Emine Ibrahim calls for Haringey Green health chief to resign after ‘no home for TERFs’ protest message emerges

Former Haringey deputy leader says message urging demonstrators to make ‘as much noise as we can’ raises fresh questions following alleged intimidation of women attending council meeting

Turkish Cypriot campaigner and former Haringey Labour deputy leader Emine Ibrahim (pictured top) has called for a senior Green councillor to resign after a message emerged encouraging protesters to make “as much noise as we can” outside a council meeting where she was presenting a deputation seeking to protect single-sex domestic abuse services.

Ibrahim has called for the immediate resignation of Cllr Tehseen Khan, Haringey Council’s Green Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care, after he subsequently publicly thanked residents who had demonstrated outside Tuesday evening’s meeting.

The latest development follows an acrimonious evening at George Meehan House in Wood Green on 15 September, where Ibrahim presented a deputation backed by 42 residents concerning Haringey's approach to Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) services. The Cabinet meeting and its consideration of the council's formal response to a VAWG scrutiny review are confirmed in the council's published agenda.

Ibrahim says she and two other women had to be escorted through a rear entrance by council security after protesters outside shouted abuse, including references to “TERFs” — an acronym for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”.

Contemporary reporting also states that security staff accompanied the three women away from the building because of concerns for their safety.

The dispute has now escalated after Ibrahim published a screenshot of a message circulated ahead of the Cabinet meeting advertising an “EMERGENCY DEMO! Keep Haringey trans-inclusive!”

The message called on supporters to attend a demonstration organised with The Dyke Project and said: “We need as many of us as possible to make as much noise as we can outside their council meeting to show that Haringey is no home for TERFs.”

The screenshot does not identify its sender — the contact details visible at the top have been obscured — and T-VINE has not independently established who authored or originally circulated the message.

However, Ibrahim says its emergence raises serious questions about the circumstances surrounding the protest and whether anyone connected with Haringey's Green administration was aware of it beforehand.

Writing on X on Thursday evening, she said: “Following the intimidation of women exercising their democratic rights, Cllr Khan publicly thanked these people for their solidarity.”

She added: “If any councillor had any involvement in, organising or endorsing that intimidation, they must also be held accountable.”

Ibrahim has now challenged Haringey Greens to explain: “Who knew what, and when?”

Khan thanked protesters after meeting

The controversy centres partly on comments subsequently made by Cllr Khan, who thanked residents who had demonstrated outside alongside The Dyke Project.

In a video reported following the meeting, Khan thanked those who supported the administration inside the chamber and those demonstrating outside, saying their “solidarity means so much”. He also argued that transgender women can experience domestic abuse and face additional barriers when seeking help, saying the council wanted its services to respond to the needs of all residents.

Khan is a Green councillor for Tottenham Hale and shares Haringey's Health and Social Care Cabinet portfolio. He is also a GP and NHS London Clinical Adviser.

Ibrahim argues that Khan's public thanks take on a different significance in light of the newly published message.

Her call for his resignation is her position rather than an established finding of wrongdoing, and there is currently no evidence presented publicly showing that Khan organised the protest or knew about the message before Tuesday's meeting.

That distinction will be important as questions are put to both Haringey Greens and the council.

What was Ibrahim asking the council to do?

At the heart of the increasingly heated dispute is a comparatively specific question: how Haringey should provide services for people experiencing domestic and sexual violence following last year's Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of sex in the Equality Act.

Haringey's own Overview and Scrutiny Committee recommended that the council review its VAWG policies, services and risk assessments to ensure they reflected the definition of “sex” established by the Supreme Court in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers.

Importantly, the committee simultaneously recommended that specialist provision should be available for people falling outside that legal definition.

That second recommendation is significant because Ibrahim has strongly rejected claims that she was asking Haringey to withdraw domestic abuse services from transgender people.

Instead, she says her position is that appropriate provision should exist for everyone experiencing domestic abuse, while some services should remain specifically single-sex for women and girls.

Haringey's Green administration “partially agreed” both scrutiny recommendations.

Responding to the recommendation concerning the Supreme Court ruling, the council said it had to comply with protections for all characteristics covered by equality law and that its objective was for services to be “maximally trans inclusive as legally permitted”.

It also pledged to examine barriers faced by trans women accessing services.

The council's Cabinet report argues more broadly that trans women, trans men and non-binary people can experience domestic abuse, sexual violence and harassment and says its new strategy, starting development in 2027, will use the broader framing of Gender Based Violence while maintaining a focus on forms of violence that disproportionately affect women and girls.

Second Green councillor accused of misrepresenting deputation

Ibrahim has also clashed with another member of the Green Cabinet, Cllr Erin Wolson, who posted on Instagram after the meeting that a group had presented an argument that Haringey Council should “exclude trans women from its domestic abuse and violence services”.

Wolson is the council's Cabinet Member for Culture and Leisure.

Ibrahim strongly disputes that description. She said she had instead requested the protection of single-sex provision for women and girls alongside funded provision for all people experiencing domestic abuse, and accused Wolson of publicly recasting her deputation into something she had not said.

The dispute matters because Haringey's scrutiny recommendations themselves contemplate both elements: reviewing services in light of the legal definition of sex and providing specialist support for those falling outside that definition.

A deeply personal intervention

For Ibrahim, the issue is also rooted in her own childhood. She has described arriving in Haringey aged ten in 1986 with her mother and sister after fleeing domestic violence, initially living in hotel accommodation where women and girls guarded bathroom doors for one another to maintain privacy.

The former Labour councillor, who served Haringey for 12 years and was previously its Deputy Leader, told Tuesday's meeting that for some survivors single-sex provision can be important to their sense of safety, dignity and ability to recover from trauma. Her previous service as Haringey's Deputy Leader is documented in council records.

Following the protest she wrote: “We came to speak. They came to intimidate.”

The newly revealed message has prompted her to go further.

Rejecting the declaration that Haringey should be “no home for TERFs”, Ibrahim said Haringey had always been a “borough of sanctuary” and added that nobody should tell her, or women supporting legal single-sex exemptions, that the borough was not their home.

Equality law protects sex and gender reassignment

The wider legal picture remains important amid the political argument.

UK Supreme Court

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in April 2025 that the words “man”, “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex. The judgment also made clear that transgender people continue to have legal protection from discrimination, including through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's statutory Code of Practice, which came into effect on 5 August 2026, similarly deals with the rights and responsibilities of service providers under the Equality Act. Sex and gender reassignment remain separate protected characteristics under the legislation.

The challenge facing councils is therefore not accurately reduced to a choice between protecting women or protecting transgender people. It involves determining how services can meet different needs while complying with equality law and safeguarding vulnerable people.

Whatever position residents take on those questions, the separate controversy now confronting Haringey is whether the atmosphere surrounding Tuesday's democratic meeting crossed from legitimate protest into intimidation — and what, if anything, elected members knew about the mobilisation beforehand.

T-VINE has approached Haringey Green Party and Haringey Council for comment. At the time of publication, neither had responded.