Keir Starmer can’t keep hiding in the gender wars

If Leo had said " People are saying that feelings are more important than facts", I'd be able to give him a cheer. But although he left it ambiguous (an heir to Sir Keith in the making?) I don't give him credit for it. Does he himself think feelings are more important than facts, and if so how? And naturally, the feelings of large numbers of women don't seem to be the feelings he was talking about. Then there are the feelings of the voters, which at least his dad was keeping in mind. Of course the heroic liberator of Iraq might know a thing or two about respecting what the voters think.

It's being assumed that he agrees with it when he's only stating how things are.

More generally, now that awareness of the issue, we need to think much more about starting where people are. There's a great article by Louise Perry here which I think strikes exactly the right tone.

twitter.com/Louise_m_perry/status/1491094055312556032

Has he changed his mind since last June?

That's such a good point blueirises. It's always interesting to see what posters who despise women want to derail / silence.

With Ed Davey dropping his pronouns are the Lib Dems quietly positioning themselves to take advantage of the Greens sad decline ?

Why "can't" he?

Labour are doing well in the polls, and the issue isn't likely to become so big as to affect enough people's votes. There's no incentive to engage in a massive row with this own party.

I'm GC so I wish it wasn't so but if I was an advisor to Keir I'd be telling him to sit on the fence. And I certainly won't be voting Tory!

Leo is correct. He is only pointing out the lay of the land not condoning it. You can't win an argument with facts when the other party will only consider feelings. It is postmodern nonsense and it is impossible to meaningfully engage with it (because it's nonsense).

people (ie Labour Party members and the wokerati in general) don't care about facts like biological reality. They care about feelings. If I feel like a woman, then I am a woman. If I feel the earth is flat, then the earth is flat.

But only some people's feelings.

Other people (like women in need of rape crisis services they can access) they do not have the faintest conscience about being rude, aggressive and vile towards, and to openly deride their feelings.

It's a cognitively dissonant mess.

Datum wondering why political parties haven't taken this on. I read an interesting article (wish I could remember where) about the Democrats in the US and how there is a big backlash against their GI policies. He said that The Democrats were such a broad church that they had to include policies for all it's supporters. However, will those states who voted for hard left candidates at the last election be voting for them at the next one. It seems that the very progressive areas are coming under a lot of flack from ordinary voters and Democrats are very worried.

I wonder if KS feels that Labour is a broad church and therefore he has to keep the progressive flame ablaze, not recognising that this may well lose Labour the next election. Maybe it will get through eventually, but what will happen to the Labour TRA's - Green Party I guess

Leo is just reflecting what is going on atm. I think he is spot on. It is all about feelings: I feel unsafe, I feel like a woman, I don't feel like a man/boy or a woman/girl and on and on. Whilst we talk about facts of sex based inequality/violence/discrimination the genderists talk about how it makes them feel.

That's what I thought too. He's saying there' s no point in appealing to people's understanding of the facts because people (ie Labour Party members and the wokerati in general) don't care about facts like biological reality. They care about feelings. If I feel like a woman, then I am a woman. If I feel the earth is flat, then the earth is flat.

So many good comments under Janice's article.

The feelings of the Sacred Caste trump the facts of Everyone Else.

It won't mean a damned thing.

It means nothing except the two tier society of 'provide me with what I demand from you right now or else'. Only special people's feelings matter and get to control everyone else. This is an abusive dynamic. Which is why women here are so alert to it.

Leo is just reflecting what is going on atm. I think he is spot on. It is all about feelings: I feel unsafe, I feel like a woman, I don't feel like a man/boy or a woman/girl and on and on. Whilst we talk about facts of sex based inequality/violence/discrimination the genderists talk about how it makes them feel.

I think he's summarised the problem quite well.

'It's a great shame, really. He was promising. I had high hopes for him. I was hoping for a sharp legal mind and sensible pair of hands. What a massive disappointment he's turned out to be.'

Completely agree.

I must admit I am not a Tony Blair supporter, but hey even he know what a women is.

I was a Labour supporter all my life, but I will never put another cross next to their name, until they support the 50% of the population and can clearly state what a women is in biological terms.

It's a great shame, really. He was promising. I had high hopes for him. I was hoping for a sharp legal mind and sensible pair of hands. What a massive disappointment he's turned out to be.

It's too late for Starmer for me. This issue has made it clear that he doesn't have strength of character to tackle difficult issues.
Even if he completely reverse ferreted on this particular issue now, I'd still not trust him.
If he becomes Prime Minister, and another difficult issues arises - which it will because that's the job - Starmer has made it clear that he will sit on the fence and wait for it to go away, counting on other people to fix the problem, take the political risk and put in the work. And no matter how bad it gets, he'd rather let it escalate and let everyone else deal with the fall out rather than get his hands dirty.
You might as well put my cat in charge. In fact, that'd be better.

Not an expert in this, and introduced to these ideas by reading this forum - but the balance between feelings and fact - is this not due to postmodernism ideas and identity politics that have been discussed by others more knowledgeable than me in this forum?

I quit the party, and withheld my vote in the last election.