Labour suspends Trevor Phillips because he identified who made up child grooming gangs

He wrote an article back in 2018, when it was far less socially acceptable to voice such reservations, opposing the suggested changes.

The disaster of the public consultation process on gender recognition has revealed a government so terrified of being labelled transphobic that it is ready to destroy half a century of painstakingly assembled anti-discrimination legislation to the detriment of every woman, person of colour and disabled individual in Britain. Under the current law, a change of gender requires a two-year period of reflection, medical checks and possible physical alterations. It is a gruelling process and proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act rightly aim to make the process less bureaucratic.

However, agitation by a guilt-tripping band of “trans” activists has corralled MPs into contemplating a wholly unnecessary and dangerous further step. It is seriously being suggested that we should do away with any objective test of gender, and leave the decision as to whether an individual should be treated as male or female entirely in the hands of the person themselves. In short, a man would be able to declare himself a woman, and immediately have every right to enter spaces reserved for women — changing rooms, lavatories, prisons.

The feminist objection to “self-declaration” has already been made on these pages, not least by Janice Turner, who has been subject to shrieking abuse by some bullies from the trans lobby. Many of these people were born — and still are — male, by most people’s standards. The fact that in at least one case women in prisons have been sexually assaulted by a “woman” who happened to possess a penis would give most of us pause for thought. Yet the otherwise sensible MPs on the women and equalities select committee have backed self-declaration and startlingly, David Isaac, my admirable successor as chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, has announced that he favours “de-medicalisation” — a way of allowing men to become women without the inconvenient step of ceasing to be male.

The article goes on to point out that if you accept self-ID on this, what logic would there be in refusing it on disability, or race. He directly equates all three.

I thought Trevor Phillips was Ok with men self id'ing as women, but had an issue with white people self id'ing as BAME. It is late and I have no links to any articles but I remember thinking how hypocritical, so I am sure I havent made that up. Last year, year before last?

I also think a lot of people, if they’re brutally honest with themselves, have been the ‘TRAs’ of the scenario in the past, and as soon as heard a comment regarding religion would just shut down and think ‘racist/bigot’ etc and not engage in genuine concerns.

Yes. Me. I'd have shuddered, and assumed it was a Tommy Robinson arsehole saying it. Couldn't be true. Of course "you got bad apples" but nothing so organised and systematic. That attitude was part of why so many girls were raped so many thousands of times, and nobody did anything.

That, and plain old fashioned misogyny. As with the TRA attitudes, women are disposable. Men are not: their needs must be considered at all times, and if possible met - especially if they tick an Equality Act box, and are therefore marginalised. Our marginalisation is so normalised, it's invisible to most men (and plenty of women, too). Conveniently enough. Even when 13 year old girls are plied with drugs and alcohol and passed around a group of adult men, and the police assume that's a choice.

I am a person of colour, with a family heritage of Fulani and Mandinka Muslims going back 1,000 years until ripped apart by transatlantic slavery. Some of my relatives have made the return journey to embrace Islam. It also seems peculiar to make an example of someone who introduced the term “Islamophobia” to British politics by commissioning the Runnymede Trust’s 1997 report on the issue; and who then, as head of the Commission for Racial Equality, worked closely with Labour on the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 that protects Muslims from incitement.

Labour are so far up their own purity spiral by this point I can't see any way back.

Isn't Trevor Phillips the present Chair of Index on Censorship? With a five year term, that started just a handful of months ago?

Index's articles in support of Maya Forstater.

Index's articles in support of Harry Miller.

Purely coincidental, I'm sure. I mean, Labour wouldn't be targeting a man who has just been put in charge of a charitable organisation with a long and illustrious history in defending free speech (and who has made it glaringly apparent that he intends to continue defending the right of all sides to discuss the law as it pertains to the rights of women and girls, because it's a human rights issue that affects us) without the very purest of motives. They wouldn't dream of seeking to discredit the former head of the Equal Opportunities Commission - who was part of the creation of the Equality Act, with all that pesky recognition of women as equally protected - and accuse him of racism to do that. No. Definitely not.

