If Starmer stated what a woman is...

No. The problem within the Labour party is much more than this. It extends all the way down to councillor level.
Its also the rampant authoritarianism.
Their adoption of neoliberal identity politics that go against socialism.
Their willingness to ignore current equality law.
Their eagerness to remove necessary rights from an entire class of people.
The way they have been prepared to undermine safeguarding.

Not to mention that women are not the only class they have turned their back on, there are also problems with their disability policies.

Starmer backed the 10 pledges in order to win the leadership election and then ignored them when he got in. He's not trustworthy.

Moreover there are more women out there than trans women so why doesn't he just come out and say this?

Women are split on the issue though away from the MN echo chamber. If they weren't then i'm sure he would as politicians need votes.

I would disagree with your statement that most women agree with your definition of what a woman is.

This 100%

No - he has spouted so much nonsense about this - how can we believe a word he says?

Yes.

i want to vote Labour but won’t because of this issue.

i therefore now vote Tory as otherwise I’m effectively disenfranchised by men and these beliefs.

Come on, Keir!

No I think the damage is done

His inability to be straight has annoyed me too much

Yes if he made it crystal clear that the a) The Labour Party will protect single sex spaces and uphold the equality act. b) That they will not reform the GRA/self id (I'd like it even more if it was repealed). c) That they will not class any therapy that doesn't immediately affirm gender questioning as conversion therapy. Very unlikely so No I'm sorry I can't vote for Labour.

I think we should maybe turn the TWAW question around and ask our politicians What is a Male? errrr ummmm. A human born Man and also a woman. None of it makes sense.

If he suddenly changed tack on this, I would despise him even more for the dishonesty and the ulterior motives.
He has a whole bunch of bullshit beliefs, which I am sure he sincerely believes, and yes, he is self righteous and sanctimonious.
But, as MangyInseam and Artichokeleaves just said, the bigger issue is the whole Left agenda, which is fucking terrifying.
So no, I will never vote Labour again, until or unless they discard the fascism of the Left.

I can’t help but wonder if telling half the population their biology is unspeakable was what little Keir had planned for himself when he got up that morning.
I think he is a weak, pompous sanctimonious fool with no policies. I will never vote for a party lead by him.

As opposed to Boris who clearly stated that transwomen should not compete in women's sport. Nadine Dorris has taken this forward with the sporting bodies.

@InTheShadeOfTheFigTree

😂

He is also misrepresenting the law which is unforgivable.

Every time I read that quote it gives me the absolute rage. How dare he.

Greasy haired Max Headroom imitating whiney idiot.

Sorry. I feel better for saying that 🤣

Even if Starmer convincingly recanted his previous bollocks I would not vote for anyone who had spouted manifest nonsense. He either did believe that rubbish, in which case your judgement is terminally flawed or he was saying so for reasons of expediency without actually buying into it, in which case he is/was bent. Labour can fuck off for the foreseeable.

This!

No, they believe he always was one but it has taken him time to realise that.

And they can believe that because they believe that manhood and womanhood (and non-binary-personhood) are differences of the mind rather than the body.

My issue with people in power who believe this is not the belief itself, but that they refuse to acknowledge that switching out the legal and social definition of womanhood from the body to the mind does not change the fact that some people have female bodies, nor does it change the fact that people with those bodies are often not treated fairly. What it does do is remove protection and support from them.

Yeah, I'm sorry to say I believe this.

We are in a period where the dominant forces on the left do not really believe in democracy. You can see this in studies and polling of the younger generations, belief in democratic principles are at an all time low. And this is the group that parties like the LP believe will keep them in power. Or at least they believe they need to kowtow to them because they are the future or some idiocy like that.

This isn't a crazy aberration, it's long been a dangerous tendency on the left of politics that needs to be guarded against, and many leftists seem to have forgotten their own history (or never knew it) and are merrily going down that old path.

Anyone who thinks this is just foolish talk, look at how the LP ignored what was going on under Stalin because they were so determined he was going to bring in the new, good society, they were blinded to the realities by ideology.

That's where they are now - blinded to what is real, what is actually going on, by their ideology.

On this I would need some specifics about what that would mean in terms of governance and legislation. To a significant degree I don't care what he thinks personally, I care what he'll do.

But I am also very concerned about the general identity politics approaches that have made them vulnerable to gender ideology, I think they are equally as damaging, so I would want to have a sense of what role that thinking has in the part, and I would like it to have less influence than it does now.

If I had some assurance on those things I'd be willing to look more carefully at their other policies and compare them with the other options. But while they are in the weeds of id pol I can't get behind them.

No because he's shown himself to be an arrogant misogynist who will throw women under the bus to promote himself. I don't think those things change. He's an odious and dangerous man and if he did actually see the error of his ways he would also see the need to exit politics forever.

But her emails!!

i wish people whose brains are entirely colonised by US politics would stop discussing UK politics. It’s not possible to say anything useful or insightful about UK politics if you’re mentally translating the UK situation back and forth from the American one. It garbles your thinking.

He was such a weasel when he came on here, I felt embarrassed for him.

Yes.

The women were all batshit, but at least had the honesty and integrity to set out their stall of batshit and stand behind it.

By their deeds shall ye know them. Never listen to a damn thing a politician says, just watch what they do .

Yes, I agree.
“Waffly reverse weasel” made me laugh. He was such a weasel when he came on here, I felt embarrassed for him.

Every single person out there knows what a woman is and what a man is. It is really about someone being brave enough to say that the emperor hasn't got any clothes on.

Is it about winning votes from trans people? No. It is about winning votes from heterosexual young people (who call themselves queer) who believe trans rights to be a massive issue.

Gay rights has never been a big political issue (no party or leadership has lost on the basis of that issue), but people who never lived through it think that those issues dominated a generation.