It must have been a shock for left-wing luvvie Dale Vince to see union workers protesting outside his own firm’s HQ. Yesterday afternoon Unite workers and supporters staged a demonstration outside the Stroud offices of Vince’s energy company Ecotricity, calling for the reopening of negotiations for union recognition. It’s also part of the union’s wider campaign to renationalise the entire energy sector…

In a round robin email Unite urged people to attend the protest with a pointed attack on Vince:

“Dale Vince, the owner of Ecotricity, has an estimated wealth of £107,000,000 yet refuses to negotiate a deal for Ecotricity workers allowing for them to have a say in their pay and conditions.”

Meanwhile Vince appears on television and radio to agitate for higher taxes and wealth redistribution across the UK. Unite says he keep to his own patch first…

This week Baroness Stowell, who chairs the Communications and Digital Committee, told the Lords that

“SLAPPs* are illegitimate and aggressive lawfare, used by all kinds of the rich and powerful to silence politicians, journalists and public bodies. They are an abuse of our legal system, and they are a threat to press freedom.”

Stowell reminded them that just before the Dissolution for the general election, they were very close to outlawing SLAPPs in their entirety, through the then Government supporting a Labour MP’s Private Member’s Bill. The legislation had bipartisan support from Labour and the Tories.

She asked the Justice Minister Lord Ponsonby

“Would the Minister ensure that his Government supported another Private Member’s Bill, if another MP was to bring forward a revised version that incorporated all the amendments and agreements reached with the previous Government before the general election? If not, could he commit to the Government bringing forward their own legislation in this first Session of Parliament to outlaw SLAPPs comprehensively?”

He assured her that “the Government are taking the matter very seriously and are establishing working parties, working at pace to try to address this issue.” As well they might given one of their own number is on the receiving end of just such aggressive lawfare, being used by a rich and powerful oligiarch to silence politicians and journalists.

Lord Bailey, Richard Tice MP and Guido’s editor, Paul Staines, are fighting Dale Vince’s lawfare in his attempt to silence us for criticising his equating of Hamas with freedom fighters. He’s already intimidated three MPs who commented on his characterisation of Hamas into withdrawing their words. All of them felt it was fair comment and only backed down under financial duress. Shaun Bailey can’t afford to fight an expensive SLAPP defamation case, yet feels he has to stand his ground no matter the consequences and sleepless nights. For mega-rich Dale Vince it is in his own words, “a bit of fun” suing us. 

Anti-SLAPP** legislation isn’t just about stopping foreign oligarchs from abusing the legal system, it is about stopping homegrown oligarchs avoiding scrutiny too. Free speech underpins democracy, it is crucial that rich, political donors with connections to those in power are not able via the courts to intimidate critics into silence.

*Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation

**Dale’s lawyers have written to claim that Guido even opining that Dale’s action is a SLAPP is in itself defamatory. Paradoxically if they really did sue for claiming his action was a SLAPP it would arguably prove beyond doubt that it was indeed a SLAPP.

In a High Court ruling today, Judge Jaron Lewis struck out Dale Vince’s claim against the Daily Mail, stating that it was “not potentially viable” and “bound to fail”.

The Judge said: “There is a contradiction in the claimant’s case. The claimant accepts that the headline and photograph do not accurately summarise the article, although his pleaded case on ‘extrinsic facts’ is that they always do.”

He added: “At its highest, it could be said that some readers will have believed that headlines always accurately summarise the underlying article, but this is no more than an opinion, and is insufficient to support an innuendo meaning.”

Concluding: “The claim is not potentially viable, and there is no basis for exercising discretion in the claimant’s favour.”

Guido congratulates Associated Newspapers for standing up to thin-skinned Dale who is spraying writs and threats of writs around like confetti – using his oligarchical wealth and power to menace critics and political opponents.

The principles in this case have a directly analogous application in the cases Dale Vince has brought against Shaun Bailey, Guido, and Richard Tice. That is if the cases even proceed beyond the first hurdle – he must disprove that his hopeless case is not a SLAPP against political critics. The end result will be the same.

Dale Vince has briefed the Guardian that he is suing Guido’s editor for daring to publish the actual words he said in an interview with Times Radio’s Stig Abell.

Dale – who retains the services of former Boris spinner Lee Cain – also briefed the Guardian that he is going to block Guido from being read in Britain by getting a judge to order internet service providers to create Dale’s own personal firewall to censor Guido – in the same way the Chinese Communist Party operates a political firewall on the internet. Guido would in Dale’s fantasy become Samizdata, read in Starmer’s Britain only by tech savvy users or on the dark web.

