former Green Party Deputy Leader
Shahrar trained as a biochemical engineer and philosopher. His PhD tackled the morality of lying and deception in public life. He worked as a researcher in the Science and Technology options assessment unit of the European Parliament and is author of two popular books in Green politics, including Why Vote Green 2015.
In 2024, Shahrar Ali won a landmark belief discrimination case, the first of its kind against a political party. In their removal of him as a national spokesperson, in 2022, the Green Party was found to have unlawfully discriminated against his gender critical protected belief and he was awarded damages and costs totalling £100,000.
Shahrar continues to campaign forcefully for women’s sex-based protections in all areas of life, whether prisons, hospital wards or fair and safe sport; and against the medically negligent “gender-affirmation” of children or their indoctrination with age-inappropriate materials in schools.
In politics, Shahrar champions free speech over the industry of offence-taking and advocates for debating those one might strenuously disagree with, a position he defended at the Battle of Ideas in 2024, Environmentalists must be prepared to debate. He regularly appears in public debates and broadcast media.
Follow Shahrar on Twitter: @ShahrarAli
publisher, writer and event speaker/organiser
Ian Skillicorn is a publisher with three decades’ experience of working in the media and arts. His publishing company, Wyndham Books, reissues bestselling mid-twentieth century fiction. He also organises and hosts live debates with academics and thought leaders, and literary events with writers from book publishing, film and television. He frequently collaborates on literary projects with universities, libraries and schools.
Ian is a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, the Translators’ Association and the Society of Authors. He was an independent advisor to the Metropolitan Police Service for ten years, and was awarded a Commendation from the Commander (Head of Homicide Investigations).
He has lived and worked in Milan, Italy, and in London, and is now based in Liverpool.
www.ianskillicorn.com
writer, lecturer and business manager
Phil Mullan is a writer and business manager, who researches, writes and lectures on economic, demographic and business issues.
His new book Beyond Confrontation: Globalists, Nationalists and Their Discontents published in August 2020 addresses the crumbling of the post-1945 world order and the expansion of international rivalries.
Currently working independently, in 2014 Mullan completed eight years in senior management roles with Easynet Global Services, an international communications services company. Previously he had been chief executive of the internet services and training company Cybercafé Ltd.
researcher, consultant and university teacher, specialising in teacher education and modern foreign languages, chevalier dans l’order des palmes academiques
Dr Shirley Lawes is an education researcher, consultant and university teacher, specialising in teacher education and modern foreign languages teaching and learning at the University College London Institute of Education. She has published widely on education policy, teacher education and the teaching of modern foreign languages in both English and French. She is currently writing a book on culture in language teaching.
Over a long career in education, Shirley was a teacher trainer for many years and taught in vocational, secondary and higher education institutions. She has been involved in a number of curriculum development initiatives as well as a variety of national and international research projects. She was a member of the Ministerial Steering Group on Modern Languages in 2012 and of the ALCAB (A Level Content Advisory Board) for Modern Foreign Languages in 2014. Shirley is also a Chevalier dans l’ordre des Palmes Académiques awarded by the French Ministry of Education for her contribution to the promotion of the French language and culture.
dm alumnus & law student at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Loris Halama is a law student at Humboldt University in Berlin. He did the licence en droit and the maître en droit at the university Panthéon-Assas in Paris. Prior to this he was a student at Europäisches Gymnasium Bertha-von-Suttner from 2013 to 2020 where he was part of the debating team who won the Debating Matters Championship in 2019. In 2017/2018 he spent a year abroad, in the US. He was also part of the Erasmus+ programme of the school.
journalist and author
Daniel Ben-Ami runs the Radicalism of fools website on rethinking anti-Semitism. He has worked as a writer for many years including for the Australian, Economist, Financial Times, the Guardian and the Sunday Telegraph. Daniel has written two books – Cowardly Capitalism and Ferraris for All – and contributed to several others. He has also made many appearances in the broadcast media.
You can follow Daniel on twitter @danielbenami
Simon is a Plastic Surgeon and Professor of Hand Surgery at the University of Leeds. He has spent his career treating major nerve injuries, and abnormalities and injuries in children’s hands; and he has integrated psychological care into the surgical system, working closely between the disciplines.
In the last ten years he has developed and led the UK Hand Transplant program, and paid particular attention to the ethical problems with which this practice is beset. He is a keen educator and debater and enjoys finding the strengths and weakness of each case, whilst cheerfully challenging orthodoxies.
student & dm alumnus
Lukas is a former contestant of the Debating Matters Berlin Championship where he successfully helped his team to the next round twice. Enthusiastic about technology, he has been a long-time member of his former school’s tech club but also shows a keen interest in creative writing, having made an appearance in the pre-program at the 19th International Literature Festival Berlin. He is now studying business administration in Berlin and assists the organisation of the competition as a Debating Matters alumnus.
writer and editor, specialising in architecture
Tim Abrahams is a writer and editor specialising in the field of architecture. He writes regularly for The Critic. He’s European correspondent for the Architectural Record and a contributing editor to Icon. He has just finished a stint as deputy guest editor for the Italian design magazine Domus throughout 2020.
Previously he has written about architecture and design for The Economist, The Times and The Glasgow Herald. He is a former editor of Blueprint magazine and editor in chief at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. With his own publishing imprint, Machine Books, he is currently editing a series of classic short stories called the Machine Book of Weird.
dj, political commentator and financier
Ali Miraj founded the Contrarian Prize in 2012 and is a political columnist for TheArticle and regularly appears on Sky News, BBC News and talkRADIO. He is also a House music DJ and has performed at leading venues around the world. By day he works in the City as an infrastructure financier.
He is national Vice President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, a board member of the London Institute of Banking and Finance and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of International Bankers. He was educated at the London School of Economics where he obtained degrees at both graduate and postgraduate level and is a qualified Chartered Accountant.
