Why the Labour Party will not elect a woman

That Labour is unelectable is on the Labour Party and its current leader

That no strong women leadership candidates have been able to get to a position of prominence in recent years within the Labour Party is on the Labour Party and its current leader

I think that makes you both racist and sexist then bellini

Abbott is unelectable. Not because she's a black woman but because she's rubbish.

People talking about Labour needing to select a female leader are no friends of Labour or of such a leader, IMO.

I think it's fine to think of it privately as a good and long overdue thing, if it happens to happen, but any hint of it being something that should be actively pushed for or engineered simply removes (in advance) credibility from any woman elected as leader.

Talking in advance about how a woman 'should' be chosen will also make the party look like it has just made a 'PC' choice, if it does select a woman.

For that reason I find myself really wishing the people saying Labour 'ought' to have a woman leader this time would be quiet about it! By all means hope for it to happen and campaign for female candidates you like, but please don't go round implying it's something that should be chosen deliberately, as right now that will just harm any woman elected, and the party as a whole.

Moonlight then I am not sure what your point actually was.

I quite agree notmoresheep - but they are incapable of seeing it. Tragic for those of us who used to and want to vote Labour again.

Labour has only ever had one person elected prime minister in the last 45 yrs - Blair. This means that the issue isn't Labour, but the country I’d say this means the opposite, the issue IS Labour.

I live in Liverpool. The old hard left have re-entered the grass roots party and local constituencies. They can be bullies, and are utterly intolerant.
Bullying and the weeding out of long standing MPs and councillors just because they don't follow the exact letter of the law has to stop.

Local Labour groups have inserted very young inexperienced Momentum members - who cannot possibly speak up for all of their constituents. Only interested in furthering the cause.

The intolerance and woke'ism also needs to stop.

@claireskimono Is that what I said? No, it isn’t.

Personally think it is more important to get the right person.......doesn't matter what sex. Personally, though, do prefer Yvette Cooper...think she comes across as more approachable and less courtroom barrister than Starmer. She could have more general appeal.

My reluctant conclusion as to why the Tories won and why Labour lost is that, however much we can argue about the veracity of the claims - the Tory campaign was in possession of more vision and positive thought about the future.

Seems to me, we make much of the demonization of immigrants by the right wing (and that is certainly true), but we don't take any notice of the demonization of other groups by the left wing, or we think that particular bit of divisiveness if justified. So we accept the ire directed at business owners or landlords or the media, and some Labour bods think that kind of campaigning will stir the resentment of the people they clearly think are too stupid to have independent thought about the way their lives work without having an enemy to blame.

One person blames the immigrants for their difficulties, another person blames the media. Round and round we go and whoever capitalizes on the fear is the winner.

What a shitty way to run a railroad. I want Labour to step up and listen to what people want from their lives, and I don't care what sex the new leader is if they can't do that and turn it into policies that come from the bulk of the country who work hard and want good things for their families and neighbours and just want to impose a diktat onto the stupid sheep who don't know what's best for them.

TBH that casual dismissal of Diane Abbott is always a massive red flag for women hating racists.

So no criticism of the woeful Abbott is allowed because that is automatically women hating and racist? Seriously?

@Namechangednorth No, I thought Corbyn was terrible and voted against him both times. I don’t think RLB is an electable leader. But she’s not stupid and nor are the other female Labour politicians you’ve conveniently decided are too stupid for you. TBH that casual dismissal of Diane Abbott is always a massive red flag for women hating racists.

There are strong female candidates-RLB isn't one of them. She's tainted as a Corbynite.
Nandy, Cooper - both good candidates.

Labour has only ever had one person elected prime minister in the last 45 yrs - Blair. This means that the issue isn't Labour, but the country.

When will the LP stop blaming the voters for its own failings?

I'm a working-class Northern woman,
Labour speaks about people like me as if we are some kind of pathetic charity case. They want us to sit down and shut up.

That's exactly it isn't it? GeordieTerf

Nobody chooses to live from day to day with no money or prospects.

Get a grip Labour, ffs, people want a better life for themselves and their communities, not a system to keep them down and no clear vision that enables them to live and thrive.

...Long post...

You cannot elect a woman leader just for the sake of electing a woman leader.

The fact that Jess Phillips is considered a viable choice as leader shows the illiteracy of the political debate in this country. She is completely unsuited to lead anything - in the private sector she would be a supervisor at a pound store or similar at best. People who constantly root for her never even know what her policy stances are, other than "I will never shut up about feminism". What does this even mean? What does she believe is the way forward on railways, utilities, the media?

Labour has only ever had one person elected prime minister in the last 45 yrs - Blair. This means that the issue isn't Labour, but the country. Until that is honestly looked at, and questions critically asked about why voters repeatedly prefer to vote Tory, then even with the next leader the party is likely to lose again.

