Are you voting in the next general election purely on the transgender issue?

@Dineasair I really struggle to see how others can’t understand that for many women (and men) this really is the most important issue.

If a politician is willing to lie about something as fundamental as biological reality then I’m afraid nothing else they say or promise has any value.

And there we have it, the safeguarding of women and children isn’t an important issue. We just don’t count.

Having a female leader on its own doesn't necessarily mean the party will be good for women in general, no. Similarly, the current Tory cabinet is stuffed full of people of colour whose parents came to the UK as immigrants, but that doesn't translate to immigration friendly policies.

But I do think that not having had a female leader in 2024 says something important about you as a party. It's just not plausible that no woman has ever been the best candidate to lead Labour. I'm sure Yvette Cooper would have done a better job than Corbyn, for example.

I also think it is a sign of systemic misogyny that we always talk about female leaders as not having been good for women, as if it's a justification for why there have not been more of them. Firstly, we never judge male leaders in this way. (Perhaps because we assume that male leadership will always benefit men and if their leadership happens to benefit women as well it's because they're oh so progressive.) And secondly I think that women in positions of leadership often realise that their place at the top table is uncertain, and that they wouldn't be allowed to be there if they were too openly feminist. (That's what makes Kemi Badenoch so unusual.)

And how much good did they do for women? Thatcher was known for not helping women - her track record was terrible.

Just having a woman as leader doesn't mean anything. Imagine if Penny TWAW Mordaunt became leader.

The CTA does indeed predate the EU. That means that when the UK and Ireland entered into it, neither was subject to external restrictions as a result of being in a massive trading bloc. In the intervening years both the UK and Ireland joined the EU (simultaneously, for fairly obvious reasons) and so when that situation changed, it changed for both the UK and Ireland, in the same way and at the same time, having no impact on the CTA.

Obviously one of the two then deciding to leave the EU whilst the other remained completely changed the whole situation. It was never going to be possible to return to the status quo ante, because things have moved on considerably since the 1960s.

Leaving without a deal would have been hugely irresponsible and undemocratic, particularly in light of the fact that Northern Ireland voted to remain.

If we'd had a subsequent referendum on hard vs soft Brexit we'd have ended up with soft Brexit for sure.

Immigration is a tough one I agree with pp that it was the main driver for the Brexit voter so I’m not surprised it became a ‘red line’. Otherwise why win the vote

One problem was many countries had labour shortage at the same time due to post pandemic, Aus for example had the same problem. May well do still

The EU went out of its way to be difficult. The UK offered a 'smart' border for NI and RoI, which is used all over the EU where it meets non-member countries. The EU said it would not work. The border between NI and the RoI is covered by the Common Travel Act - the EU was demanding that a system set up before it existed and works much better than Shengeng, be made inoperable. That's the EU being intransigent. Personally I'd have left without a deal. The attitude of the EU, btw, was shown very clearly when France threatened to cut off the energy supply to the Channel Isles (never part of the EU) when licences were refused to French fishermen who had been illegally fishing Channel Isle waters for years. LIcences were only granted to those fisherman who had applied the rules to their fishing in those waters - why should one licence thieves, which is what the unlicensed French fishermen were?

You are of course entitled to your opinion.

But it really isn't the case that the EU was deliberately trying to make things difficult for the UK.

It was difficult, due to the unique situation regarding the border in Ireland.

The EU didn't create that situation. But it has to protect its external border otherwise the whole structure is compromised.

Because I knew how the EU worked I voted Brexit. The EU wanted to make life difficult because it has other members champing at the Brussels bit. NI was used by the EU to cause the UK problems. The president of France told the then PM that, unlike Toulouse, Belfast was not in the same country as London - as though France does not consider and act upon all its overseass territories being an integral part of France. I do not want to be part of pan-Europe, and nor do a lot of other people.

I don't think it is just about ideological capture though. If anything I think women are more likely to be ideologically captured than men are, because of the way we've been socialised since birth to put others before ourselves, which makes many of us more susceptible to the "most vulnerable" and "be kind" rhetoric.

A know a lot of men who will tell it to me straight that they know the gender stuff is all a load of bollocks, even some who are pretty outspoken about it in public, but are still telling me it shouldn't be a voting priority for me. Like, yes it's nonsense and I disagree with it all, but other things are more important. What women want and need is not as important as fixing the economy, getting the Tories out, etc.

My brother is one of these. He is well and truly peaked. It started with sports, and now prisons is the thing he is most outraged about. But he's still telling me I should vote Lib Dem because getting the Tories out is the most important priority right now. He even said that since I no longer live in the UK I don't understand how bad it is. But I think that since he's not a woman he doesn't really understand how serious this is for us. Like, he understands on an intellectual level, but not at a visceral level. And this is of course an issue which affects not just women and girls living in the UK, like my mum, not just women and girls like me and my daughter who are British citizens even if we don't currently live in the UK, but women and girls everywhere.

