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Janice Turner on Labour u-turn

315 replies

southbiscay · 28/07/2023 22:12

Is it safe for women to trust Labour again?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b5a6df40-2d70-11ee-aede-28bc53acbdb8?shareToken=463658bee75ab918efe6b0320e42aad3

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Romitofrincone · 29/07/2023 09:14

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Helleofabore · 29/07/2023 09:14

Bananasandcorn · 29/07/2023 09:02

So after years of MNetters calling for Labour to change because "i feel political homeless" Labour now start to change their stance but now the call is "i can never trust them again...they are just being populist to win votes"

I suspect most who are so critical of Labour would never have voted for them in the first place.

they d rather stick with the Tories and their glowing record on protecting female rights and spaces.

And yet… because of previous obfuscating language used by the very people poster’s are expressing their distrust in, and the actions even recently of the party towards groups that have been excluded, have been refused stalls at conference AND abusive behaviour overlooked towards Rosie Duffield, people are reluctant to believe this is a true change.

But yeah… shame away!

What about you, are you so quick to support anything that the political party of your choice announces as policy without doing any critical evaluation first ? Or are you just here to shame others?

Hepwo · 29/07/2023 09:12

RealityFan · 29/07/2023 09:03

I'm a guy and like a pretty woman as much as the next guy, but is it really necessary in 2013 for the faux glamour pics?

It's weird!

I can't read the article because aim not a subscriber but the first sentence pops up talking about poverty under a picture of a woman in posh evening gowns!

What ridiculous vanity.

frootito · 29/07/2023 09:07

Where can I see the Lisa Nandy quotes?

TheDogthatDug · 29/07/2023 09:07

@RealityFan

It's never male politicans that are pictured all dressed up is it?

mrshoho · 29/07/2023 09:05

Rightsraptor · 28/07/2023 22:31

Lisa Nandy is now claiming she'd been 'unduly swayed' by young trans activists in her team.

What a pathetic excuse. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence or even the ability to read should have very quickly seen what they were up to and given them the boot.

That really won't wash, Lisa.

How can anyone have any faith in the likes of Lisa Nandy going forward? A grown woman in a senior position in the shadow cabinet was swayed by immature trans staff? Did she not have a brain to look at what the impact of these demands would mean to women and children?

It is good news that Labour are beginning to understand and allow debate. Slowly, slowly ever so slowly.

RealityFan · 29/07/2023 09:03

I'm a guy and like a pretty woman as much as the next guy, but is it really necessary in 2013 for the faux glamour pics?

Bananasandcorn · 29/07/2023 09:02

So after years of MNetters calling for Labour to change because "i feel political homeless" Labour now start to change their stance but now the call is "i can never trust them again...they are just being populist to win votes"

I suspect most who are so critical of Labour would never have voted for them in the first place.

they d rather stick with the Tories and their glowing record on protecting female rights and spaces.

Theeyeballsinthesky · 29/07/2023 08:58

Slothtoes · 29/07/2023 07:31

I respect Janice’s opinion. i also come from a consistent standpoint that none of the main parties actually give a shit about women’s rights. And I’ll judge them by what they do not what they say. but saying the right thing openly often precedes doing the right things openly, so this a step in a good direction. I am happy to see the main opposition party finally hearing women’s views. Obviously yes it should have happened years ago. This is positive though an unthinkable previously,. There will be lots of set backs along the way. but I know most people do know that human biology matters and this will win out eventually.

Back in the day this board used to send tweets, emails and even cards to women in politics who stood up. I’m going to do that here, as I did after the Westminster Hall debate to all the gender critical speakers from each party. I’ll ask them to put recognising the importance of biological sex into their election manifesto, plus committing to reforming the equality act to clarify sex and gender and repealing GRA.

I’m not planning to waste time asking MPs where they were when everyone else was suffering for over a decade, even though obviously they were in the wrong not to have broken their cover years sooner. That was almost all MPs. We still need the vast majority of MPs to be on board with a pro-woman agenda. So there is a mountain to climb in front of us yet.

That requires consistent chipping away at individual and collective misogyny by sharing information and taking different sorts of action, which many women on here have been doing for years. We tend to need MPs more then they need us (until every 4 years we get an election) so this is a long game where usually the balance is not in our favour. As we approach 2024 GE the power scales start to tip, incumbent MPs who want to keep their jobs or gain support for their parties can see that. So right now is a big opportunity. Tell them what you want to see happen.