Vince says he is going to have to do this because Guido has kept his servers (and the editor himself) offshore and ignored British court orders for twenty years. Guido could of course continue to do so…

For the first time in twenty years I am not going to avail of that safe haven protection. I will, along with Richard Tice and Shaun Bailey not be going down on bended knee to this thin-skinned, narcissistic bully. We have no intention of apologising for reporting and commenting on his disgraceful equivocation. We’re going to make a stand and defend free speech and our reporting of the actual words he said.

Dale Vince is also suing Reform’s Richard Tice MP and Lord Bailey for commenting on his claim regarding Hamas that “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist“. Likewise he threatened to sue (now former) Tory MPs Andrew Percy, Mark Jenkinson and Michael Fabricant. The Tory MPs reluctantly agreed a mutual statement on the advice of the Conservative Party’s lawyers rather than risk an expensive legal battle. None of them wanted to, all of them thought their comments were fair and told Guido that regrettably they had to withdraw them under financial duress. Not one of the MPs wanted to back down, they just did not want to risk a costly battle.

GB News made an apology for Shaun Bailey’s on air comments at the insistence of their legal insurers. Lord Bailey is however standing by the truth of his comments. He is a Christian and refuses to be bullied by Dale Vince’s lawyers into making a statement that he believes is untrue.

Dale is not suing any of the many other publications that reported his outrageous characterisation of Hamas as freedom fighters. The Labour Party donor is only threatening his perceived political opponents, using his vast wealth to bully them into not criticising him. This meets the legal definition of a SLAPP – a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. A favourite tactic of publicity shy oligarchs who don’t like scrutiny.

Dale’s been claiming – so far unchallenged – that the clip was edited. It was not edited or manipulated or spliced in any way, it was one contiguous 16 second clip of the only really newsworthy and widely reported part of the Times Radio interview and the context is clear:

While we’re on the subject of extremist donors and returning their donations…https://t.co/rkaxVMJqZR pic.twitter.com/NxHEgrBKKz

— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) March 13, 2024

Dale has only just realised that unlike GB News’ insurers or the Tory MPs we are going to stand up to him. We’re not apologising and we’re not settling. We’re fighting to defend our reporting of the truth and his attempts to censor criticism.

Paul Staines

Labour donor and Ecotricity founder Dale Vince has been turning up the heat on the Tories on a subject close to his heart: climate change. Dale, who’s donated more than £5 million to Labour’s election war chest has a fortune estimated at over £100 million. The Foreign Secretary, whom we recently learnt was deceived by a Russian deep fake AI, now has Dale Vince posting an AI generated video featuring the relative pauper David Cameron, whom he calls a member of the “privileged elite”, supposedly apologising for “publicly promising the greenest government and then absolutely shafting it behind closed doors”. It’s hardly a realistic AI performance…

David Cameron is one of the privileged elites that have ruled our country for 14 years now – he’s the originator of cutting ‘the green crap,’ which we’ve just exposed as economic nonsense. Here he is fessing up…:)

Read the full report here: https://t.co/K1sCZWugji pic.twitter.com/2Vd7uN705D

— Dale Vince (@DaleVince) June 22, 2024

In the very missable small print at the bottom Dale mentions it was AI-generated. Can’t help thinking that if someone did this to him the thin-skinned narcissist would be calling his bully boy lawyers…

Labour have gone down the suspect donor rabbit hole this week. By claiming that money should be returned from a donor who said something naughty they’ve opened themselves up to obvious criticism. Longtime Labour Party donor Dale Vince has given the party at least £2.5 million to date and said in October of Hamas: “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter… this is my view“. No apology from Vince, no statement of criticism from Labour…

Prominent Jewish MP Andrew Percy tells Guido:

“Nobody should take a penny or have any involvement with anyone who describes the Hamas terrorists who raped Israeli women, butchered innocent children, and murdered civilians in their own homes in the most brutal way as “freedom fighters”. This is a group who want to murder not just all Jews in Israel but all Jews in this country too. Surely the Labour Party won’t want to take a penny from anyone who thinks genocidal terrorist murderers and rapists are freedom fighters.“

Labour say the comments aren’t comparable to Hester’s. Why not?

UPDATE:   On Friday 4, April, 2024 lawyers acting for Dale Vince contacted us objecting to the above article claiming it would be understood to mean, that “our client supports a proscribed terrorist group”. We replied on Monday 8, April 2024 inviting Mr Vince to “to put on the record unambiguously that he does not think Hamas are freedom fighters” in which case “we will be happy to withdraw and/or amend our previous reports accordingly.” Through his lawyers Mr Vince declined so to do. They stated he had previously condemned terrorism on the record. We accept and never claimed otherwise that Mr Vince has previously condemned terrorism including saying of the specific acts of Hamas terrorism on the weekend of October 7, 2023 “I don’t support what they did”. We remain baffled therefore why he won’t even through his lawyers confirm that he does not think Hamas are, in the words he used, “freedom fighters”.