I'd just like to reflect for a moment on what Labour's attitude would have been, were the Israeli community provably involved in organised grooming gangs, targeting vulnerable female children. Something tells me tender concern for that community's reputation might have been a tad slower to arrive. Just a hunch.

If you say all Pakistani men are like x, of course that makes you a racist.

But that's not remotely what TP is saying. He's having a few quotes out of tens of thousands of words of detailed analysis of incredibly complex problems taken out of context. Even then I don't think any of those are terrible unless you deliberately interpret them in the worst possible way.

Is anyone seriously saying that TP's comments are worthy of expulsion?

I also think a lot of people, if they’re brutally honest with themselves, have been the ‘TRAs’ of the scenario in the past, and as soon as heard a comment regarding religion would just shut down and think ‘racist/bigot’ etc and not engage in genuine concerns.

I think this is very true. I feel embarassed about some of the comments of my youth (and indeed a few years ago on brexit).

Islam needs a reformation like Christianity had.

I really don't think this would mean quite what people think it would mean. The Reformation didn't make Christianity more liberal or more philosophically sophisticated. Arguably quite the opposite.

In any case, Islam has varied in its tone over the centuries, and different streams are present even when they are not dominant. But even the most sophisticated and modern form of Islam (or any other religion or way of thinking) isn't necessarily going to come to all the same conclusions as the modern (or postmodern) secular west. I would have said that valuing diversity includes some real diversity of thought and not just diverse skin colour or family recipes, but I am no longer sure that is really a mainstream view.

Gosh, that documentary was really good. I felt like Tony Blair didn't really get what he was trying to say, though.

There is a lot of racism in society and a lot on MN.
There is also a lot of misogyny and homophobia in society.

Islam needs a reformation like Christianity had. Although there are a small number of more liberal Muslims, they are very much in the minority. Instead it is the more rigid misogynistic Islam that dominates. And in Britain Labour have encouraged that by cosying up to the Council of British Muslims. This is not new to Corbyn, it happened under Blair too. But white people did not care about the implications of that until it affected white girls. Meanwhile it has had a devastatingly negative impact on Muslim girls and women.

For example Sharia courts in Britain are a national disgrace.

If you say all Pakistani men are like x, of course that makes you a racist.

I also think a lot of people, if they’re brutally honest with themselves, have been the ‘TRAs’ of the scenario in the past, and as soon as heard a comment regarding religion would just shut down and think ‘racist/bigot’ etc and not engage in genuine concerns. The grooming gangs are a prime example of this.
I think looking at other scenarios through a ‘TRA’ lens, of you will, has been extremely helpful in perhaps not being too quick to judge and shut down debate on other topics as well.
I’ve read people here saying that this logic has helped them understand things like why people voted Brexit, whereas previously they might have dismissed them off hand. (Although they obviously still might not agree, there’s an understanding).
Labour on the other hand, are going the complete opposite way, and just doubling down.
It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion

The thing is, this has been going on for a very long time.
People scoff when certain people say they’re ‘not allowed’ to say anything, and then these same people sit in wonderment at how the likes of Tommy Robinson become so popular.
Labour and their ilk, and their #nodebate tactics, just push people into the opposite direction, and then when they’re there, sit back and say, stupid racist/tranaphobe/islamophobe, that’s what we’re fighting against.
It’s kind of like a self fulfilling prophecy.

Trevor kept pointing out that Islam is a religion not a race.

That definition of islamophobia is highly disputed. It automatically accuses anyone who criticises Islam of being racist. Calling people racist is a great way of shutting them down and dismissing their views though so I suppose it's handy for shutting down criticism of Islam.