Any politician sticking their neck out on this will be getting a load of shitty TRA blowback on their social media and post bag. I’m not going to add to that. Purity politics is for the birds.

absolutely this!! Am I going to forget what’s happened so far? No but this is an opportunity to keep on pushing. For many years with Labour it felt the door we were pushing on was firmly closed not it feels that it’s open a tiny crack. We keep on pushing until it opens.

stonewall, LGBT foundation, mermaids et al will be having Labour MPs out for coffees & chats as we speak. If we don’t keep pushing on this side the door will be pushed closed again. Now is the time to push even harder.

and look at all we’ve achieved - without the women in this board I honestly believe self ID would be law by now

Slothtoes · 29/07/2023 08:56

From the Janice Turner article:

The Labour elite keeps its gender views quiet, but key figures — Bridget Phillipson at education, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, Steve Reid at justice and Shabana Mahmood, national campaign co-ordinator — are quietly gender-critical.
Labour’s most senior gay man, the shadow health minister, Wes Streeting, a former Stonewall education officer, has “been on a journey” in recent years, alarmed by LGBT policy overreach, such as the case of Sarah Summers, a Brighton rape victim denied a single-sex support group. One of Labour’s most generous donors, Fran Perrin, daughter of Lord Sainsbury, has strong feminist views.

This is a massive relief to see. Being able to name names of GC MPs is essential. It makes other MPs feel braver to put women first, and makes the male supremacists among them so much more obvious. Thank you as always Janice Turner for your fantastic support of women all these years. On this issue and others. Flowers

I really hope more of us will get to have more time and energy to tackle the many other issues for women that don’t include this one. I feel slightly more optimistic about that for future years, now that it is beginning to be that there can be a plurality of views talked about in Parliament and the media. Let’s see but thank god at least that things seem to be moving on from 2019. I really do think the pre pandemic world is another country, they do things differently there.

Is Bridget Phillipson Labour’s rising star?

She refused to serve under Jeremy Corbyn and is now one of Keir Starmer’s most trusted allies. The shadow education secretary talks about the challenges she faced growing up

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bridget-phillipson-labour-mp-interview-keir-starmer-txwlwn78d

RealityFan · 29/07/2023 08:53

Like all messaging thru that period, it was quite the cognitive dissonance watching an ostensibly intelligent and educated woman, a feminist I'm sure she'd claim, but during the height (or is that rock bottom?) of No Debate, calmly and cooly state that if a man claimed he was a woman, we shouldn't question him, and if that meant a rapist would enter a women's prison, then so be it. The ID of the individual was pre eminent.

Are we really to believe she was easily swayed by arguments from activists and the Twitter hordes, or that her belief in her own mind was so paper thin, that she could go against her better instinct?

I see many parallels with Brexit, another true believer cause, a force of mind issue, with absolute populist activist pressure, and a zeitgeist to fall in with.

Some Tory MPs incl ex cabinet ministers are already starting to admit their complicity with that project.

TheDogthatDug · 29/07/2023 08:52

I would have more respect for Nandy if she just said that she was wrong.

ResisterRex · 29/07/2023 08:44

Has Starmer disowned this?

twitter.com/martinmonmouth1/status/1683525047019872265?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

(You can find the longer version by searching Twitter, although the Penis News original seems to have gone AWOL, or become hard to locate)

JacquelinePot · 29/07/2023 08:38

And as for Lisa Nandy, are you fucking kidding me?!

I can fully believe that she was 'unduly led by young party activists' but that's not what she told Dr Julia Long. She told her that she has a young, sad "trans" person in her constituency, that's why she said she believed men should be housed in women's prisons.

I sssume she's now telling the actual truth, because no one would beclown their self like this if it werent true, surely... You'd think she would try to put a spin on it and say something like 'this is such an important issue that I've been doing a lot of research and have come to realise that it's much more nuanced than I initially believed'. Still stupid but at least somewhat dignified.

More than that, I'm disturbed that she found the activists' assertions credible.

She is both craven and stupid. I can only assume that she must be in such a safe seat that a carton of orange juice with a Labour rosette would win.

LoobiJee · 29/07/2023 08:38

Floisme · 29/07/2023 08:28

It feels a bit like when your ex asks for a reconciliation, and you realise you don't love - and possibly don't even like - them any more but there are still the kids to think about, and the house and the dog.

Anyway my response to Labour is the same: I will listen to what you have to say but I won't be rushed.

Great analogy! 😄

Floisme · 29/07/2023 08:34

And yeah Lisa Nandy gives me pause for thought too. If someone who admits to being easily led can get as close as she did to being elected party leader then that's dangerous. Something else you might like to consider, please Labour Party.

RealityFan · 29/07/2023 08:29

You've all seen how Starmer is looking both ways on Brexit. This is what he's aiming to do with trans rights.

Its ugly, and unprincipled and deeply unsatisfying. But I think this is the limit of his policy in this area.

