Dale Vince’s libel case against Lord Shaun Bailey can go to trial, judge rules

Green energy industrialist Dale Vince’s libel case against former London mayoral candidate Lord Shaun Bailey over allegations that the Labour donor called Hamas “freedom fighters” can proceed to trial, a High Court judge has ruled.

Mr Vince is suing the peer, whose full title is Lord Bailey of Paddington, over the allegations made last year, which Mr Vince denies.

He is also suing Richard Tice, the deputy leader of the Reform UK party and MP for Boston and Skegness in Lincolnshire, and Paul Staines, the founding editor of the Guido Fawkes website, in relation to the same allegations.

In a ruling related to the case against Lord Bailey on Tuesday, Mr Justice Pepperall dismissed a bid by the Conservative Greater London Assembly member for the court to rule in his favour before a trial.

He said that he considered “there is a triable issue”, adding: “It cannot be said that Mr Vince has no real prospect of defeating Lord Bailey’s case.”

He also found that “it was not substantially true to say that there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that Mr Vince called Hamas freedom fighters”.

At a hearing in November, the judge was asked to decide several preliminary issues in the claim, including the “natural and ordinary” meaning of the allegations and whether they were statements of fact or opinion.

Lawyers for Mr Vince told the hearing that he was “libelled multiple times” by the “false allegation he supports Hamas”, following an interview with Times Radio on October 9 2023.

The court in London heard that in the interview, two days after the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, Mr Vince said that “one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” as part of a wider discussion on the issue lasting around two minutes.

In a 31-page judgment, Mr Justice Pepperall said the interview “attracted little media attention” before extracts were published by Guido Fawkes in two articles in March last year.

Lord Bailey then appeared as a guest on the Patrick Christys Tonight programme on GB News on March 14 2024, where he discussed Mr Vince’s comments and said the businessman “called Hamas freedom fighters”.

After Mr Vince threatened legal proceedings, Lord Bailey appealed for crowdfunding online, where he repeated the allegation and added: “There is also the important factor of holding to account those that are apologists for vile antisemitic entities such as Hamas.”

The judge said that Mr Vince “argues that the publications asserted that he supported or had endorsed the terrorist acts of Hamas, or that he was an apologist for Hamas and was himself an antisemite who had publicly defended Hamas as freedom fighters just two days after the October atrocity”.

He added that Lord Bailey “asserts that the imputations actually made were substantially true and that in any event, the statements complained of contained honest statements of opinion”.

The judge said that Lord Bailey had previously accepted that the allegations “were defamatory of Mr Vince at common law”.

He said: “I reject the truth defence. In my judgment, when the entire Times Radio interview is taken in the round and the matter is considered objectively, it was not substantially true to say that there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that Mr Vince called Hamas freedom fighters.”

He continued: “He (Mr Vince) used a cliché that identified that there are two sides to every dispute. The point he was making was that in the west Hamas is regarded as a terrorist organisation, whereas those viewing the dispute through the Palestinian lens might regard them as freedom fighters.

“I find, however, that on the balance of probabilities, Lord Bailey has succeeded in establishing that an honest person could have held the contrary opinion that Mr Vince had called Hamas freedom fighters and, therefore, the parasitic opinion that Mr Vince is an apologist for Hamas.”

He added: “The judge also found that “the impression created by Lord Bailey’s statement was that it was his opinion that, by saying in respect of Hamas that one man’s terrorist was another man’s freedom fighter, Mr Vince had called Hamas freedom fighters.”

A further hearing in the case is expected to be held at a later date, with judgments concerning Mr Vince’s claims against Mr Tice and Mr Staines also due to be handed down in writing later.

In a statement, Mr Vince said Lord Bailey’s claims “that I called Hamas freedom fighters were found to be untrue and unsupported by the facts”.

He continued: “The judge also dismissed a hopeless attempt by Bailey to have my claim thrown out. We will now proceed to a final hearing.”

He also added that there had been “a lot of legal action in the last few months around this one issue” against several parties, and that he had received “apologies, costs and damages”.

In a statement on behalf of Lord Bailey following the ruling, David Romain, a partner at law firm Egality Law, said: “My client is pleased that the judge has determined that his words were a statement of opinion and that what Mr Vince said in relation to Hamas was a sufficient basis for the opinion.

“Political figures should engage publicly if they disagree with opinions made about their words or actions, rather than bringing expensive defamation claims.

“The only remaining option for Mr Vince if he wishes to pursue the case is for him to seek to prove that my client did not hold the opinion that he expressed.

“My client will vigorously contest any such attempt.”