The problem with the last election wasn't Corbyn per se, but with how politics just is in this country. How it is covered in the media for instance. Before him, the print and broadcast media went ballistic about Ed Miliband. Red Ed, they quickly christened him. They called him not just a socialist but a marxist. Remember the attacks on his father - "The man who hated Britain". Imagine Ed being called a marxist. The press ran endless unofficial polls asking people whether Ed was "weird". The TV channels did endless voxpops asking people on the street whether Ed was weird. They painted him as a weak, weird, marxist. Even The Guardian had endless opinion pieces of how we got the wrong brother. This sort of thing becomes embedded in people's minds. And the sandwich. Don't forget the bacon sandwich. Why? Because he had said he was going to fight vested interests and reform the press. They didn't like it.

The only way Blair, again the only leader to win in the last 45 yrs, won, was to jump into bed with the media barons, eventually becoming godfather to Murdoch's child. Imagine that. You can't tax the rich by cosying up to them, and you can't fund public services without taxing the rich. That is the catch. Labour can't win on taxing the rich, so it can't win on funding public services, so it has to move to the "centre", that part of the political spectrum, the wilderness of ambiguity that stands for, actually, not much. It might have worked during the Blair years, but now, after the torching of public services started by Cameron and Osborne, a lot more funding is needed.

Also the cultural war we have been in for the last couple of decades. The campaign to monster migrants. "Uncontrolled immigation/they're coming to take your jobs/your homes/your country/they're raping your women/they breed like rats so they will quickly outnumber you/other similar headlines" that the papers run weekly. The minute you go down this route people will vote against their own interests each time.

Electing a woman leader isn't going to solve any of this.

One thing would-be labour voters need to understand is that the right have always been proficient in making the left embarassed of its leaders. This has been one of their tools for decades. Other than all I have mentioned above, remember Brown was painted as incompetent, Kinnock at the time as a joke - remember the scene at the beach when the waves came in and partially knocked him and his wife over? How many times was that played on the telly? Remember Michael Foot's donkey jacket? Until Labour find a way to counter all this, and honest journalists have some introspection about how politics is covered this will carry on for good.

It is far more complicated than, we need a woman/Corbyn was toxic/working class voters/whatever is the theory this week.

Yes, what this responds to is nonsense. Since deindustrialisation, unions most often have majority women membership. PCS is another. And their leaderships have pretty much done fuck all for their low paid women, preferring to triangulate on behalf of Labour instead - and look where that's got us.

The Unions don't believe in science, they don't represent biological material reality.

Absolutely, Lang. Labour are dripping with "we know best and the silly electorate just don't know enough to agree with us / they were so gullible and stupid they let themselves be fooled by Boris' slogans".

Narcs and echoes!

I helped with flying pickets during the miners strike. The less I say about the police in that dispute, the better.

@MoonlightBonnet

That’s a load of misogynist shit about all the women being thick that you seem to have absorbed there

Not absorbed. Observed....like a lot of the electorate. I cringe when I see RLB being interviewed and the answers she gives. Potential prime minister material ... laughable

Unfortunately you probably espouse why Labour lost so badly as not facing up to the reality. I suppose you think that the policies of the dear leader Jeremy were fine, just need to change the leader for a female version. Well if that happens it will look like no effective opposition to Johnson and several more election thrashings.

Idealism is fine but not if it delivers zilch

My dad still talks about the time he met an off duty policeman when walking the dog, many moons ago, who idly boasted of the extra cash he'd got to go and deal with the miners. Dad walked away in disgust, as a man who was heavily involved in the Unions and worked with Alan Johnson, etc. and would practically spit if you mentioned Thatcher. He'd never voted anything but Labour in his life, but he called Corbyn a jumped up shop steward with weasel words. He always said to me the fetishizing of the working class by politicos always missed that we don't work in mines or supermarkets as an aspiration, and only ever want our kids to work in those kinds of jobs. We're working class because we know the value of graft to get on, not because we're poor and need handouts.

I don't know how he voted in the recent election, but I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if it was Conservative.

Might apply to Unite but 3/4 of UNISON members are female. Both have approx 1.3m members.

Yes, what this responds to is nonsense. Since deindustrialisation, unions most often have majority women membership. PCS is another. And their leaderships have pretty much done fuck all for their low paid women, preferring to triangulate on behalf of Labour instead - and look where that's got us.

The reason labour still talk about the mines and are heavily trade orientated is because they are held up and supported by the unions. It's not about being anti-female as if female orientated work places were to provide the funding you can bet that's who'd be represented.

Might apply to Unite but 3/4 of UNISON members are female. Both have approx 1.3m members.

Absolutely, Lang. Labour are dripping with "we know best and the silly electorate just don't know enough to agree with us / they were so gullible and stupid they let themselves be fooled by Boris' slogans".

They can get fucked.