Sir Keir Starmer's speech has just given me a lot of hope...

[fishywaters]

Just that. There seems to be some hope for the future given the current Brexit/Corona mess. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keir_Starmer
He seems intelligent, aware, fairer, musical (aka creative thinker), more of a family man, mum was a nurse. More able to see what will be important for the many in our society. I am a Centrist by the way, but I have more faith in this man. He seems professional and ready to do the right thing.

I saw a person who self ID as a woman has been put into a mans jail today

@Jux

I thought he was crap; words cannot convey how disappointed I am in him.

He can't stop point-scoring. I'm better than Boris. He's a twit. Tories got it wrong.

IMV, an effective opposition at times of crisis doesn't do that. They work with the Government, and discuss things properly. Are you sure you want to close pubs at 10pm? Why would that make a difference to the virus? Does it not work during the day and only awaken at 10 ish and then zoom around looking for humans to infect?

Now, I understand that the reason they think pubs should close 'early' is because the later it gets, the more people drink, the more drunk they get, the less likely they are to observe social distancing and speaking at normal volume. There have been a lot of people asking about that one on other threads, so I'm pretty sure a proportion of our population haven't got that.

I don't care what you did before Mr Starmer (though I thought back then that you were brilliant and wonderful), not relevant to me any more. I want to know that you're not going to be wasting time and effort and energy on scoring silly points just for fun. I want you to show how fucking serious you are and how fucking serious this is.

Do you really think he hasn’t also done that? There’s plenty of evidence of letters to Downing Street offering to work together - in fact those in Labour who want to discredit him keep referring to them as ‘secret’ letters (Rather than private, which they sensibly were as Johnson couldn’t be seem to accept advice). He’s not scoring ‘silly points’, he’s calling out stupid or irrational government decisions - literally his job.

Actually I think this view, although widespread, is wrong. It would affect pretty much all women including wealthy ones.

I agree, indeed it will affect men as well, but it's much easier to be insulated from consequences if you are (for example) a rich woman or a physically imposing man.

That's why all my examples were comparative.

There are lots of women who support self ID and can't understand the fuss but I've not encountered a single working class non-white woman with a reasonable amount of life experience who does- because they are more likely to have experienced situations which illustrate the problems.

Won't vote for a party who demanded my expulsion for supporting a gay rights group.
Won't vote for a party who are prepared to enact laws to make vulnerable women even more vulnerable.
Won't vote for a party who's MP's are applauded for making ludicrous "scientific" claims
Won't vote for a party who will put woke points above protecting women.
So, won't vote SNP or Labour.
Lifelong socialist, so will be voting for the ISP.

Brexit is going to sink the economy, destroy the Union, and leave ordinary people unemployed, poorer, and queuing for an hour + at passport control on their two night break which is all they can now afford as they wanted to get rid of EU foreigners who will now be replaced by nonEU foreigners. Ordinary people are fking stupid
I completely agree re Brexit but take real offence at being called fucking stupid.
Me and DH are die hard remainers and we support open borders.
Two things that obviously will never happen under this government.

But if I have to choose between the shitshow that is Brexit and having all of my rights as a woman removed and safeguards for my children pissed all over I’m going to go for Brexit every time.

There are no words for how disappointed I am in Labour.
I am truly disgusted and don’t feel I could ever trust them again to look out for me as a female.

Oh, and their stance on Brexit was a joke.
It’s obvious that as a country reliant on import, that is too small to physically sustain ourselves we cannot leave the EU.
Yet they were saying about holding more votes, why?!
What on earth would they have done if it had been voted to leave again?
It’s not physically possible to leave and be in a good position.
We will always be reliant on import 😖

@Joywave

Also, I'm appalled by antisemitism but I'm not sure why people are conveniently disregarding many of the awfully racist statements made by people in the Tory party...

This.

The Conservaties may not fight for womens rights, but they at least acknowledge we exist.

My 4 year old can tell the difference between males and females.

So can my dog... and he occasionally eats his own shit.

I wait with baited breath to see if Kier Starmer can match their intelligence and work it out.

This thread shows Starmer has a real fight on his hands if he's going to cut out the racist cancer infecting his party.

It's interesting to see the difference between concerns raised over Labour's racism (anti-Semitism and anti Hindu Asian), and the BLM threads where people are rightly told in no uncertain terms that there's no place for whataboutery and 'yes but...' dismissal.

He has charisma.

Boris appears to have sex appeal (given the number of children he has fathered).

Is there some weird thing going on here where the Tories are anti-trans or something? God help us all.

Brexit is going to sink the economy, destroy the Union, and leave ordinary people unemployed, poorer, and queuing for an hour + at passport control on their two night break which is all they can now afford as they wanted to get rid of EU foreigners who will now be replaced by nonEU foreigners. Ordinary people are fking stupid

I agree about Brexit being terrible but this attitude is the problem I mentioned upthread. There were lots of valid reasons people voted for Brexit (as well as swallowing the lies) e.g.

• Even as the economy shrinks, low paid workers may benefit from Brexit because a lot of immigrants previously doing those those jobs are leaving.

• Many of the benefits of the EU were not felt by the low paid so they saw it as a costless way to deliver a blow to a political class which ignores their concerns.

