NORTH Herefordshire MP and recent Green Party leadership contender Ellie Chowns says she is “deeply saddened” by the national party’s suspension of her successor as county council group leader.

Coun Diana Toynbee, who represents south Hereford and has been suspended from representing the Greens as a councillor for six months, has denied “bringing the party into disrepute” over her gender-critical online posts.

New national Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who defeated Dr Chowns in the September vote, said at the time that excluding transgender people from single-sex spaces was “horrific”.

But Coun Toynbee, who stood for the Greens in Hereford and South Herefordshire in last year’s general election, has hit back, saying the party’s shock move of preventing her representing it as a councillor “brings it into disrepute”.

Dr Chowns, whose constituency abuts north Ross-on-Wye and includes Brampton Abbots, Upton Bishop, Phocle Green, King's Caple, Foy and Fownhope, said she was “deeply saddened by the suspension of Diana, who has been an excellent ward councillor and has dedicated many years to serving the residents of Greyfriars Ward, the people of Herefordshire, and the Green Party”.

Coun Stef Simmons, who takes over as county council Green group leader, said: “As a friend and fellow councillor I am deeply disappointed that a complaint to the national party has resulted in this outcome.

“Diana is an excellent councillor and an asset for Hereford and all Herefordshire and we look forward to her return.”

Coun Toynbee has recently posted on X her support for organisations and individuals who maintain that women’s spaces should be reserved for biological women, as well as approvingly retweeting JK Rowling’s scathing review of Nicola Sturgeon’s autobiography.

Preferring the term “sex realist”, to gender-critical, she said: “My views are completely mainstream.”

She clarified that she has not been kicked out of the party, just suspended from representing it as a councillor.

The Green Party did not respond when asked to clarify the action it had taken against Coun Toynbee.

It appears she retains her party membership and indeed her position as secretary of its “Green Seniors” committee.

“It’s not very clear,” said Coun Toynbee, who has now joined the Independents for Herefordshire group of councillors, said: “I might be allowed back after six months if I undergo training; who knows?

“A small group of party activists have been trying to get rid of me and other women for some time.

“Women’s safeguarding is the one thing we are told we can’t discuss. People are afraid of speaking out for fear of being called bigots.”

This applies to Herefordshire, she added, where “there are groups campaigning locally about single-sex changing rooms, such as in swimming pools, and hospital wards”, she added.

“They want to know those spaces are reserved for women.”