Local elections and sex/gender/trans issues

Attitudes like yours are a big part of why I will never vote Labour again. Throwing the word fascist around willy-nilly and trying to shame and belittle people. You do it on every thread like this that comes up as well, along with blossomtoes and a couple of other regulars. I've seen it a lot from online Labour activists on social media too and it's incredibly off-putting.

"Vote for us or you're a nazi" isn't the vote-winning strategy you all seem to think it is.

This didn't work out, back to the drawing board Boris.

One thing I’m hoping from this is Starmer gets some confidence to beat back the left of his party

Starmer has gone to war on the left. Loads of them have gone as a result, increasing Labour's financial difficulties. And if he’d had less focus on getting rid of popular left wing economic policies like energy nationalisation (probably even more popular now, with sky high charges) he would have had more time and political capital to take on the genderists.

Though actually I’m not sure he wants to. He’s a London lawyer, and as Amnesty, Liberty etc show, being a “human rights” lawyer these days is all about pushing gender ideology. And the only prominent Labour politician I’ve noticed lately saying TWAW is … Starmer.

Hearing ‘Long Corbyn’ made me laugh this morning, although not sure how much it is that

I had hoped Starmer being closer to centre than some of his party would increasingly drag it in that direction but I agree women’s rights might not push through to Labour which is very sad and depressing.

And yy ^^ Justine Greening to add to the list.

And Caroline Nokes who is carrying on Maria Miller's 'work' as the W&E Select Committee Chair.

It wasnt just Maria Miller, it was Justine Greening as well. And thats not all; Greening was threatened with legal action over her inaction over sexual violence towards girls in schools. There was a consultation, the outcome of which was PHSE, originally designed to tackle VAWG. It was co-opted to push gender ideology, and sexual violence is still an escalating problem in schools, while girls are also being subjected to mixed sex toilets.

Absolutely it was Maria Miller MP (Con) who started a shit-tonne of damage on this.

The then W&E Ministers Amber Rudd and Nicky Morgan could have put a stop to it (as Truss has done, with support from junior Minister Kemi Badenoch), as could the then PM Theresa May. But Rudd, Morgan and May didn't stop this bloody dangerous crap in its tracks, and that's on them.

Theresa May has no excuse. She has an Oxford degree in Geography ffs. She damn well knows about the impacts of western-style policies on the lives on women and girls in the Developing World and poorer communities, and she knows plenty about human geography, biology and politics in the round. She's fastidious. There's no excuse except fear of the likes of Crispin Blunt and Penny Mordaunt banging on at her about it being 'just like gay rights' (when it patently isn't).

Talking of Mordaunt, I see she was of the kiss of death last night for the Portsmouth North Tories in the local elections.

One thing I’m hoping from this is Starmer gets some confidence to beat back the left of his party

I've heard the commentators who talk to Labour people talking about "long corbyn" effect they are recovering from still but I've heard little about women's issues being mentioned or them trying for the center left ground.

It has been picked up it's odd results in place possibly indicating neither major party is liked but they mention party gate for Tories and think Labour harp on to much about how Tory have done wrong and not enough about what they'd do instead - which I don't diagree with but it's not the main issue on these boards.

It's possibly way to early and perhaps some analysis of voting in next few days/weeks may being womens' issuess to the fore but I'm not confident of any directional changes happening.

First time ever, I didn't bother to vote. This is a secure Labour area, and I was ill. I couldn't face walking to the booth only to spoil my ballot.

I've totally lost faith in the UK as a democracy, anyway. I'm dreading the GE.

I spoiled my ballot with "Respect my sex" and "woman=adult human female" across it. I then wrote an essay on the back about how I wouldn't vote Tory as the are corrupt, self serving and an embarrassment to the country and the left needed to pull its finger out and recognise a woman isn't a feeling in a man's head. It was very therapeutic.

Our ward typically swings between tory and labour, with labour running the council overall. In a bit of an upset we appear to have gone green locally as have another couple of wards. The fella from the greens follows Shahar Ali on twitter so I'm hoping that's a good sign.

Mine won't be out until later this afternoon - only just started counting.

One thing I’m hoping from this is Starmer gets some confidence to beat back the left of his party

I’m not sure what next GE will be like but it’s not definite Labour could do it, plus Lib Dems more than happy to take their seats

if I heard correctly in Angela Rayner’s constituency Labour lost?

I’m ok with that. Out of all of Labour Starmer is better for me, but he has to get his fiscal policies right and change on women’s rights

I guess we’ll see more of what he wants to go for emboldened by the key London councils

Cons could still do GE but really need to dump party gate, which had a big impact

I agree. I think local councils should be run by un-partisan, boring civil servants

No body is unpartisan though. All that would happen without elections is that the council would be run according to the beliefs of the government officials who held the most power, with no way to hold them to account or get them out of office.

Independent held in my borough with an increased majority, but still Lib Dem in all the other boroughs. I also saw a headline on local BBC news FB page that one in six conservative councils across the country have swing to Labour 😐

There are often several relevant local issues, and women's rights is not as high up the list as it is for national elections simply because much of it isn't in the remit of councillors.

That said, schools introducing 'gender neutral' toilets in place of single sex toilets is going to have a direct impact on anyone who is the parent of girls.

I think local elections are a bit of an odd fish. I wish there was no party politics involved at all. It clouds the issues, and sometimes ends up actually actively being harmful - we have councillors taking decisions that they know will negatively impact the area because it will reflect badly on the outgoing administration. That's no way to run a country.

Maybe they couldn’t afford to be single issue voters, or see through the claims that the tories are pro female.

In my area they want to completely cut the funding to the local centre that provides support and counselling to victims of domestic abuse and rape. So they’re certainly not supportive of single sex spaces round here, they want to erode them entirely.

Plus other issues non feminist related, for example they wanted to make cuts to the local bus services funding and the route past my house was one of the ones being considered. But I rely on that bus as I don’t drive.

I’ll be disappointed if conservative hold in my area.

This is what I have to keep telling myself

I feel like I want to do something though, how do I raise awareness and hopefully get people to wake up?

My borough has always been Labour I wouldn’t expect change

London is very Labour now but it looks less marked elsewhere if that’s still correct

Lib Dems up a fair bit

I’m ok with results, in that I kind of expected it, maybe even worse and more to Labour so my expectations were very low.

Many people still have no idea about the gender stuff or think it’s just ‘being nice to people’, Frangipani. They simply have too many other urgent priorities.

I don't think an election result has ever affected me this much.

I could honestly cry this morning - my local seats massively swung to labour.

I feel so disappointed in my fellow female Cumbrians and that's a ridiculous way to feel isn't it?

Have you read the things he wrote that you are referring to?

Yes.

This.

I am saying that, factually, he did not say that black people have lower IQs, which was what the post claimed he had clearly said.

We're in a bad way when it's ok to say something that is manifestly false just because you don't like someone.

Have you read the things he wrote that you are referring to? That comment, if I recall correctly, he was suggesting as something a satirized Tony Blair might say. I realize that many people are now sensitive about certain phrases and language no matter what the context, but that certainly was not so much the case ten or even five years ago, and not everyone thinks it is a good thing now.

If someone is terrible there should really be no need to spread falshoods about them, it just looks like an agenda at work. There will be plenty of evidence that is there for all to see.