Conservative candidate resigns after trans comments

This is incredible to read. Opinions about immigration levels are political opinions, not terror speech. Terror speech is tens of thousands marching on the streets shrieking " From the river to the sea". You are lost as a society if you cannot distinguish between the two.

There are no parallels between people who wanted to deny gay people equal rights and people who want women's safety and dignity to be respected.

HTH.

The comment on asylum seekers is horrible and he should be barred from standing for that but Tory ministers have said worse .The stuff on Trans women - biological males in mens prisons, I agree.
Still wouldn't vote Tory though.

@MargotBamborough Here is a prediction, see if I am right or not...

American President Donald Trump had one of the least successful presidencies of any president ever. Other than changing the balance on federal courts and exiting Afghanistan very few of trumps promises were delivered. But he really did try. Trump’s wall was delayed by years because he couldn’t even get funding for it until he realised he could as commander in chief declare an emergency and get the military to build it. He couldn’t even pardon everyone he wanted to as lawyers refused to draw up the documents for some people.

In short, Trump couldn’t get anything done because the US establishment wouldn’t let him despite him being the president.

I think trump knows the reasons he failed so I predict that if he is elected again he will immediately start his presidency by issuing an executive order so he can sack 1,000’s of people in order to actually get stuff done. See if it happens.

No, I’m pointing at the parallels.

At the time views in society were very different to how they are now. The conservative government and the majority of the public did not support gay rights at that time but the elites in the civil service and the important cultural, educational and opinion forming institutions did. The government introduced section 28 but it did not ‘win’ their side of the debate anything in the long-term, things continued to move in the direction they were moving for reasons I have already talked about.

So, I’m saying that if a party like reform U.K. did introduce the sorts of laws you would like it would be like section 28 in that elite opinion would not change and neither would the direction of travel. The only way the direction of travel would change is if the government legislated to change who the elites were, I.e. they would have to have legislation in place to enable them to sack 1,000’s of people (meaning they’d no longer be elites) and replaced with people who saw the world differently. I don’t think reform uk or any mainstream party would be prepared to do this as it’s totally illiberal and autocratic.

She isn't...?!

She's using it as a similie.

Section 28 didn't stop gay rights ultimately coming through.

She's saying that any laws that reform UK manage to get put in won't stop the long term trend, and will be repealed under the next labour government.

This is depressing as anything but maybe so

The trouble is so many other countries face the same, with PR as voting system so I’m not sure what we do to get what we want

@Freddder can I just say thank you for your posts on the subject of how we have come to the state that we are in and what it might take to change it (that nobody really wants). I haven't found them easy reading, I've struggled get my head around it, but I am extra grateful for your posts, they've really made me think and see things in a different light.

Not sure if that's a better or a worse light(!), but different perspective, and I am grateful.

Why are you equating women's rights with section 28?

The progressives don’t see you as part of 51% of the population, they see you and everyone else as part of 100% of the population and they think everything should be totally inclusive to everyone. They don’t see women as a class at all, feminism does.

I can see why the liberal progressives and the feminists ended up on the same team when cultural norms were limiting women but the progressives didn’t do it for the same reason feminists did and the line became blurred as many liberal progressive women thought they were feminists. Do you think Nicola Sturgeon is feminist? I’m sure she would say she is but I think she’s really a liberal progressive.

As far as I understand it feminism advocates for the rights and well being of women as a class and this might include restricting individual freedoms and re-enforcing social taboos. Prostitution is a good example of this, legalising prostitution and getting rid of the taboos around it would increase individual freedom but it’s in the interests and wellbeing of women to criminalise it. Now look at which parties in Europe have legalised prostitution. Are they parties of the left or the right? Which parties legalised prostitution in Germany?

You will have a reform candidate this time, tice says they are standing everywhere. The only thing I think reform uk would do though is put into law the things you want, but that won’t stop this long term anymore than section 28 stopped gay rights. The liberal elite will press on with their beliefs anyway as far as legally possible and as soon as there was a Labour government these laws would be repealed.

