EHRC’s new chair in Scotland linked to anti-abortion dark money groups

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has appointed the barrister Alasdair Henderson as interim chair of the Scotland Committee, despite links to groups opposing the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people.

Henderson has served on the EHRC – which laid their revised guidance on how organisations should approach trans inclusion on Thursday – since 2018. He faced criticism in 2020 for liking and sharing posts criticising Black Lives Matter as well as calling the words misogynist and homophobe “highly ideological propaganda terms”, but spent eight months as deputy chair in 2023. Between 2016 and 2021, Henderson was also the director of the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, which has partnered with Alliance Defending Freedom, a US Christian right group that was central in overturning abortion rights in the US.

But last week the EHRC gave him a new position in Scotland, just two weeks after he won a legal case funded by another dark money Christian right group from overseas, in which the former journalist David Campanale says he won damages plus a legal bill which could be over £250,000.

Campanale sued the Liberal Democrats in 2024, claiming that the party had discriminated for deselecting him as an electoral candidate because of his protected Christian beliefs. The Liberal Democrats argued that Campanale had not told them about his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage or his previous membership of a Christian right political party, but admitted last month they had breached his human rights.

The case was funded by CitizenGO, a global dark money pressure group with links to the far right, which campaigns against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights around the world. It is currently funding a legal challenge against the NHS puberty blocker trial led by detransitioner Keira Bell and increasing its presence in the UK, Good Law Project found. Henderson took on Campanale’s case alongside his work at the EHRC, even though the watchdog had received complaints about Campanale’s deselection by groups such as the Liberal Democrat Christian Forum.

This isn’t the first time the barrister has acted for people opposed to women’s and LGBTQ+ rights during his time at the commission. In 2018, he represented a group challenging the UK’s first safe “buffer zone” around a clinic providing abortion care in Ealing. Two years later Henderson represented Bell in her original case against the Tavistock clinic – even though it was overturned, this marked the start of restrictions on gender affirming care in the UK. And in 2022 he acted for a rightwing evangelical group against a Cambridge college which declined to host a training course because of concerns about the group’s opposition to same-sex marriage.

The EHRC told Good Law Project that Henderson is “routinely instructed to represent a range of clients on the basis of the ‘cab rank’ principle”, which requires barristers to take on any case within their competence.

“When representing those clients he acts in a personal capacity,” the commission said, “not as a commissioner. Any such work does not represent the position of the EHRC.”

Elijah Jaeger, a researcher at Trans Safety Network, said he was extremely concerned about Good Law Project’s findings.

“It is completely inappropriate that he is a commissioner,” Jaeger said, “let alone being given more power.”

The EHRC also said that their board are drawn from “all walks of life”, and bring “a breadth of skills and experience” so that the organisation can take “impartial decisions, which are always based on evidence and the law”.

“We have robust procedures in place to manage conflicts of interest or perceived conflicts of interest,” the commission said. “These require Board members to recuse themselves from discussions where necessary.”

Emails leaked to Vice in 2022 showed Henderson suggested the EHRC intervene in the case of Maya Forstater, which it did. Forstater went on to co-found influential British anti-trans group Sex Matters. Last year, freedom of information requests uncovered the extent of the EHRC’s relationship with anti-trans lobbyists including Sex Matters, from offering “fully private” policy meetings to incorporating their suggestions into draft guidance verbatim.