Floisme · 29/07/2023 08:28

It feels a bit like when your ex asks for a reconciliation, and you realise you don't love - and possibly don't even like - them any more but there are still the kids to think about, and the house and the dog.

Anyway my response to Labour is the same: I will listen to what you have to say but I won't be rushed.

OhHolyJesus · 29/07/2023 08:16

Appalonia · 29/07/2023 07:02

NEVER FORGET

Too right Appalonia. I won't forget the spousal veto, the treatment of Rosie Duffield, the 99-99.99%, the sweeping rejection of LWD and refusal to meet them (like Stonewall refused to even speak with LGBA) and all Julia Long's moment with Lisa Nandy. (I don't care how led you are by young TRAs, you at least pause for thought when asked if a rapist should be in a woman's prison.)

Labour must think women are stupid.

JacquelinePot · 29/07/2023 08:13

Yes to the Golden Bridge, BUT... this is not enough.

I'm going to need Statmer etc al to define all the words before I might start to believe that they mean the same thing I do when I say 'a woman is an adult female human'.

Just saying a woman is an "adult female" is not enough. Starmer etc al might still be talking about men. I need to hear them say:

Women are adult female humans. That means the half the human race who have the type of bodies which should enable them to bear children, whether or not they actually do.

I need them to talk about single sex spaces, not safe spaces. And I need them to confirm in simple terms which kinds of people are permitted in the spaces meant for women.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 29/07/2023 07:56

Mollyollydolly · 28/07/2023 22:50

It is progress. What this whole debate has taught me is that people in power can be incredibly stupid and refuse to see what's staring them in the face. I can count on two hands the MPs I really respect now. I think it's significant Wes Streeting has seen the writing on the wall, he's a very astute politician and he's seen which way the wind is blowing. I have so little respect for any of them, I really struggle with their lack of critical thinking. If they're so crap on something I know about, what on Earth are they doing over stuff I know nothing about?

Bang on. How can we have confidence in politicians' ability to listen to scientists and question what they recommend, when they have this dismal failure on their records? It really sticks in my craw that Labour have been so abysmally stupid and dictatorial on this issue. I can't vote Tory but they have spotted the problems with this issue well ahead of Labour, they've allowed their MPs to speak freely about it, they've closed down GIDS and they have had three female leaders (all PMs) against Labour's big fat zero.

LoobiJee · 29/07/2023 07:50

Slothtoes · 29/07/2023 07:31

I respect Janice’s opinion. i also come from a consistent standpoint that none of the main parties actually give a shit about women’s rights. And I’ll judge them by what they do not what they say. but saying the right thing openly often precedes doing the right things openly, so this a step in a good direction. I am happy to see the main opposition party finally hearing women’s views. Obviously yes it should have happened years ago. This is positive though an unthinkable previously,. There will be lots of set backs along the way. but I know most people do know that human biology matters and this will win out eventually.

Back in the day this board used to send tweets, emails and even cards to women in politics who stood up. I’m going to do that here, as I did after the Westminster Hall debate to all the gender critical speakers from each party. I’ll ask them to put recognising the importance of biological sex into their election manifesto, plus committing to reforming the equality act to clarify sex and gender and repealing GRA.

I’m not planning to waste time asking MPs where they were when everyone else was suffering for over a decade, even though obviously they were in the wrong not to have broken their cover years sooner. That was almost all MPs. We still need the vast majority of MPs to be on board with a pro-woman agenda. So there is a mountain to climb in front of us yet.

That requires consistent chipping away at individual and collective misogyny by sharing information and taking different sorts of action, which many women on here have been doing for years. We tend to need MPs more then they need us (until every 4 years we get an election) so this is a long game where usually the balance is not in our favour. As we approach 2024 GE the power scales start to tip, incumbent MPs who want to keep their jobs or gain support for their parties can see that. So right now is a big opportunity. Tell them what you want to see happen.

Any politician sticking their neck out on this will be getting a load of shitty TRA blowback on their social media and post bag. I’m not going to add to that. Purity politics is for the birds.

Such a good point.

Woman2023 · 29/07/2023 07:49

I believe this is as good as it gets. Turning back on Self ID, belated apology to Rosie Duffield, LWD stands at conference.

These are all good steps, and to be celebrated. We don't stop as soon as they make a few concessions though. We have made progress, we can make more.

PronounssheRa · 29/07/2023 07:48

Lisa Nandys 'I was unduly influenced by young activists' excuse reflects terribly on her.

Was she unable to think for herself? Does she not have the courage of her own convictions? What else could she be unduly influenced on?

This wasn't a minor issue, she wanted rapists placed in women's prisons. She signed that awful pledge. I think this will haunt the rest of her political career.

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