I am unsure which explanation is more far fetched

Neither is credible. The Labour party has become so dislocated from the voters it imperiously claims to represent that its response to annihilation North of Watford is a pledge to a Stalinist purge of left wing feminists and kicking out Trevor Phillips because he dared to have an opinion about the blatant grooming which went on in full view of state authorities from 2000 onwards. There is a very serious problem going on when hundreds of vulnerable girls are raped on an industrial scale across multiple cities. For years. How did this happen? What failure of multiple state agencies enabled it? How do we know it's not still happening? Why aren't Labour remotely concerned with these questions?

That makes no sense at all. Labour , not the right- wing press, thought this was an opportune moment to attack TP. The diversion has been caused by Labour, not the "right-wing press"

This.

I can only think of two possible explanations:

1. Jeremy Corbyn has been employed for decades as a double agent within the Labour Party by an incredibly far sighted and macheavelian Johnson family determined to put their son Boris in power for a long time.

1. Jeremy Corbyn is genuinely trying to run a political party to the best of his ability, and this is the result.

I am unsure which explanation is more far fetched.

FFS. Of course prejudice exists against Muslims (and people perceived as being Muslims) but actually, in my somewhat informed opinion, the real issue with the conflict between some UK Muslims and non Muslims is one that comes down to culture, not religion. Muslims are not a hive mind. There isn't one type of being Muslim. All Muslim women don't cover their heads. All Muslim men are not taxi drivers, and a group of men of Pakistani origin in deprived Northern towns do not represent Islam, they represent a particular culture.
I'm from one of the towns mentioned. The problems are in part caused by many things, including the impact of 70s/80s racism (often aided by police) and the fact that a "village" mentality has allowed some communities to become very isolated.
Trevor Phillips is a smart guy. He knows that the issues are complicated, and has said so. Understanding that doesn't make him or anyone racist or whateverphobic.

I knew they’d come for him, was only a matter of time.

I think it's more to do with the right wing press trying to divert attention away from this:?

mcb.org.uk/press-releases/mcb-submits-new-dossier-of-conservative-islamophobia-to-ehrc-with-evidence-of-over-300-individuals/

That makes no sense at all. Labour , not the right- wing press, thought this was an opportune moment to attack TP. The diversion has been caused by Labour, not the "right-wing press" (not that I think The Times is "right- wing")

I wrote to my female labour mp about the cologne sex assaults and she wrote back basically accusing me of being a racist bigot.

She struck me from her mailing list but still writes to my DH.

I was reading the Guardian report about Trevor Philips and they called the Cologne mass sex assaults (that TP had referred to) "harassment". They can't help themselves.

But the people who had the legal power to prosecute ignored it because they thought the girls were consenting and had chosen this "lifestyle". You have to recognise they were victims first before you can prosecute,
So yes if others had not been afraid of racist accusations, they could have put real pressure on the police to prosecute. But even without that, the police could have prosecuted if they had recognised these girls as victims.

What should have been robust age-based Safeguarding frameworks were disregarded for the girls who were being abused. This disregard was by many adults around them in public services & the community.

These girls were especially vulnerable, often in care / a child in need.

There are (as always) a number of intersecting issues which combine in a comprehensive failure to protect children.

FWIW there's endemic treatment of girls who are victims of child sex abuse in this manner.

Newspapers still report 'underage sex', instead of 'rape', for example.

Ann Cryer was on the radio a few years ago talking about the birth defects caused by people marrying their daughters to near relations, she got shouted down.

I have read the full reports into cases like Rotherham. The main reason girls were put at risk was because professionals like the police thought they were just "slags" rather than victims

I have not read the Rotherham report but I have read similar analysis of systems in Rochdale which said that SS and local politicians (more than the police) actively avoided dealing with the issue for fear of seeming racist. This is a large part of why it was ignored for so long.

PP is correct that a major police failing was treating vulnerable children as if they were making a choice rather than being preyed upon.

Since "not knowing" what Islamophobia is seems to be an issue, here is the APPG definition.

Trevor Philips has challenged the APPG definition. Not everyone agrees with it.