Wes Streeting on trans rights.

I take his not going to win hearts and minds comment as meaning they need to pretend to be more reasonable in order to win the battle

Agree - ‘it’s not going to win hearts and minds’ is far from ‘death and rape threats are unacceptable’ - he’s not admonishing their behaviour just critiquing their tactics! Yet when he gets onto GC feminists it’s all ‘dehumanising language’ when THEY are the ones on the receiving end of Die Terfs and Choke on my dick, not to mention vagina-bodies, cervix-havers etc. It’s a ‘bad look’ to threaten, hound and doxx an a victim of domestic violence (!!!) no, it’s literal abuse, and yes women don’t need to have experienced abuse to be spared judgment for being GC (though the numbers of women who haven’t experienced any abuse in life... I hope they exist. I’m not sure I know any).

Crumbs is right @FOJN

That said given the current rhetoric, and putting my most positive spin on this, I would like to hope this is the beginning of a slow rollback based on a party-wide realisation that women exist, have the vote and are not fucking playing (well done guys! )

But then I watch this and my sly, slippery, political cunt-dar goes off and I remember how much they hate and want to erase women and groups that fight for women.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhUzPyUvpOg

Watching all the TWAW woke bros turning on him is fun, though.

Guessing that the private polling is making them scared. All the next election needs is the Tories talking constantly about Karen White and Labour will lose. Even to this shower of Tory wankers.
The "both sides" shit is galling and they will need to sort that shit out. Because even a Tory party intern can search Twitter and screenshot all the rape threats and death threats and stick them on a poster.

It's just all a bit obvious. A few months ago they were all TWAW, the big about turn is the turning tide. I don't trust this sort of superficiality at all. They're also watching the US. Biden's alt-woke is really scaring people and the mid-terms potential to destroy Democrats might be giving Labour, Lib-Dems a real fright.

The voters Sir K and Wez are trying to win back aren't woke and wont buy TWAW. Jess Philips was onto this 'just need to talk' but GC women have been wanting dialogue for years. They are only listening now because they recognise it's a big vote loser.

I agree with the posters who've said he's a self-interested careerist. I think that's probably right. But if he perceives it as being in his interests to utter the phrase 'sex-based rights' seriously, and say there's a conflict that needs to be discussed. then that seems like a significant move forward
I agree. My personal opinion of Streeting is neither here nor there. The point is that an ambitious politician chooses their words, and the timing of those words very carefully. They also keep their ear to the ground. If Streeting is saying this, I can only assume it's because he knows which way the wind is blowing.

I think we can rest when none of the 3 main parties are pushing TWAW and self id. I assume at that point sports, refuges, prisons, hospital wards and changing rooms will have been sorted too.
Go to bed glinner

That's brilliant. Exactly.

I agree with the posters who've said he's a self-interested careerist. I think that's probably right. But if he perceives it as being in his interests to utter the phrase 'sex-based rights' seriously, and say there's a conflict that needs to be discussed. then that seems like a significant move forward. Less than six months ago Keir Starmer was saying that "only women have a cervix" was something that shouldn't be said, and David Lammy called us dinosaurs hoarding our rights. If the Labour Party has woken up to the vote-loser that sort of rubbish is, then so much the better. I'm not satisfied with what he said, far from it - but the roll back has to start somewhere, and this looks like a reasonable start.

That's if, of course, twitter isn't ablaze tomorrow with TWAW and trans people are the most oppressed group ever from the Labour front benches. So I'm cautiously optimistic, but waiting to see what comes next.

Absolutely right, fromorbit - agree with every word of that.

Labour leadership candidate, not necessarily a successful one - god knows 2015 showed that the best qualified candidates don't always win labour leadership contests.

He's young, smart and ambitious, and can think on his feet - as that interview shows. He makes the current government look like a bunch of absolute thickos (though they do that without any help, tbf).

If Starmer goes before the next election or after losing it, I'd bet Streeting will be a front runner to replace him. That's one reason why he's got to try to undo some of the damage all this misogynistic crap had done with 'old lady feminists' who haven't left the party (probably not a great idea to still bang on about how we're all old gimmers though, Wes).