The US has gone insane. Canada has gone insane. Australia has gone insane. New Zealand has gone insane. Ireland has gone insane. Parts of Europe are starting to say, "Hang on a minute..."

The UK might just be what really helps to turn things around, if not globally then at least in Europe. It would be incredibly helpful to have a major, high profile country like the UK saying, "Yes trans people should have equal rights to everyone else and be treated with respect, but sex is real, binary and immutable, and sometimes it matters. Women need and have the right to single sex spaces, services and sports. Children have the right to a happy, healthy, uncomplicated childhood where they have the space and freedom to grow naturally and aren't being pressured into making irreversible decisions they are too young to understand based on a flawed ideology about being born in the wrong body."

In my constituency, it's a two horse race between the Tories and the Lib Dems. So in a way, my thoughts about Labour are irrelevant. If I voted somewhere it was a close run thing between the Tories and Labour, I would have to consider voting Labour. If I voted somewhere it was a close run thing between Labour and the Lib Dems, I would almost certainly vote Labour. But that's not the case where I vote, and regardless of what the Tories have done, over my dead cold body am I ever going to vote for the Lib Dems again.

But women in men's spaces are not the same kind of threat as men in women's are.

To be honest, I don't see it primarily as a 'women versus men' issue - rather than one of ideological capture. The manifestations of the ideology are already happening and is what is now receiving push back. The next step will be to tackle the ideological nature of the trans phenomena. Reveal that nature to the public.

Are you referring to people entering the UK legally or illegally?

I'm not saying there aren't.

But it's more likely that something will actually change if men are being made to feel uncomfortable.

To be fair, there are many men who are supportive of women: their protections and dignity; and as many women who seemingly are the biggest cheerleaders for Trans ideology.

In what sense have the Tories failed to curb immigration though?

Numbers of immigrants.

We know it was one of the drivers for people voting leave. What we don't know is whether more than 50% of the people who could be bothered to vote actually supported leaving the single market and customs union. Because they weren't asked that question. It would only have taken a small proportion of leave voters to favour an EFTA type model (the kind of relationship people like Nigel Farage suggested we would end up with) for there to be no majority, however you choose to calculate it, in favour of a hard Brexit.

That's why I said people voted against something, but they didn't really vote for anything.

In what sense have the Tories failed to curb immigration though? An entire continent of people can now no longer move to the UK without a visa. It actually makes it very difficult for me to move back to the UK if I wanted to.

it was Theresa May who insisted on a hard Brexit so we could take back control of our borders

Immigration was one of the big drivers for leaving the EU and remains a huge influence over future elections including the next one. Many people will be voting at the next GE based on that. The Tories have failed to curb it hence the rise of the Reform Party, and the right wing in the EU.

For those saying ‘shut up about Brexit, it is irrelevant’. Apart from the fact it still impacts us (though our CoL increase is very similar to Germany’s), we are going into this election with a still very much central independence question in Scotland and the lessons of Brexit clearly not learnt by the Scottish Government and their idiotic white papers.

Lol when exempt for (the immensely flawed and questionable) VAT policy, Labour haven't promised any extra funding for schools, some of the biggest donors to Labour Party are private healthcare companies etc.
https://inwhoseinterests.uk/2022/06/08/hedge-fund-labour-why-is-the-party-of-the-nhs-now-receiving-money-from-private-health-investors/comment-page-1/

The Labour Party of Old has gone, along with all the principles and beliefs. The fact that ex-Bank of England Reeves is shadow Chancellor highlights this. Their first priority will be keeping big business happy.

I just read an article which sounded like your post on it’ll never happen but about the European Parliament elections, that it could this time. Not from U.K. media though

We’ll see soon if they are correct about the general shift

Yeah well it doesn't really affect men, does it?

I suspect that the quickest way to secure single sex spaces would be for thousands of women to start self IDing as men and invading the men's toilets en masse. When men can't get to the sinks to wash their hands because a gaggle of women are using the mirrors to inspect their buzz cuts and one of them is rinsing out her menstrual cup in the sink, they'll soon change their tune.

The EU were pretty clear from the outset that those options were open to us. We might not have been able to join EFTA (the EU doesn't get to decide that, the EFTA members do) but we could have had a bilateral agreement with the EU along similar lines. It would have been far less hassle for the EU if we had done that. It was Theresa May who insisted on a hard Brexit so we could take back control of our borders, and that meant single market and customs union membership were off the table and the main topic for discussion was WTF to do about Northern Ireland. Without that consideration, it would have been much more straightforward. (Status quo falls away, negotiate a trade deal as the EU has done with many other countries.)

So you don’t think education, nhs and freedom of speech are important?

It's a fairly spectacular rewriting of recent history.

abd one thing the TRA have shown in spades is how much rewriting of history and zombie facts affect current discussion. See the stonewall riots for example or for real time example “Cass disregarded 98 studies because not double blind”

That is most likely down to people just recognising or focusing on the issues that are in their face; in their daily life. Until something directly impacts them, many do not pay any attention. It is not an issue until it negatively impacts them.