Labour Peer quits law centre role over island dog snub row
Labour peer Lord George Foulkes has resigned as a patron of the Ethnic Minorities Law Centre (EMLC) in protest at the organisation's support for Claire Kellerman, an American woman suing a community-run café on the Isle of Great Bernera in a dispute over her dog. Foulkes said it was "outrageous" for the centre to back someone he described as "clearly not an ethnic minority" who was taking "provocative action" against local residents, adding weight to growing local criticism of the case.
Kellerman, 62, the adopted daughter of the late M*A*S*H actress Sally Kellerman, is suing the Bernera Community Association after her dog, Tarkina, was barred from its café; she claims the animal is an assistance dog and that she is being discriminated against as a disabled person. She is being represented by the EMLC with financial backing from the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB), a decision also criticised by local MSP Donald MacKinnon, who called it an "absurd case" threatening the community association's survival. Kellerman's lawyers initially sued the wrong body, the Great Bernera Community Development Trust, which ran up £7,500 in legal costs defending itself; SLAB's chief executive Colin Lancaster has defended the funding decision, saying it is not the board's role to investigate the merits or factual basis of a case.
- Lord Foulkes quit as EMLC patron over its backing of Claire Kellerman's dog case
- Kellerman is suing a Hebridean café over her dog being barred, citing disability
- SLAB's legal aid funding for the case has drawn local and political criticism
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Lord George Foulkes, a Labour peer, has quit as a patron of the Ethnic Minorities Law Centre (EMLC), a legal charity that normally supports people facing racial discrimination. His resignation is a protest against the centre's decision to back a legal case brought by Claire Kellerman, an American woman with no apparent link to that cause.
Kellerman, who lives on the Isle of Great Bernera in the Outer Hebrides, is suing the local community association after its café would not allow her dog inside. She says the dog is a registered assistance animal and that refusing it entry amounts to disability discrimination, while the community association disputes this. The case is publicly funded through the Scottish Legal Aid Board, which has already led to criticism from a local politician and residents who fear the costs could threaten the small community association's future.
The dispute matters beyond one island café because it raises wider questions about how public legal aid money and charitable resources are used, and about the boundary between defending an individual's rights and protecting a small local organisation from a costly legal fight.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters of the case argue that Claire Kellerman is entitled to have a genuine disability discrimination claim tested through proper legal process, regardless of her nationality or ethnicity, and that legal aid and law centres exist precisely to fund access to justice on the merits of a claim rather than to pre-judge who is deserving. They point out that SLAB's chief executive has defended this principle directly, saying it is not the board's role to investigate the factual basis of a case before funding it, since doing so would risk politicising legal aid decisions. From this perspective, withdrawing support under public or political pressure, as Lord Foulkes has done, sets a troubling precedent by suggesting that access to representation should depend on identity or popularity rather than legal merit.
The case against
Critics such as Lord Foulkes and Donald MacKinnon argue that organisations with finite resources and a specific mission, in this case a centre dedicated to supporting ethnic minorities facing discrimination, should exercise judgement about which cases best serve that purpose, particularly when public legal aid funds are involved. They contend it is reasonable to question the proportionality of backing a case against a small, volunteer-run community association whose survival is reportedly threatened, especially after an initial error in identifying the correct defendant already cost a related community trust £7,500 in legal fees. On this view, the concern is not whether Kellerman has a right to pursue her claim, but whether public bodies and mission-specific institutions should be lending their name, funding and legitimacy to a dispute many locals see as disproportionate to the underlying grievance over a café's dog policy.