Expelled Alliance member Geoffrey Wilson loses legal battle against the party

The Court of Appeal rejected claims that Geoffrey Wilson was wrongly denied the chance to mount a discrimination case at a Fair Employment Tribunal.

Lord Justice McCloskey ruled today there was no merit in any of his grounds of challenge.

Mr Wilson, from the Dunmurry area of Belfast, was a member of Alliance for nine years.

The 52-year-old legal consultant said he was suspended and then expelled in December 2021 following events at a meeting to select candidates for the Lagan Valley constituency.

By that stage he had repeatedly failed to secure approval to stand as an Alliance candidate.

Between 2017 and 2021 he unsuccessfully applied for nominations to contest local council, Northern Ireland Assembly and Westminster polls.

In 2022 Mr Wilson was denied permission to seek a judicial review of his removal from the cross-community party.

But in a separate move he attempted to have a case heard by the Fair Employment Tribunal sitting in Belfast.

He alleged discrimination because of his age and his emphasis on strong pro-abortion and transgender rights.

The tribunal refused jurisdiction, however, on the grounds that he was never an employee of the party. Mr Wilson sought to overturn that determination at the Court of Appeal.

Representing himself in the challenge, he claimed the decision involved apparent bias and breached European Union law.

Dismissing the alleged bias ground, Lord Justice McCloskey said: “This assertion must be rejected for want of evidential foundation.”

Mr Wilson also contended that Article 2 of the Northern Ireland Protocol means EU discrimination laws remain in force post-Brexit, allowing him to take a case to the tribunal.

His claim involved an attempt to establish an interpretation of the Alliance Party as a vocational organisation under relevant legislation.

But the court held it was impossible to identify anything in the constitution and rules to warrant such an assessment of the “political entity”.

“There is no identifiable ingredient of vocational provision or training in the non-selection decision which the appellant has sought to impugn in these proceedings,” Lord Justice McCloskey said.

“It follows that a fundamental element of the appellant’s case cannot be sustained.”

With no pre-Brexit legal entitlement to take the party to a tribunal, the judge confirmed: “The

logical consequence (is) that he has suffered no diminution of any discernible right as a

result of EU withdrawal.”