Sunak to drop legal plans to bar transitioning in schools?

All of you should read what Cates has written very carefully. You construe it far too positively.

This reads well, thanks

This.

I wonder if she will be able to track down the source of the lie and give them a time out or a well smacked arse?

Did you ?

Did you really ?

Fancy a Tory saying one thing and doing another ? It's outrageous I say. Outrageous.

There goes my fig leaf reason for voting Tory.

Well, lobbying is for a policy change is fine. Sex Matters should carry on with that as a policy. And of course it can suggest legal changes but it doesn't mean they are right. It means they are technically possible but a government has a much higher standard than that to make a change. And that change must be signed off by the AG.

Saying Prentis is wrong is a dead end. The best lobbyists I ever met who made legislative changes knew this. Instead, they drafted the changes they wanted to see.

Then, they applied for a private members bill with a friendly MP. Put the bill in and force the issue. The government is forced often to take the bill and rewrite it until it does work and then the AG signs off on it.

That's what needs to happen, for any case whether you have a Labour or Conservative government. Pressure.

As poster above said there's a query about the article

https://twitter.com/miriam_cates/status/1699802275294675206?t=1j8xBOna6u8UwusHAK2Htw&s=09

The PM’s spokesperson has confirmed that the source for this story is incorrect. No decisions have been taken. I continue to push for guidance that will make clear that schools do not have the authority to ‘socially transition’ children. /1

I agree with @SexMattersOrg - we should not need to change the law to produce such guidance. In fact, schools are legally obliged to recognise & record biological sex, which is essential for safeguarding. There’s no current legal provision for schools to treat girls as boys /2

This is not about parental consent or ‘being kind’; it’s about whether the State, through schools, should be able to promote a contested ideology that harms and lies to kids. Protecting children from indoctrination is surely an important foundation of democratic society. /3

I wouldn't put it past Keegan to leak. Good to see Miriam Cates is still fighting.

No law has ever been changed by an open discussion of why government lawyers are wrong except in court.

exactly - so the next step is making it an issue and challenging what has been said is to do that.

If you have a better way of that happening rather than via lobbying please do say.

It doesn't have to be an open discussion (though given the Rwanda scheme obviously open discussion has made this whole project suspect ie illegal).

The GA no more than the PM can be the lone arbitrator.

You are missing the point. No law has ever been changed by an open discussion of why government lawyers are wrong except in court.

You won't get this debate in Parliament either. Quite rightly, like any client, the Government will say confidential. Any MP can put forward an interpretation - but even this government, daft as it is, is not stupid enough to respond to that.

Sex Matters are a lobby group.

Well obviously, that's why they have written what they have written!

Many many lobby groups have changed the law.

All I am saying is use the information Sex Matters have collected to "lobby" so doubt can be raised (and proofed) that the AG is wrong.

Dont forget (although it wont happen in this case as the majority of the UK dont care) that an individual (Gina Miller) got a judicial review of a Government decision - and won. (which was why Boris wanted this right got rid of)

That's why I am saying dont waste time on articles leaked by rival ministers, use the facts as compiled by Sex Matters to ask Governmet to act on the analysis of the law.

Maybe start with the Terfs in the HoL.

@IwantToRetire - there is a big flaw with the Sex Matters approach.

That is challenging directly the Government's legal position and expecting a debate in public.

That won't happen. No lawyer for the government will give advice which is then criticized by other lawyers except in litigation.

Confidential legal advice is just that. This story obviously does not touch on the nuances of what was said.

Sex Matters are s lobby group. The government (of any kind left or right) does not take legal advice from them. It has its own panel of experts.

FFS. What a weak twat he is.

I've just seen a tweet by Miriam Cates contradicting the Times story and saying that the source is completely inaccurate. We can breathe again tentatively.

Are you 12?
You are completely wrong about confidentiality, the law, parental rights / responsibilities and who can remove them (hint - it's the courts, not schools) and safeguarding generally.