• The complaints that the EU is undemocratic were fair. Decision making is complex and completely detached from the people affected. At least the UK parliament has someone in it who directly represents you.

You have to respect your electorate and try to understand their views, even when you don't agree

SorryImKnew you just summed up the problem with Labour.

The second women are mentioned, were anti-trans. Bigots. Transphobes.

Can you really vote for a party who ignores the needs of 51% of the population of the UK?

@SheepandCow

This thread shows Starmer has a real fight on his hands if he's going to cut out the racist cancer infecting his party.

It's interesting to see the difference between concerns raised over Labour's racism (anti-Semitism and anti Hindu Asian), and the BLM threads where people are rightly told in no uncertain terms that there's no place for whataboutery and 'yes but...' dismissal.

That is a false equivalency. The whataboutery is not being applied to anti-Semitism (which is a scourge, and every bit as abhorrent as any form of racism) but to people's inconsistency in holding one political party to account for its brand of racism and not another. If people are willing to not vote for a party based on abhorrent form of racism, why would you not apply the same voter logic to other political parties? The voter logic does not seem consistent unless people abstain from voting from both Labour and the Tory party.

TWAW shows they can be captured by lobby groups. Not just any lobby group either: one that is psuedo-religious, anti-science, anti-reality, harms vulnerable women and children.

Who else could capture them? Anti-vaxxers? Incels? A religion? Flat earthers? Anti-5Gers? Climate change deniers? Mad solution to climate changers?

I can't trust them. Until they properly sort out how they ended up promoting TWAW, self id and #nodebate I cannot risk voting for them. Their self governance is a fucking mess.

'The Conservaties may not fight for womens rights, but they at least acknowledge we exist'

I find this attitude deeply depressing and akin to the sovernity arguement over brexit. What good is acknowledging your existance if their policies actively erode your rights.

I am more concerned about tory policies such as the rape clause to access child tax credits, the closure of support services that save women's lives and the increase in deaths from domestic violence and the representation of women on the cabinet, moderates have all disappeared and we are left with Priti Patel.

I know as a woman the labour party will do a much better job at standing up for womens rights in a practical sense and improving my quality of life and that of my female children.

What's TWAW? (Sorry - but I haven't a clue!)

I know as a woman the labour party will do a much better job at standing up for womens rights in a practical sense and improving my quality of life and that of my female children.

I don't believe that. I believe they have shown themselves up as the party of big men who like to keep women in their place.

Poor vulnerable women are tolerated. Celebrated. That's who they like.

Obedient to a fault women are tolerated (all those female leadership candidates claiming biological sex is not real cannot have actually believed it)

Intelligent opinionated women are not tolerated at all. I think that's why they have never had a female leader, have promoted comically bad females to the front benches while kicking out those who wouldn't suck up to men, and why they are generally so quick to burn witches expel opinionated women.

weepingwillow22 You will be pleased to hear that Liz Truss, in her role as equalities minister, has confirmed to Parliament that the Government will not amend the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to allow people to change their legal gender without the approval of doctors and officials. 'Self-ID' is not happening.

If that's not fighting for women's rights, what is?

I know as a woman the labour party will do a much better job at standing up for womens rights in a practical sense and improving my quality of life and that of my female children
Definitely not.
Long bailey believed that men should be allowed in women’s refuges.
Refuges!
Where women escape male violence!

She vowed to expel all members who didn’t believe men could actually be women.

Starmer, while he didn’t go as far as the traitors admitted self ID would in the future.

There is a very dark undercurrent to the trans movement re children.
Read some of the literature put out by some of the biggest trans lobby groups, materials with slogans like ‘love has no age’, read the material for primary school children which emphasises attraction, games which talk about sex but omit breasts and clitoris.

You really think your daughter would be safer under New labour..?

Not imo.

WeepingWillow how do you imagine Labour will do any of tgose tgings fpr women, when its anti-trans hateful bigotry to even ask about womens rights?

Serious question.

Labour would have women locked in prisons with male rapists, and call you a bigot for trying to discuss it. My local Labour candidate literally did exactly that.

Chaos
Transwomen are women.

(Apologies for my earlier terrible spelling, no glasses apart from the wine one)

I am more concerned about tory policies such as the rape clause to access child tax credits, the closure of support services that save women's lives and the increase in deaths from domestic violence and the representation of women on the cabinet, moderates have all disappeared and we are left with Priti Patel
And actually, when he was Mayor, Boris expanded rape crisis provision, set up a specific section for rape in the Metropolitan police and has campaigned against FGM.

When it comes to women’s rights, compared to the other parties, Boris is very much an ally.

The whataboutery is not being applied to anti-Semitism (which is a scourge, and every bit as abhorrent as any form of racism) but to people's inconsistency in holding one political party to account for its brand of racism and not another.

But what does that have to do with a discussion about antisemitism in the Labour party, which was provoked by a (now deleted) antisemitic comment from someone who said they were on the left of the Labour party? If this had been a 'which major UK party has the worst problem with racism?' discussion then fair enough, but when the response to people challenging someone on their own antisemitism is 'but what about the Tories?', that's not a great look.