Starmer rowing back on self ID - what do we think?

Not convinced.

"Listening to the public" hmmm, which public would that be? Women's groups and voices have an uncanny knack of being ignored in these matters.

"Bringing the public with you" to me sounds dangerously close to being educated on how our current thinking is wrong/bigoted/transphobic.

No thank you. Still not got my vote

I like Judge Judy. Especially her favourite phrase of "How do you know teenagers are lying? Their mouths move". Just change teenagers to Starmer.

I think he is trying to tread a line between right and left more generally to hit some centrist ground, not piss off the press to greatly and try and win the election. Though the purpose of a Labour government not supporting on the picket lines I do not know.

I think he would side with whoever he thought would win him the next election tbh. Obviously I'd rather a leader who wouldn't consider trashing women entirely for a win, but we do need the Tories out imo. If Labour can be persuaded to change tack I'd be very relieved.

Hmmm, I'll defer to judge judy. Her verdict on Kiers latest utterance...

I can't fathom why anyone thinks this is positive.

It's a crumb, nothing more and frankly we deserve better than KS essentially saying we still think we are right about self id but have belatedly realised that the public aren't buying it.

I cannot and will not vote for a party that is captured by this ideology and they are still captured.

If you consider the many statements from senior MP's (some of which are posted below) there's a hell of a lot to row back from here.

I didn't leave the Labour Party, I was, like many other women, hounded out and they couldn't slam the door behind me fast enough.

They want me back as a voter, well this isn't going to cut it and I'm so over the concept that I should put this issue to one side in favour of "more important" concerns.

The LP still has a lot of reflecting to do after the chaos of the Corbyn/Momentum years and whilst some progress has been made it's still has a fundamental attitude problem in respect of a misplaced intellectual snobbery and sense of superiority over the electorate.

This latest from KS is just another example of this patronising positioning of "we know best".

Just looking at the way Rosie Duffield is treated by fellow MP's tells you everything you need to know.

... you have to carry the public with you.

In the words of Bertold Brecht (more or less): Would it not be simpler for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?

What's going on in Leicester?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/23/labour-tells-19-leicester-councillors-they-cannot-stand-in-may-election

For the record, I've no idea. But it's made me think. They've been ruthless getting rid of wrong thinkers in the LP recently. I'd be a mug to not think the might also stretch to people who are GC. So, if Starmer is sincere, where are the trantrums from the tras in the party?

Voted Labour all my life, I would never vote Tory.

However, I don't care that self ID is a single issue, I shan't be voting Labour. Not after their treatment of Rosie Duffield and tolerance of Lloyd Russell Mole bullying Miriam Cates.

I need written commitments and recognition of what a woman is before I will ever consider doing so.

I think that if we reflect on what’s happened in Scotland, the lesson I take from that is that if you’re going to make reforms, you have to carry the public with you.

Well, I've learnt something new. I always thought politicians were supposed to look after/make better this country on our behalf. I didn't realise they thought they were the new aristocracy and we were still the peasants. I always thought Labour was for the workers, the many, not the few.

I think it's an interesting move. I hope this means that there are parts of the Labour Party who have remembered that they are there to represent the electorate and not frogmarch them into a gender cult they never understood or signed up to.

But I'm chalking it up to lip service until we see some action.

Are Labour Women's Declaration not allowed a stand at the conference?

It sounds positive but will KS allow GC women’s groups at conference etc? I suspect the Barbie Kardashian news on top of the Scottish rapist has made Labour reevaluate what self ID means, whether the problems will go away (they won’t) and how well it’s going to go down with voters (badly).

The sad thing is that I agree with this. Half my family are in mainland Europe, so we are very affected by Brexit. I work in NHS, so I see the disasters caused by a decade of real-terms Tory cuts every day.

But for me, self-ID is so fundamental that I cannot vote for any party that supports it, or that I believe is likely to introduce it. I respect everyone's rights to prioritise differently, but I am tired of Labour activists (not meaning you, @Himalayanclouds65 ) hectoring me for making self-ID my priority.

It’s not the same government tho?

Yes the Tories have been in power continuously but it was Theresa May’s Government who proposed self ID and Boris Johnsons’ Government that sacked it off.

Ultimately we all vote in our constituencies, and we vote for an MP, not a prime minister, so while I’ve never voted Tory in my life, I would actually consider voting for, say, Miriam Cates, if I lived in her constituency. I would happily vote Rosie Duffield in her constituency.

But I don’t live in Canterbury or Penistone, I live in a very, very safe Labour seat and so I will write ‘There is No Such Thing as a Woman With A Penis’ on my ballot.

As I have the last 3 GE.

And therein lies the dilemma...

Yes I totally get that but we can't tolerate a Tory government any more surely?

Quite.

'Don't frighten the horses, do it quietly and deceitfully later when they've voted you in and they can't stop you' was a beloved strategy of the Blair years.

He's trying to get elected atm which is a very different thing to making decisions when you are in power.
Don't we know it! That's why we don't trust him.

trying to get elected atm which is a very different thing to making decisions when you are in power
That's exactly what we're worried about.

I agree with 90% of what you are saying but we have to vote someone in and I am never going to vote Tory again as long as I breathe. I will never forgive them for Brexit.

I genuinely do think we can trust them with the NHS more than the Tories. The last time the NHS functioned reasonably well was under Gordon Brown.

And I think Keir is reasonably sound. He's trying to get elected atm which is a very different thing to making decisions when you are in power.

I will wait for a Labour MP to come on here and actually have a web chat with women on this.

Not the usual: submit questions, we'll pick the easiest and nicest, have a SPAD design answers, and cut and paste on the day before running

Not the usual 'you can ask two things on this subject and that's it'

Show me actual willingness to listen, engage, take on board and say things other than 'be kind' and other ways of saying 'put males first you bitches' and I might consider reconsidering my vote. Possibly. But yes, repeal the GRA is what it would take.

Worth noting too that this behaviour from the passionate left voters that if you don't vote how they do you're evil, ends repeatedly in over inflated predictions and everyone walking around saying 'how did Labour not win?'

Because no one would tell you the truth about their voting intentions, mate. Not wanting to have to deal with your behaviour if they were open with you.

I think some are terrified that this is a much bigger issue than is being reflected in the polls at the minute, and that a silent majority of women will vote for women’s rights at the next election

And rightly so. Look at recent history:

1. Penny Mordaunt loses the 1st 2022 Tory leadership contest, despite starting as a frontrunner and Tory darling, because she can't say what a woman is.
2. The Scottish GRR Bill leads to Sturgeon's downfall but, even more astonishingly, IMO, to a majority of Scots supporting Tory Westminster in blocking it.
3. In the US, despite multiple pundits and polls downplaying the important of the Supreme Court over-turn of Roe v Wade in the run-up to the Nov 2022 elections (the theory was that lots of voters cared about it, but not enough to sway their votes), it is now thought to have been a major factor in the Dems holding the Senate and only losing the Congress by a whisker.

“Taking the public with you” makes it sound like he still thinks it’s the right thing but the public are stupid and backwards and will need to be educated about why it’s the right thing to do

he can fuck off

He's said he's going to balance women's rights with trans wants so it's a massive no. He can give up his own rights and those of other men if he's that bothered but I very much doubt he is.