@Freddder I don't know much about Reform but I don't have a Reform candidate to vote for.

And yes, I do expect the mainstream parties to care about 51% of the population. The fact that none of them do is disgraceful. But I'm not sure what I personally can do about it because there are literally no other options for me to vote for.

Why did he resign though? His comments are on brand with the tories put him in high standing with certain demographics of women. He sounds like the ideal candidate for them. Bashing transwomen and migrants in one go - a tories wet dream.

Why would you expect them to care? They’re all different flavours of liberal progressivism.

Liberals don’t care about group rights they care about individual rights. Liberals don’t see women as class with group interests, they see them as individual people, feminism sees women as a class.

Reform UK might do something about this, I don’t know, but the best you will get from Tories is ‘we are dreadfully sorry that this is happening but to actually do anything about it would be illiberal and unbritish so we mustn’t do that’.

Think of how this looks to your average centre left liberal. They want to free individuals from all social and moral norms which they regard as an oppressive pressure to conform to the wishes of a tyrannical majority. They totally reject conformity.

Now these progressives have already been persuaded that almost all of the meaningful differences between men and women are the result of socialisation and believe that boys can be socialised to be more like girls (wonder where they got that idea from). So when you ask such a person if a person should be treated as the sex they were born or the sex that they would like to be or identify as, what answer do you think you will get? They will obviously tell you that individuals can be whoever they want to be.

That’s why the ideology could spread so quickly, the powers that be agree with its logic and reasoning, because they’re liberal and progressive people. The British establishment is now university educated liberals, the country is no longer run by old aristocratic men with country estates.

Well you've rather proven my point there, haven't you. It's not as simple as changing things when there is no mainstream party which actually cares about women's rights.

In the last general election the only options on my ballot paper were Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem.

I don’t know. You could try reform uk or the SDP. But I’m not sure they could sort it out either.

It would need to be a party that was willing to be very autocratic to change this because they would need to remove 1.000’s of people from their positions at the top of our institutions. This belief comes from liberal progressivism and you don’t get promoted easily in the U.K. unless you share certain values, i.e unless you are a progressive.

But why am I telling you this, feminists are just going to vote Labour on mass and get more of this?

It wasn’t Conservative Party rhetoric (or indeed policy). That’s why the Conservative Party have deselected him. Honestly the way some people are laying the blame for him being deselected with the school here is bizarre. They complained to the local party because they thought he used language that was not appropriate for a school environment. The party could have told the school “tough, if you invite a conservative politician, except to hear conservative policies”. But they didn’t, they de-selected him. Because he clearly isn’t following party policy, which is the bare minimum you need to do to be a PPC.

Is there a proposal to drop the voting age to 16 in Scotland or has it happened?

I agree with Porcelina: at that age they need to hear a wide range of views and know each party (and politician) for who they are. Not be given a nicely distilled false version. We are currently in this mad stage of society where we teach primary kids about sex acts but are frightened to let young adults experience anyone talking about women's rights or the realities of who they are voting for. Ridiculous over exposure too young to adult ideas alongside infantilisation.

No wonder the mental health of these generations is in such a mess.

Update, I looked a bit further and the comments were made to sixth formers during a mock question time event. I do think that's out of order.
https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2023-11-22/would-be-tory-mp-steps-down-after-school-makes-complaint

@PorcelinaV it's not clear if under 18s were present or not, but a school doesn't expect a politician to make inflammatory remarks or incite racism when they visit. Usually they talk about how the house of commons works or some other interesting but non-political issue. Of course if it was a hustings that's a bit different and you would expect to hear robust discussion of sensitive issues.

It's always someone else's fault. I think the Tory anthem going into the next GE should be Shaggy's It Wasn't Me.

Well in his defence if you poll people women do seem more likely to be in favour of this than men…