU7O3kz
caltonjock 