Yes, brought all those Lily Madigan memories back.. panic setting in at Labour HQ maybe .. anyway it's good that there's even a smidgen of backtracking. I'd find it hard to trust Wes though after all that went on.

Can't wait to see a herd? of dinosaurs marching on Lammy and Starmer roaring "Only a woman has a cervix"

Agreed. Because he is a soft left careerist is exactly why we can trust him in as much he is interested in winning elections. As someone has said we can play the long game.

Look he is never going to say the rad fems were right all along. He thinks they are awful and scary, BUT his inability to accept he has lost the argument doesn't mean we don't seize the ground he is offering and move forward. This is another sign the time is coming.

Gen Crits big advantage is we have a multi layered assault team.

Streeting based on this is going to be happy to talk to JKR, Prof Stock and Debbie Hayton etc. Wonderful let him. They will open the gates. The thing is even without them the gates are already starting to fall down. They are not going to last much longer.

The thing is behind the gates is a huge horde of dinosaurs all living on Labour Island. Streeting thinks the dinosaurs can be controlled and he can use them to get votes. Yeah it isn't going to work like that this time.

The scary thing for Streeting is the Labour Party is full of thousands of dinosaurs. Right now those dinosaurs are pretty disorganised, many don't know each other, they are isolated.

Labour Woman's Declaration has sounded the dinosaur roar. We all know there are a lot of other dinos out there on Labour island. We can hear them!

Next step though is to form a dinosaur army. Then the dinosaurs take their island back.

I know better than to tune in to listen to anything he has to say. Always have to mute him when he's on politics programmes.

This talk of a stick of rock and being a Labour leader. Can't think how that could be. There's nothing about him other than predictable boring fanatic.

I’m hoping Wes has just changed his mind.

I’m muttering “golden bridges, golden bridges, golden bridges...” to myself

But honestly anything that isn’t calling for JK Rowling to be cancelled/ repeating TWAW ad nauseum feels like a win here. Frustrating though the revisionism is.

Although it is definitely a new tone on this, all this amounts to is that he grudgingly admits it's a bad look to shout down women who have experienced physical abuse. Nothing about the substance of the issues or whether the Labour position is substantively different from that of TRAs.

Women shouldn't have to disclose abuse to be granted a voice in the debate - our views should be listened to and respected not because we are victims but because we are fully human and equal citizens of this country.

He's positioning it as a generational issue as well, not a fan of that.

He should but he won't Glinner. I'd bet a sum the size of LOJ's ego that the Labour front bench will spend the run-up to the next election very slowly and quietly backing away from their TWAW/no debate/fuck off and die you dinosaurs position like a cat that's just realised it's picked a fight it can't win.

If he was a member of this group he should admit it and apologise to the women involved immediately

This makes me wonder if some internal polling has been done recently on the issue.

Given the reporting on how (understandably) obsessed the current Labour leadership are with focus groups and polling, I expect it's this.

Plus Streeting has 'future leader candidate' stamped through him like a stick of rock and now that the tankies have mostly been given the boot, the contest is going to be for the centre/centre-right/soft left of the party - the bits that actually care about winning rather than virtue wanking.

Yes, this isn't his first circus. He was apparently a member of the Labour Against Transphobia 'secret' facebook group several years ago.

It's very sad that this seems like such a refreshing change, isn't it! I agree with those saying it is not really enough, but in the context of where Labour have been recently, I'll take it as a sliver of hope. For any of them to come out fully on the side of truth and women would be too much of a departure from the party line, hopefully they will get there in baby steps. When they see the crazy reaction he will most likely get from TRAs maybe they'll see how unreasonable they are.

I do think that even though it isn't everything we want to hear, there's a case to be made for welcoming the statement rather than attacking him for it not being far enough. We don't want to alienate the people who say things in our favour, let's play the long game and be the reasonable ones.

*throw

I wouldn't trust him as far as I could through him.

If they're all still spouting TWAW at the next election they can do one. Maybe the penny is just starting to drop just how pissed off women are now they've done a few focus groups. If they want my vote they need to earn it.