"We must not fetishise debate"

Funny choice of word "fetishise" considering who she's talking about.

Not rtft so apologies if this point has been made. Nottingham has been safe Labour for quite a few years now, hence why a foolish inexperienced person could win.

Yes! The totalitarian Daenerys whose unwavering conviction of her moral righteousness makes her a monster....

Join me and we’ll build a better world or refuse, and die.

Reminds me of Daenerys at the end of season 8 Game of Thrones. She's envisaging the perfect new world she's going to force in everyone, and Jon asks, "What about all the other people who think they know what's right?" and she responds smugly, "They don't get to choose."

Yes! The totalitarian Daenerys whose unwavering conviction of her moral righteousness makes her a monster....

Don’t spark a right wing feeding frenzy

Chatty
I think the aim of this is to actually claim freedom of speech and debate are right wing. Hence dispensing with both can be enthusiastically promoted by an MP who clearly believes she is morally righteous. It is another recurrent theme.

How does one know that one has the correct opinions sorted out? Is there any way to check?

Orwell fucking wept.

Interesting she brings in people's fundamental rights and equal status (though I'm not aware that it is a fundamental right to be able to force everyone else to accept your view of yourself and to make them act accordingly.)

This argument could easily go for abortion too. Say in a few years we get a government who doesn't believe in abortion, who claim that even debating it calls into question the fundamental right of the baby (I know, fetus really) to life, and so it's now going to be illegal. I presume she'd want debate then? So I wonder who gets to choose which topics are worthy of debate or not?

Reminds me of Daenerys at the end of season 8 Game of Thrones. She's envisaging the perfect new world she's going to force in everyone, and Jon asks, "What about all the other people who think they know what's right?" and she responds smugly, "They don't get to choose."

Nadia might be young but she's old enough to know what a bloody dictatorship is and that a few people having their feelings hurt is a small price to pay for debate and democracy.

"I would challenge anyone to sit and listen to the story of any trans person without feeling anything but shock and compassion. You will have trouble finding any trans person who doesn’t tell you a backstory including some level of alienation, loss of family, bullying, persecution, difficulties with accessing appropriate healthcare and worse."

You could say similar things about disabled people, with poverty and the nightmare of benefits added on. But apparently us disabled people aren't special or oppressed enough for the labour party to pay any attention to these days. You know, an actual vulnerable minority that could do with more of a voice.

She has just accused Liz Truss of fanning the flames of hate and states that there has been a 40 percent increase in attacks on trans people. Debate is hateful. There must be compliance with TRA demands and anyone who questions this is a bigot. This is a recurrent theme. It is an existential threat to freedom of speech.

It’s a nonsense.

FGS her way of fending off comments and questions: ‘Don’t spark a right wing feeding frenzy’ is so massively disingenuous. It’s not just her in Labour so I wouldn’t wish to single her out for that view tbh. People of her political views in Labour have been hassling women members out of the Labour Party just for having the women-focused views on this issue. It’s clearly not a ‘right wing’ issue. It’s a feminist issue. The heartbreaking thing for many lifelong Labour voters like me is how Labour are utterly selling out women.

What interests me is that the trans idea relies on us to believe an article of faith, that sex is not fixed, the idea of a masculine or feminine soul, (rather than the scientific explanation of male and female) which to me sounds rather like the belief system used in a religion.

That’s because it is nothing more than a belief system. Welcome to Queer Theory.

James Lindsay has done some excellent work dissecting these ideas.

newdiscourses.com/tftw-queer-theory/

The banning of lesbian and gay people from the military wasn't a 'debate'. It was a rule based on presumptions and prejudice.

It was only open debate that meant that the ban was overturned because those who made the case about the unfairness of the ban won the argument.

Whittome, you are, quite simply, standing on the same side as the people who would have refused to even consider that the ban was wrong, you cotton headed ninnymuggins.

That’s interesting, I didn’t know that!

What interests me is that the trans idea relies on us to believe an article of faith, that sex is not fixed, the idea of a masculine or feminine soul, (rather than the scientific explanation of male and female) which to me sounds rather like the belief system used in a religion.

The state of Maine televised their debates on gay marriage and it was highly influential in changing the public’s mind. Members of the public got three minutes to argue for or against gay marriage. The pro side was filled with pleas for fairness, stories of people who couldn’t see loved ones in hospital due to not being next of kin, rational discourse on how marriage wasn’t purely for procreation. The anti side was, to put it bluntly, irrational. It came down to “the bible says so” or “it’s disgusting.” The anti side couldn’t muster any decent points against gay marriage.

What’s interesting about this is the public saw this and responded. They recognised that one side made decent arguments about the current unjust system. Open debate and discussion was welcomed because it was instrumental in getting people to support gay marriage. It was the same with the women’s rights movements - people respond and sympathise with deep unfairness and injustice.

It’s striking how in just ten years or so debate has now been discredited. And to be perfectly cynical about this, I think it’s because the trans rights movement is hopeless. They aren’t on the side of rationality- if anything they are like the evangelicals clutching their Bibles. It is very, very difficult to persuade the public that biological sex isn’t real (which they DO claim, despite protestations to the contrary) or that males can turn into women by having a certain thought in their head. It’s a hard sell, and the trans side knows it. Hence no debate.

They don’t even really have fairness on their side. Once the issues are laid out and explained it’s deeply unfair for women to lose their spaces - see how unhappy most people are with trans women in female sports, for example.

The trans rights movement can’t rely on open discussion or debate because quite simply they will lose. So what they have done instead is create a climate where even just discussing this stuff is bigoted and evil.

No, it doesn't make sense, but according to this thread she is also confusing UK and US law.

mobile.twitter.com/anyabike/status/1286639840189132800

TheReal is she getting confused about ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’?

Because up until very recently you were forced to leave if you were openly gay, it was only through ‘debate’ that we moved forward!

Please can someone explain this reply to me as it seems to make no sense.

I think Whittome is one of a few Corbyn-wing types who managed to get candidacies in 2019 and were duly elected. See also Claudia Webbe and Sam Tarry. Jeremy may have gone but he managed to rejuvenate his wing of the party (which was necessary as he, Abbott and McDonnell are getting up there).

Does spell trouble for Starmer's efforts to show he now leads a grown-up party though.

Being an MP is a brutal experience, I am in awe of young women who rise to the challenge. I’m not convinced that she’s fully cognisant of what the end result of what she’s saying might be though.

Think-shaming might be an apt term.

I suppose we can look on it as the death-throes of 'no debate'. Slightly polished - now it's not that we mustn't debate, it's just that if we do so we're guilty of fetishising debate.

It's an interesting term to choose, really.

'to be excessively or irrationally devoted to (an object, activity, etc)'

www.thefreedictionary.com/fetishise

To be excessively devoted to debate? What is the appropriate degree to be devoted to debate? Or is she suggesting it's irrational to be devoted to debate?

I really really hope someone holds her to account - even - gasp! - debates this with her, in the HoC.

Imagine thinking you know all there is to know on a subject. I constantly question my GC beliefs when I see that someone I respect holds an opposing view, I read what they say and look at my position again. On Twitter I follow loads of people who espouse the TWAW, but then they say something offensive about ‘TERFs’ or quote the disproved statistics, or conflate sex and gender and I just unfollow.

Nadia Whittome is the loyal replacement. I have no idea how loyal she is to Starmer, but I imagine he isn't happy about the 'fetishise debate' gift she has given to the Tories.

The state of that tweet

Pleased to see the Baroness has picked up on this mess.