We need to talk about Labour

most people want to get up, go to work and feel like they have provided for their family. Don't matter who your family is, that's the point, humans work in groups, we are tribal, we are british, we are polski etc, we all want a group to belong to

Thanks, Eresh. It was the Kirkup article I'd remembered. He's really got internal Labour politicking down pat.

I can’t beleieve that we have gotten to a place where women have to reclaim their name as Women. It’s absolutely mental. I feel the need to wear a t shirt with Woman emblazoned across it.

The thing is, Labour does seem to be speaking with a unified voice on this at the moment - which, given the viciousness of their factionalism, is unusual.

Yes exactly - there is obviously a gag order in place - the misogyny is evident in what they don't say and don't do Self-id. The fact they choose to say and do nothing, either collectively or individually, is bystander bullying and that is an active harmful act- ie do nothing - especially concerning 50% of the voting population - it doesn't make sense

As to Corbyn, there's a name for men who surround themselves with women and men who look the part but will never stand their corner or act independently against him - so in that respect these are women being used- the only question is consciously or not. Cult Corbyn is a big thing as attested to his survival this long despite himself

On the one hand my head tells me it's naive to be disappointed in politicians for being, well political. But then my heart says, if you go into politics but never put your head over the parapet, what exactly is the point of you?

It's why I think the best hope is with one of the old guard. Being close to the end of your career can be very liberating - although it seems to be Tory MPs who enjoy it the most.

Interesting about trade union divisions. I fear the public sector ones may have already swallowed the line but I'd love to be proved wrong.

I think this is the latest women’s struggle. We all know how hard won women’s safe spaces have been. They are precious and it would be a crime to give away ground now. I have sympathy for people who identify as women, but I would not be happy sharing a safe space eg a refuge, hospital bay, open changing room, prison cell with a person who was not physically of the same gender as me. I don’t think that is old fashioned, and I do not think that makes me in any way less tolerant. That community now needs to carve out its own safe spaces in what ever way they can and force change and space for themselves, I wish them all the best with that.

She's a fan of George Soros

Stella Creasy is such a disappointment.

I find Stella Creasy more of a worry (in GC terms) because she is actually an adept politician. Very good at working parliamentary procedures and getting alliances going. Dawn Butler is more likely to dig a hole, then keep digging.

And I don't think Dawn Butler is the brightest of MPs either, I'm afraid.

#followthemoney

Yep, I expect it would be hard to remain impartial in Dawn Butler's position.

You have someone advising her who has a particular agenda. And who is paying for her "fact finding" trips. And as Guido Fawkes stated, Butler did not mention it in her social media at all despite it lasting 9 days. Dawn Butler tweets all the time. And if it was genuinely work then you'd expect her to tweet about it. As well as be open about who paid for the trip. Neither of these two things happened.

I wonder how many trips of hers are paid for by women's groups.

The cynic in me also wonders how exactly Maria Miller's enthusiasm for self-ID was generated.

Popchyk that's disgusting, the Dawn Butler-Brent jolly.

If anything is going to stop self id it is the unions. Most of the big unions are divided and internally discussing this issue. If you are a member of a union speak to your officials about your concerns. I did this (had concerns about becoming publicly GC and being targeted by TRA's) turns out they knew very little about it (some believed the general pro trans equality line) I sent them a load of info and I believe they agree with me now. If unions vote this down at conference it will be dead in the water.

Excellent point. This makes perfect sense. How do we get unions to understand this issue better and to propose motions for their members to vote on?

Should union members be asking their unions for speaking slots at conference?
How does that work?

Should we be fundraising to send WPUK to have stands at union conferences? to organise fringe events with speakers- seeing as they have a pretty great format already going?
Or WPUK to leaflet union conferences outside if the above too costly and difficult to organise?

What about that awesome group from Manchester who did a town centre pop up info spot, where they made placards and chatted to people about the issues? We could model on that.

I think this point is really valid not just for unions which fund the Labour Party. Though it is an EXCELLENT idea to seek to influence Labour towards providing a vote on this key area of policy, by having Labour funders debate this issue openly. And unions should be worried that Labour have not given its members the basic right of debating this before forming their pro self ID policy.

It would be great if any and every union or group, club or society of any kind were having this discussion and voting democratically to form their policy on this, if their area of work or interest would be likely to be affected by gender self ID.

Their members should propose debates and these organisation should not feel they can make policy that supports legal or just in-effect gender self ID (ie which has no legal basis) without this debate because that would be an abuse of their power (looking at you, the Labour Party)

We should also look at doctors, nurses, NHS commissioners conferences. Teachers, headteachers, social workers, prisons, sports groups and sports funders, preschool, nursery, childcare provider conferences, psychologists, local government conferences, leisure industry conferences, retail industry conferences, etc etc could all discuss it-there will be loads of other areas. this needs really broad discussion.

There’s usually an ‘any other business’ slot kept in any membership conference, so people shouldn’t feel put off if the agenda has been already set and advertised months in advance.

UpstartCrow

You need pages 56 and 57 for the Labour welfare manifesto commitments: labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/labour-manifesto-2017.pdf

As you can see, there is a big emphasis on changing the culture (eg performance management for DWP staff and scrapping sanctions - which, by the way, cost more to administer than save money) and this will make life a lot more bearable for claimants.

But the money? That's much less generous. There is a low level effort to reverse the most punitive of the cuts - bedroom tax, rape clause, HB to young people - but the vast majority of them, including the benefits cap, will remain.

This manifesto spent 4x the money on university students than it did on all welfare claimants (low paid, unemployed, disabled) combined.

BBC Radio 4 Today this morning has a segment on child poverty, especially in working families; and there's a statement from Peter dowd at around 2:49.
There's a lot of fluff about improving the lives of working people by creating jobs, it seems Labourt do not intend to reverse the benefit cuts;

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b42pvc

Andrew Murray! That's it! Was it in the Morning Star? Goes off to search...

Unimpressed by the senior Labour women, and corbyn, on this, but not surprised.

Was it by someone like Andrew Fisher? I do recall this article but unsure it was in the Times? More like New Statesman or Labour Uncut? It was a prominent unionist Labour adviser laying out a possible collision course between the unions and Momentum with things like AWS becoming serious battle grounds?