Throwing around "anti trans " allegations doesn't work any more. There's a major issue about schools assuming rights that the law has not given them. Along with major problems about a law intended to allow adults to "change sex" being applied to children below the age of consent with life long consequences for them. Add to that schools openly breaching their legal responsibility to be politically impartial by signing up to Stonewall and other queer theory organisations and we have a major safeguarding fail on the part of the government and society generally.
With children being the casualties,

Not sure if anyone bothered to read it but the Sun (of all places) has I think got this right

To summarise, no time to pass law before next GE.

They could however give guidance to schools.

And I am no fan of Sunak but PM's are not dictators. Their role is to listed to advice etc., from appointed Ministers on which ever area of society their department is running.

And with all Ministers claiming their agenda is the priority has to somehow get them to agree which will become party / government priorities.

So if the current AG is saying not legally possible because of the EA, that is the advice they have to work with.

This is why I thought it worthwhile having a separate thread on the Sex Matters analysis which they say shows that it is legally possible under the EA. And take up the opportunity to send this analysis to Tories MPs to get them to re-open the discussion. See https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4889341-schools-are-in-danger-of-breaking-the-law-on-sex-and-gender-sex-matters

The article this thread is based on is a rehash of at least two in the past couple of months, and is obviously ministers briefing against each other.

At no time has any Tory said that the issue of women's sex based rights and the erosion of these by gender identity activists is a priority.

Not sure how anyone got the idea that it was.

People have been talking about this stuff for years now

Obviously some of us care a lot

Shall we put it to a vote?

Noo! Don’t do that

I'm a long term Tory voter, innoculated by Thatcher. I have many reasons not to vote Tory, but also one big reason not to vote Labour. And it's the tension between these positions that will dictate my vote.

Is it more that Labour supporters know it exposes them more?

If it’s a non vote winner no worries for you it won’t impact much

But your take is if he did put it to the vote it’d be a vote loser for you

I mean I get people don’t want to vote for them for any reason they want but if people say I really care about this issue and if you do offer it up at a GE I’m out

Seems strange

I can't see it happening. Polls are showing no traction for trans related issues, and Sunak is aware culture war tropes cut both ways. Additionally, I don't believe he has any more "feel" for the right thing as May or Starmer.

He's putting all his eggs in the Illegal Migrant Bill and a turnaround in the economy basket. Most we can expect is a promise to return to this after the GE.

I'm afraid the Tories have been asleep at the wheel for 13 years, expecting any priority or authenticity here is to expect rain to fall upwards.

Oh and PARENTS have a duty of care to their children far beyond any teacher or any blue haired alphabet people activist.
Children deserve better.

Marge , clearly you haven’t read the Cass Review…

The buck stops with the government, under Conservatives , at the moment &
it is utter nonsense to expect that teachers know best, when those teachers have been undermined & gaslit by the Stonewall , LGBT Youth Scotland, etc , as well as the “teachers” who have been happily messing up children with their own weird mindset.
The PM needs to grow a spine, deal with the damage done already, and rebuild the safeguarding of children which has been disregarded by those who should know better.

Totally agree with all of this

The way I see it this has crept in over the last few years, as it has elsewhere, it’s pushed by Stonewall and others who seem to have convinced so many organisations, half the press and civil servants and now in schools

There’s people who don’t like that and feel unelected bodies have too much control. It wasn’t voted for

Some say no you’re wrong people don’t care that much etc

So regardless of party divisions why wouldn’t those annoyed with all this welcome an actual vote?

I'm afraid all parties are broad churches. This means that no party can risk a specific line on something like GI without alienating up to half of its MPs.
Whatever you think of Brexit, any practical way forward was stymied because there was no taste for it in any party, the policy imposed on MPs.
I suspect the same would happen on outlawing gender change in schools.
The TRA Keegan-Millar-Mordaunt-May axis in the Conservative Party is stronger than we think, Maria Millar just hosted a Stonewall policy type shindig.

I don’t get the issue with getting people to vote on it

Has any country clearly voted on two parties presenting alternatives or has this all snuck in via civil servants, media and institutions?

We don’t even know which side people would fall on, some think people are fine with it but clearly many are not