The Green Party has been accused of encouraging its members to act like the East German Stasi, as they were told to police their friends’ jokes and report banter to officials.
Diversity training seen by The Mail on Sunday reveals the party’s efforts to crack down on jokes between friends, even when those being mocked are ‘absolutely fine’.
Members were also instructed to audit the race of their closest friends and create more diverse social groups to tackle so-called ‘affinity bias’.
Green activists received the training this summer, delivered by a party official who suggested that in the event of overhearing a joke they feel uncomfortable with, they should document ‘what happened, including dates, times, locations’ to ensure there was a record of the incident.
This could then be passed on to party officials to be used in the event of a complaint, though they were told this detailed note-taking ‘shouldn’t replace immediate action’.
The diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training used an example of one Green activist entering a meeting, and seeing people making ‘derogatory jokes’ about the nationality of a Polish person also in the room.
They said: ‘We see that everyone’s laughing, including the person who the jokes are about. So we don’t really know what dynamic is going on here.
‘It’s possible that the Polish person is the person who started all of this, that these are really good friends… everyone’s absolutely fine with what’s happening here.
The Green Party has been accused of encouraging its members to act like the East German Stasi, as they were told to police their friends’ jokes (Pictured: Greens leader Zack Polanski)
Diversity training seen by The Mail on Sunday reveals the party’s efforts to crack down on jokes between friends, even when those being mocked are ‘absolutely fine’
‘We want to be a safe space for everyone… so even if this person is fine with the jokes, we’re actually creating an environment in this space where derogatory jokes are allowed to happen.’
It was outlined that the Green Party’s code of conduct says ‘these kinds of jokes are not okay,’ though the official giving the talk insisted she was ‘not here to be the joke police’.
A number of responses to the scene were suggested, including speaking to a colleague and to ‘use our reasoning’ to work out ‘why is that joke funny’.
They were also told: ‘The key thing is don’t do nothing. We can interrupt the situation… changing the subject, creating diversion, giving the person targeted an opportunity to leave, just creating something that stops whatever is happening from happening.’
In another example, a woman and a man were packing up after a meeting. The woman, Carol, tells Steve: ‘A good man is so hard to find these days. It’s such a waste that you’re not straight.’
After asking members to consider whether the comment was acceptable, they were informed that while the statement ‘can seem harmless on the surface or even complimentary’, it could in fact be classed as ‘sexual harassment’.
‘It’s seen as a joke. Perhaps it’s seen as banter. It’s seen as harmless. But comments such as this could potentially even be viewed as sexual harassment depending on the context, its effect on Steve, and whether there’s a pattern of similar behaviour.’
In a separate equalities seminar on tackling bias, also held during the summer, participants were asked to join in an activity in which they wrote down the names of their five closest friends.
They were then instructed to put a tick next to each of the names if they shared the same ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion or level of education.
Once the exercise had been completed, the instructor asked members to ‘sit back and reflect on what it shows’.
She said: ‘This can be something called affinity bias… studies show that in general people extend greater trust, hold in positive regard, cooperation and empathy to people who are more similar to themselves and less with people who are more dissimilar to themselves.’
She went on to advise that participants focus on ‘forming diverse friendships’ in order to tackle their biases.
While the Green Party dismissed criticism of the training, David Taylor, Labour MP for Hemel Hempstead, told The Mail on Sunday that the leaked diversity lectures were ‘more akin to Stasi East Germany than 2026’.
He added: ‘Green Party membership should rest assured that everyone else already assumes they have no sense of humour whatsoever. Perhaps they should just save everyone else the trouble by printing T-shirts that have “fun police” emblazoned across them.’
Members were also instructed to audit the race of their closest friends and create more diverse social groups to tackle so-called ‘affinity bias’
Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake added that the Greens ‘seemingly have time to police the private lives and friendships of their members, but are unable to tackle the blatant anti-Semitism within their own ranks’.
‘Zack Polanski should focus less on imagined insults and get a grip of the hateful ideology present in his own party.’
And Lord Young, General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, warned that the DEI training was a ‘terrifying glimpse of what Britain would be like if the Greens ever get into government’.
A Green Party spokesman told this newspaper: ‘The activities in this workshop are standard equality, diversity and inclusion activities designed to spark discussion about creating safe and welcoming spaces within our party.’
