Labour infighting over trans issues reignited by Cass Review

In some respects losing members won't necessarily be a bad thing for them. It can be freeing. I think they tripled their membership under Corbyn because they reduced the cost to a few quid for a time. With that sort of membership base a party can suffer from a form of audience capture.

The Tories have never had very high membership numbers but then again they have had large political donors - another form of capture. No perfect solution but Labour losing memberships probably won't have much bearing on whether they can win an election.

😆😆

Sorry that last post tangented and escalated quite quickly!

@MissScarletInTheBallroom I agree with all of that, it's an exciting time, but also dangerous. Meanwhile the tories have no pressure on them, can regroup and I dunno, maybe get back to a broader toryism rather than the Brexit At All Costs mental cases that are basically all that is left after Johnson purged all the wets.

I agree with all of this.

People are sick of the Tories and Labour will win the next election by default. But the reasons why people are sick of the Tories will not be fixed in the next parliament. There is no quick fix to the underfunding of the NHS, or the part of the cost of living increase which is attributable to Brexit, or most of the other issues that voters actually care about. There's no money to pay for these things. The squeezed middle are already being taxed until the pips squeak and can't afford to prop up the entire country even more. The 1% are internationally mobile and can hide their assets offshore. Charging VAT on private school fees will just mean that lots of people who can currently just about afford private school for their children will be unable to continue paying, which means they'll pull their kids out and send them to the local comprehensive, putting extra pressure on resources and class sizes.

If the Tories win the next election they'll just continue with their current policies. If Labour win the next election they'll need to bring about changes which show how they are different to the Tories, and all of those changes will take a lot of time and money they don't really have.

So in the meantime, assuming that in five years' time not much has really changed for the better for the average voter, how do they get elected for a second term?

By promoting values which align with the values of the average voter.

"Women can have penises" is not in alignment with what the average voter thinks.

I think there's also the opposite of the 'dead cat bounce' where after a change of long-term government, the new government in their first term has to do a lot of firefighting from the dumb shit the clapped-out clueless outgoing government did in their last couple of years.

It makes them (new gov) look bad, it obstructs their implementing of policy objectives, and generally distracts them from making a difference and starting to look like they are being effective.

Cameron had that to an extent, Blair definitely did, and I'm quite sure Skier will have double (because let's face it this government are an absolute shower, never seen the like).

There's more in the replies. But yeah, I wonder what happened to them.

Also if they want to actually improve the country in a meaningful way they'll need more than 4-5 years to do it. I presume some of them are foresighted enough to realise it's not just about this election, it's also about the one after that too. Streeting I think understands that and I suspect has his eyes on the prize as a Starmer successor.

The inherent problems with gender ideology will only get worse. Labour doubling down in their first term would be frankly stupid because there's always the chance that the Tories will pull themselves together in that 4-5 years and start looking like a viable prospect once more. Like it or not the electorate can have a short memory especially if they were able to muster a vaguely charismatic leader from somewhere.

Well hopefully as we get closer to the election it might occur to them that women actually have the right to vote.

Say what you like about Blair, he's not fucking stupid.

That photo is ancient.

Yeah it was gross. Madigan was appalling.

Looks like Lily is still Lily however

https://twitter.com/authenticTERF/status/1673711708391591936

Using Madigan, someone who literally set up a secret group and a list to purge women from the Labour Party, and get them into trouble with employers etc, to launch the "Kinder Gentler Politics" report was a particular triumph of poor judgement.

Right. So you're saying he u turned but just debating exactly when he u turned.. As long as we agree that he did indeed u turn then OK. Any politician who u turns needs to consider why they made a statement which was so horribly harmful.

Anyone, anyone at all who thought that Lily Madigan had any credibility is seriously suspect. Being capable of thinking it is a concern. Thinking it a mere seven years ago is extremely worrying.

What did they make him? Women's officer? A 19-year-old boy who couldn't string two words together and wrote period poverty on his hand with a sharpie?

With Blair I think it could be a bit of column A 'political mistake' and a bit of column B 'personal/religious/social-conservative views'.

This.

Just to add, I don't think it's because he cares particularly, but he could see that politically it was a mistake.

Way back when all this started, Blair apparently told labour not to go down the TWAW route. That they would be getting it wrong.

7 years ago! When Corbyn was running the party and Maria Miller in Theresa May's government was proposing self ID!

It's a different world now, thanks to feminists but also a change of leadership in both parties.

He may have been thinking, "Oh shit, are we the baddies?" for a while, but I think it's quite clear that the Cass review has given him the confidence to come out and say that he, and by implication Labour, may have got this wrong.

it's absolutely galling that women everywhere have been saying the exact same thing as Cass.

He has heard it from all sides. They all have.

There's nothing new in the report.

It does the opposite of fill me with confidence when it couldn't be clearer that they simply don't listen to women.

Even if it's perfectly obvious that what we're saying is correct, they have to wait for an appeal to authority before they're willing to acknowledge it.

Are they listening to women about women's sports? Toilets and changing rooms? AGP?

Or do we have to get a fucking report about all that too.

I'm not excusing that at all.

I think ultimately he is a politician and due to being in an echo chamber he misjudged which way the wind was blowing. He thought that taking a stand against "transphobia" would be more beneficial to him than taking a stand for women and children.

As a gay man, he is personally quite far removed from the women's rights perspective. He isn't a woman, he isn't in a relationship with a woman, he doesn't have children. Not only has he no personal experience of what it is like to be a woman, experiencing constant low level sexual harassment from men, constant fear of more serious male violence, the constant male gaze, constant objectification, he also doesn't have a wife or girlfriend at home saying, "I hate the new gender neutral toilets at work" or "I had a horrible experience with a really creepy man today". When women talk about needing a single sex rape crisis group or not wanting to share changing rooms with the opposite sex, he's not imagining his girlfriend or wife or daughter in that space.

But children, mainly gay and neurodiverse children? Children from troubled backgrounds? That, he can perhaps identify with. He could have been one of them. As one of many siblings, he most likely has young nieces and nephews who could be those children today.

And of course, harm to children is one thing which can be guaranteed to get voters seriously angry.

So it's not really surprising that he has reacted in this way to Cass, but not to the concerns women have been raising about their own rights.

Has anyone heard a peep from Madigan lately?

Is it possible that Lily is now a Lad Again?

IIRC Lily didn’t actually finish the Politics degree Lily started at Goldsmiths to great fanfare …

Specifically Wes Streeting, wasn't it? Cosying up with that Lily Madigan on a secret Facebook group, to make a list of women to dismiss. Venice Allen taped her interview, where she was summoned to the headmasters office, to be told she was expelled.

At times I've been unimpressed with his dithering over this issue,

I hardly think being involved in the machinations of "Labour Against Transphobia" could be classed as "dithering".