Labour candidate suspended for 'transphobia'

this. Yes please. I long for a proper socialist party with no toadying, where critical thinking is encouraged and blind allegiance discouraged. Where women are respected and feminist beliefs taken as standard.

"Hackeny (sic) has a large black community, many of whom rightfully find the linking of blackface/womanface offensive."

Do they?

This isn't the same as citing a single thread on Black Mumsnetters with some deleted posts as evidence of offence being taken.

Internet search results (DuckDuckGo) for "blackface womanface comparison offensive" turn up:

• several critical Mumsnet threads,
• a couple of reddit threads (including an archived critical r/GenderCritical thread),
• a handful of articles (including one saying the comparison isn't valid because drag is a good gay thing and one amplifying the r/GenderCritical thread)
• plus a thread on Lipstick Alley where opinion is divided: https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/drag-is-womanface-is-as-unacceptable-as-blackface.4767223/

If those results are representative then concerns about the comparison seem to be minimal and mainly confined to Mumsnet.

Maybe most black people are not aware of the comparison being made? Or are aware but think it unremarkable?

It would be genuinely interesting to know whether many in the black community in Hackney "find the linking of blackface/womanface offensive", specifically by Laura Pascal.

The article in the OP says that it was Regional Labour that stepped in and suspended her, and wrote to the local branch / membership to say there would be no campaigning.

Green Party jumping on the band wagon https://www.hackneygreens.org.uk/statement_on_suspension_of_labour_candidate_for_cazenove_by_election

Thread about the former Mayor https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4884926-hackney-mayor-suspended-by-labour-after-photo-emerges-of-him-partying-with-paedophile-councillor

Have only just seen this thread, and apart from the sheer stupidity of the accusations, it is even more dispiriting because of the reason there is a by election.

There was a thread about this and will try and find it but to summarise the former Mayor of Hackney was forced to resign because he tried to cover up the criminal accusation of child pornograpy of another Hackney councillor who just happened to be a friend.

During which time the ward of the accused councillor had the rights to use the Labour Party network for advertising meeting etc.. withdrawn.

So eventually Mayor resigned, new Mayor elected (Labour of course) so the vacancy is because the new mayor cant be mayor and a councillor.

Hackney is by a vast majority Labour, previously old school Labour but now invaded by well heeled incomers who have made Hackney a really expensive place to live, and very very woke. Gentrified and almost worse advertised to tourists as a really cutting edge place to visit. Just south of Hackney by a main road is a very famous flower market, where the stall holders say that despite huge crowds visiting it just people coming to take selfies and rarelly buying anything.

And needless to say in terms of actual solid council work Labour has vamped up woke agenda items, but at the same time has the second worse housing record in London. Its flats regulary appear on local London news for the lack of repairs, damp, etc..

Trans people and allies call the shots with Labour. Starmer is an idiot to allow this treatment of personnel. He thinks it will win him votes and doesn't consider the number of votes it loses him. How can he possibly be our next PM?

I expect she’ll be cleared eventually (see Rosie Duffield’s recent suspension) it’s just difficult timing with the election so close and the party taking so bloody long to deal with complaints (even when they are preposterous).

Laura is clearly well-liked in her local party so the lack of party support on election day (Get The Vote Out, lifts to the polling station for people with mobility issues etc) is a massive bummer. Perhaps a few party friends will still do leaflet drops for her (but that’s probably a potential party suspension offence too). Might be some GC former members locally who could step up? Loads of women
have left my branch/CLP due to the party’s disregard for women’s
rights.

if she stands as a (temporary) independent and wins that will at least be a metaphorical poke in the eye for the TRAs who reported her, and as it’s too late to get a new Labour candidate Laura won’t fall foul of the not running against/not campaigning against an official Labour candidate.

.

I noticed that the LabourUK subreddit were gunning for her a couple of days ago.

Went to look at her Twitter and saw she was a well established local campaigner for the party who has previously stood in other hackney council seats (where I am in the NW Labour candidates are often expected to have a try at an unlikely-to-win seat to learn the ropes before being nominated for an easier win seat so I would imagine similar happens elsewhere). She looked popular and openly GC so I figured that any last minute complaints about her would be dismissed as obviously bollocks.

I was clearly wrong! Hopefully she’ll win as an independent and then the party will come grovelling back when no wrongdoing is found 🙄

https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/s/qGra5aiTOk

(the above subreddit is largely populated by people who hate Labour for being too centrist/not batshit enough)

Social media critics of Pascal have characterised her selection as Labour embracing a “new wave of horrific transphobia” and have accused her of “bullying trans women“. In social media exchanges, Pascal has said: “trans women are not female. By definition they are male”.

Stating transwomen are male, a biological fact, is a "new wave of horrific transphobia".

I once got laughed at for saying the gender cult employs hyperbolic victimization...

Oh my God. Laura is a good friend of mine, although we haven't been in touch recently.

She has been 1000% dedicated to the Labour party for years and years. She's also a really passionate feminist and fully in support of trans people's rights to live their lives freely. To be suspended for stating a biological reality - I have no words.

And yet Labour councillors who have been done for fraud and election fixing are merrily still in the job…

Labour dont want to be in power do they?

What is the political gain from doing this so late? Why did they let her get this far if they were only going to do this to her?

Is this a mad purity spiral that they don’t realise they are shooting their own party in the foot or is this a muscle flex to show who is boss?

Laura, if you’re reading this, I will also support any action you might want to take about this. Would be soooo good to make the Labour leadership clarify exactly what they mean when they say they intend to protect women’s rights. Sadly, I think this whole debacle already makes that clear

Voted labour since I could vote. They can well and truly fuuuuck off

I'm wondering if the mechanisms are similar or different. It seemed to me that the GP rules meant that anyone that was accused of anything got automatically suspended (a 'no fault suspension') so that bad actors could repeatedly do this to keep their enemies/targets from involvement in the party.

I would have imagined Labour, as a much larger and better established party, would have more complex and sophisticated systems for assessing an accusation before suspending someone. Surely malicious/unfounded accusations can't always lead to a suspension?

If they can, that's a weakness that peopel will inevitably exploit.
If they can't, then the party has deliberately taken the step to suspend a member for her legally protected gc beliefs.

Another one ready with the shovel, Laura. This is outrageous.

WTAF?

I have never voted any way but Labour. It becomes harder and harder. Why should I vote for them when they don’t even support themselves? By abolishing their only candidate in Labour safe seat Hackney?

It’s like something from the Daily Mash. Or it would be if it was funny.

This sort of fuckwittery will see the Tories stay. I am so angry.

Cazanove ward is in Dianne Abbot's constituency. I wonder whether the independent MP suspended by Labour will support Laura as an independent candidate, also suspended by Labour.

I saw that @LoobiJee is it a case of Tories staying at home or registering a protest vote though I wonder? I know Clapton/ Stokey is a bit gentrified of course....

Yes except in the case of modern politics @Froodwithatowel where it's more like they both lie most of the time, occasionally tell the truth, usually by accident, and most often don't even know themselves which is which. And if you ask the wrong question you will lose your job / reputation / be burned at the stake.

This ward (three councillors) used to be all Lib Dem, but Labour took all three posts in 2018. This by-election is because one of the councillors has just taken over as Labour Mayor of Hackney, and she supported Laura Pascal.

Labour are not the party for women's rights, quite the opposite. Yet so many women vote for them. There should be a women's party it would walk the next election.

The article in the OP says that the Lib Dems came close in the last election.