Starmer in favour of clarifying Equalities Act

Either way he’s caught really, if Labour vote for this some of their members will be furious if they don’t women will be furious. I think he has to come firmly down on a side to have any credibility. Even if the amendments are made he will start coming under pressure to make further changes to dilute. The tories fixing it won’t actually be a “phew that takes it off my table” moment for him.

Starmer has not managed to defend his own female MP from bullying by his own party.

These are the actions (lack of) that tell me how much he cares about women's safety.

The day he defends Rosie Duffield's right to safety and an opinion is the day I consider giving Labour my vote again.

Gosh, is he talking about trans issues again? Apparently nobody else is talking about it? Given the number of column inches he is filling on the topic then perhaps poor Starmer is the only person who is talking about it? I suppose this could explain why he feels it necessary to take both sides of the argument, like a thought exercise? He'll blow himself out eventually.

@aweegc said "I suspect he supports Sunak's government making the biological definition of sex, because he can then refer to that. I'll bet he wants it done asap so it's over before the next election. It does not instill confidence in me of his abilities to make hard decisions when leading a country."

Totally agreement. The key thing here is If the Tories get themselves together they will be bringing a Statutory Instrument to amend the Equality Act to mention biology as Sex Matters suggested. It is easily doable in the next year. That means a Parliamentary vote.
https://sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Briefing-for-MPs-on-the-Equality-Act-amendment.pdf

This will be a crucial moment. I think Labour will not oppose this. Because it is in their interest to have it settled by the Tories as you say. Then they can simply avoid dealing with it. Which is Starmer's preferred position. It puts them in a difficult position but I bet they will opt to abstain.

However how MPs react will be interesting. Who wants to go on record voting against biological sex? Some of the most left wing Labour, maybe, but even for them it is going to be a difficult call. Obviously Rosie will be voting for it and poss other Labour MPs too.

More to the point for the Tories it is a great wedge issue. If most Labour MPs abstain they can point at them and say Labour is still confused about biology. Even better this is a HUGE problem for the Lib Dems and the SNP. The Tories have a bunch of seats under threat there and the Lib dems are really divided. Likewise it could reignite more internal battles in the SNP and the Tories think they can actually make gains in rural Scotland.

If the Tories do this right they will aim to have the vote as close to the election as possible then sit back as other parties have huge infights and then trigger them all over again during the campaign. When the economy is so bad knowing what a woman is one of the best tactics they have.

I think apologies from politicians are worthless so I don't care about that. However although the headline says he backs Sunak I think Starmer's actual words are, in typical lawyer fashion, very carefully chosen. All he's committing himself to doing is looking at whatever is proposed.

That's still not good enough Labour, try again.

Cowardly may be good. Would he date block a simple clarification of language to ensure a piece of law means what Tony Blair’s government intended it to mean.

If he cannot he will look like a numpty.

Instead he may be hoping that the whole thing will slide through without anyone noticing. He will be lucky to get away with it. The backlash will be from his side.

I think Keir is a coward, so I want to see action, an apology to women for insulting us and throwing us under the bus for the past few years would be a start.

Agree, brokendaughter. It's important to always note qualifiers. It's amazing how often they're used by the "be kind" brigade who are wanting to appease everybody.

Also, if Starmer cannot define 100% of one of the two sex classes, then he also cannot define 100% of the other sex class either. Which means he can't define 100% of the human race! How is this person fit to lead a country of them?

I suspect he supports Sunak's government making the biological definition of sex, because he can then refer to that. I'll bet he wants it done asap so it's over before the next election. It does not instill confidence in me of his abilities to make hard decisions when leading a country.

I also wonder if he's heard KJK is going to go up against him in his constituency and would be a relentless thorn in his side on this specific issue too.

Trouble with using 'primarily' is it generally means there are also other things on the list you are going to include.

The only possible non 'primarily' included people if that refers to biological women would be the ones of the only other sex on the planet aka men.

Making it all a load of rubbish.

I worry because Starmer constantly refers to maintaining 'safe spaces' and not ‘single-sex spaces' and those two things aren’t automatically the same thing.

Further worry about this reluctance to talk about 'single-sex spaces' comes from Steve Reed, Labour shadow minister:

'Steve Reed, the shadow justice secretary, told Times Radio that Labour supported safe spaces for biological women.

"I do believe that safe spaces for women like a women's refuge for instance, there are very good reasons why that should be for biological women," he said. "I don't think the debate is as polarised as people sometimes imagine. Of course, we need to protect women from those who might seek to abuse them and where that means biological women, yes, it must mean biological women primarily.”'

Is Labour’s current use of ‘safe spaces’ a misunderstanding of correct terminology or is it linguistic sleight of hand to sound like they support women always having single-sex spaces when they actually don’t support this?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/04/05/keir-starmer-backs-rishi-sunak-rewrite-equality-laws-women

A spokesman for Sir Keir said: “Clarification is a good thing. We’ll look at what’s brought forward.”

That doesn't inspire confidence tbh. As so many women on the Relationships board say - look at his actions, not his words, he is not as good a man as you think. Those women are very wise.