Going back to Blair's intervention, this is my take on it.
Its been playing on my mind. There's more to this than meets the eye.
Polling is showing that the gender/sex issue is a low priority. Its a 'niche' subject in the sense that voters have a lot of other issues they consider more important.
HOWEVER
I think I would be willing to bet, they are also finding something else with it: whilst its not a priority issue it IS an issue connected with political trust and public confidence in Labour and it potentially is a driver for apathy in voters.
Therefore it may be paradoxically that Yes its true that its not an important issue in terms of priorities, but Yes its also a crucial issue in ensuring votes and motivating voters to an extent that does not reflect its priority - because of this link with fence sitting / trust in Starmer.
Its not so much about the issue itself - its about what it represents - the domination of the Authoritarian Left over the Centrist parts of the party (Remember Starmer needs to win those votes back from people who have voted conservative at the last couple of elections - these are more likely to be slightly more socially conservative voters). People ultimately bottled it, from voting for Corbyn previously remember.
They are nervous voters, who are planning to vote Labour, purely to punish the Torys NOT because they are particularly pro-Labour. Lets call them Lukewarm Labourites. Its a REALLY fragile vote that could just not turn out.
Being told that you must call a man a woman is potentially something thats almost spooking voters more than perhaps its priority would suggest it should, because the wider British electorate is more socially conservative and more liberal rather than authoritarian than people give credit for. They might be willing to switch votes, but this type of identity politics perhaps makes them nervous and waiver over voting. Its a major turnoff. Its about this dislike for the culture war much more generally (reminder - these are centrists). And they have a desire to heal this rift in our society. (Note the big noise about ending the culture war immediately the other day).
The fact that Blair made a comment - almost to test the water without damaging Labour's electoral chances - allowed Labour to see how this went down. A political balloon. Since it didn't attract a level of abuse, that some might expect, its perhaps appearing as a 'safer' position than strategists had previously though. This means Starmer suddenly feels he can also step into this space too given Blair has paved the way for him.
I've just been watching 'The Rest is Politics' by Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell tonight. Campbell raised the point that what he's hearing is a HUGE amount of apathy, a lack of general interest in this election and many people saying they think that Labour have it sown up so they either don't intend to vote or are voting for someone else as a form of protest. Its almost as if its someone elses responsibility to ensure Labour are elected.
I think this is a REALLY important factor. This makes the election a LOT more voliatile and unpredictable than perhaps polling suggests. A low turnout has to be the expectation. People who are politically switched on are much more likely to vote than those who aren't. So if they do care about this issue, they are voters who are more likely to vote than other voters as they are people who are more politically switched on and not only that, but perhaps more influential with their more apathetic peers.
And genuinely this is the first election ever, where I have been deliberately avoiding watching the news. Its the first election I've made a point of NOT watching the leaders debates. Its frankly out of character for me. I bet those viewing figures are really low.
So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say theres a certain level of nervousness going on thats not proportional to where Labour are polling.
I still think they will win by a country mile, but yeah I also don't think its as clear cut as it should be either.