Janice Turner on Labour u-turn

The devil is in the details.
Do LWD get a stall at conference?
How does Rosie get dealt with, not just by Starmer/Streeting, but by the Lloyd Russel Moyles of the party?
What sort of team does Starmer put forward as his campaign cabinet? Does he sideline the gender ideologues like Lammy and Thornberry, and promote more GC voices?
Does Starmer/Streeting push for sex >>> gender clarification of EA?
What are their plans of GRC streamlining and who will do the assessments?
Will Labour support full reversion to single sex spaces, not just prisons and sports, but also refuges, changing rooms, toilets, even social situations (lesbian clubs, WI etc)?

I've mulled over Labours apparent volte face, and for me this is just an opening salvo. It's taken years of hard graft and any number of silencings and cancellations of women to get to the weak tea GC position that Dodds announced the other day. In truth, I want to give Labour the benefit of doubt on this. But this is just an opening offer from them.

Right now, GCs everywhere, especially the women who've done the heavy lifting so far, need to keep pushing. Acknowledging the positive first step. But like a football transfer fee negotiation, telling the other side it's nowhere near enough.

It's noticeable that Dodds laid out the change, Starmer backed it up, but it's Streeting out of the traps who's fleshing out the apologies and softer mood music of "regrets, I've had a few" messaging.

I genuinely feel Starmer/Streeting are likely GC at heart, but the overwhelming philosophy of the managerial Left ethos that has permeated the party and larger activist/unionist movement, backed up by the Left artistic fraternity, is firmly TRA.

Starmer could take on the anti Semitic trend because it was simpler to address and promote as anti bullying, and a clear break from Corbynism. The shift from TRA is much harder, so much more widespread and entrenched is this anti humanist philosophy.

That leaves so many of us on the horns of a real dilemma.

Let's see concrete change on the ground, mood music in the air, the shape of his cabinet going into the GE, and critically his fleshed out policies.

For me, it may come down to simple wording. Biological/women and single sex spaces is what's needed.
Understanding both sides and safe spaces, won't cut it for me.

We cannot cave on the first hints of apparent sanity. The patient needs to demonstrate they really are properly sane to be let out into the community.

Personally I'm not that interested in an apology. For one thing, even if Labour were to make one, it would be approved by lawyers and so insipid it would probably make me even more cross. And then someone would come along and say, 'See! you asked for an apology and you're still not happy so you must be a Tory'. And so forth.

So no thanks, I'll settle for them explaining how they're going to fix this.

Sorry I’m in a particularly cynical mood today.

Sadly you are probably correct.

I agree.

And yet, because the vast majority of those people impacted have been women and children, it won’t be seen as a Big Deal and the post-brushing lump under the carpet will only be visible to the same people who have been speaking up and vilified and condemned, but who will be told we’re all over it now and moving on.

Yes. Indoctrination and selling certificates to children could well be Labour’s aim.

This whole mess is going to be difficult for many to move on from, myself included.

A while back I was reading something, I think it was about Franco and the Spanish civil war. It included personal testimonies and one of the things touched on was how without a proper degree of truth and reconciliation it's impossible to go forward with trust.

I think a similar sentiment applies here. It's mostly not been a war in the physical sense but brushing it all under the carpet will not cut it in any shape or form.

Our politicians and formerly valued institutions have spent the best part of a decade insisting that women no longer exist.

They have spoken about us in dehumanising terms relating to our body parts and functions- bleeders, vagina havers, cervix havers, chest feeders and so on.

They have insisted that there is such a thing as a female penis and because of this they have put rapists in women's prisons and hugely damaged women's sport.

They have bought into the notion that babies are born with 'wrong bodies' and enthusiastically prescribed pharmaceutical and surgical fixes for children. All based on the sexist idea of blue/pink brains.

This is not an exhaustive list obviously. None of this is small fry stuff, it's all had massive ramifications including the fear people have been living under for speaking out, the loss of livelihoods and the threats and abuse endured for doing so.

IMO nothing short of a major inquiry in parliament complete with personal testimonies will be good enough.

Just FYI, LWD do indeed have a fringe event, but I don't believe Labour Women's Declaration have been allowed a stand at Labour Conference yet.

Well yes in the new 1984 it could well be drs selling certificates to all.

I dont understand how this is so difficult for some people to say.

I find it maddening that now we have to clarify each and every word spoken on this issue.

"You said woman, please define woman for us"
"You mentioned adult, what ages mean adult to you"

This is going to make conversations clumsy and fraught at best.

I missed that thanks, and also for all we know they plan on having doctors sell certificates to children.

Thank you for posting they, I wasn’t familiar with it.

This is an excellent article and captures pretty much my thinking. Pretty much “ditto” to everything Shonagh said.

I understand and accept the concept of a golden bridge, and also think that a movement with as much momentum as the TRA one is not going to be stopped or turned around overnight. The fact that publicly we will have to accept these face saving “apologies” is on one hand just politics (not the first or last time there will be a wholesale change of mind on something). On the other it just increases the cynicism that politicians these days don’t actually hold any fundamental principles/stand for anything any more. And I think long term that is just bad for democracy as we get fewer and fewer people who run for election because they want to make a difference. And fewer people vote because they think what’s the point, all politicians are the same etc.

Yep. Or we might, gasp, think human rights apply to women

What then? It all comes tumbling down

IMO that was deliberate to avoid association with KJK and other wicked women who talk about adult human females.

He missed out the human,.
He only said adult female.
Female what? Spider, donkey, rat, dog? Who knows.

'Remember the dignity of your womanhood. Do not appeal, do not beg, do not grovel. Take courage, join hands, stand beside us, fight with us. It is our duty to make this world a better place for women'.

Christabel Pankhurst. (Thanks to the lovely ribbon seller who sent this note with a recent order.)

Politicians, innit.

Ha! I'm probably on that thread OvaHere has linked saying, 'phew! so glad to see this - it means I can vote Labour now.'

And I did vote for them. And the way Labour has behaved since then is precisely why I'm exercising caution this time. I will listen but I won't be bounced into promising my vote until I've read the detail and watched how they behave under questions and scrutiny.

Me too, I believe Starmer’s lips moved during that statement, which as everyone knows is a foolproof guide to a politician being a politician and lying through their teeth . Define female Starmer.

It's worth remembering that we have been here before with Labour in 2019.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3749319-Labour-promises-to-keep-single-sex-exemptions

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3749325-Hang-on-Labour-manifesto-references-single-sex-exemptions

Well yes!

I do agree with the 'golden bridge' etc and that we can now use this as a conversation opener with the LP and get them to be clearer on their plans. However I would feel so much better if there was a proper apology for how they have treated GC MPs and members and some commitments to more 'free speech' on gender issues.

We can probably look forward to a heartfelt apology centuries after we are all dead. That's usually how these things go.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59894693

100% this 👆🏼
As a former LP activist in a marginal seat, I am paying close attention to what they actually do.

Luckily there's no continuity Johnson candidate ("I had no idea cake meant a party") or continuity Truss ("I'd just like to crash the economy, thanks").

Are we talking about the Starmer that stood for election as the leader of the Labour party as the continuity Corbyn candidate and is now seeking election as PM as the continuity Sunak candidate? The man is Groucho Marx without the comedy. 'Those are my principles and if you don't like them.... Well I have others.'