To want every woman in England to vote Tory at the GE

[Hurrydash]

Wow. I started a thread with 1000 posts on a topic in 12 hours and Mumsnet got ‘full’

One more off the bucket list!

So MN told me to start a new thread if I wanted to post anything else. I didn’t particularly but there were some queries raised in the first thread.

Thank you to all first thread posters, even the small minority who were abusive to me and/or my opinions. Coherent arguments may have been more persuasive.

I have read many posts, but not all. I do have work to do!

In answer to some queries:

Yes I was drunk - explains GR typo in the first title not GE. Although that could well have been a Freudian slip too.

I am English living in England.

I’m not an entitled git living in a Stately home eating cucumber sandwiches. Like most I have been hit very hard by mortgage rate and utility price rises.

I restricted my request to English voters because I don’t understand other UK countries voter motivations.

a) Scotland has voted in a party which in my opinion is morally bankrupt (maybe financially too?) and totally incompetent.

b) Wales has elected a party which means when they go for a drive they’ll likely be overtaken by cyclists - maybe very fit joggers too

c) I genuinely don’t understand Northern Ireland politics. Didn’t even know there were no Tories there till reading it on one of the posts.

Totally get why so many won’t vote Tory, but for me freedom of speech is a die in a ditch issue.

Here’s what Angela Eagle is reported to have said will be in the Labour manifesto:

“• Strengthening the law so anti-LGBT+ hate crimes are treated as aggravated offenses”

For this I read anyone stating biological facts risks being banged up. JKR no doubt top of their hit list.

So give me another option to stop this madness other than vote Tory.

If all posters on the first thread had said they weren’t going to vote Labour due to their threat to women’s rights maybe Labour would have paused for thought about their policies. But seems very many women will vote Labour anyway so they don’t have to worry.

Very very happy to vote Labour and kick the Tories out if they will commit unequivocally to protect women’s rights, parents rights and freedom of speech. Otherwise not a chance.

If we redefine woman as 'anyone who says they're a woman', it affects the safety of ALL women because legal protections no longer mean anything.

Similarly if we redefine child as 'anyone who says they're a child' , legal protections for children are now worthless.

It's not complicated. And luckily, and unlike many other manifesto promises a party could make that require billions in investment to achieve, not embracing an insane ideology is completely free.

You are more than welcome to keep on asserting that Labour won't protect women's rights, saying it repeatedly doesn't actually change anything or make it any more true.

But their committment to improving healthcare, social services, education the criminal justice system and other public services will protect women and their rights.

Have I understood correctly that the first part is what Liz Truss wanted to do with self identification for gender recognition cards?

See, I can’t see the logic of this at all. Just because we extend “legal protections” to one group of people it doesn’t mean they’re removed them from another. Legal protection - whatever that rather vague term means - isn’t like chocolate, there isn’t a finite amount to go round.

Do you mean gender recognition certificates? I don't remember Truss's stance on that. Or did you mean Theresa May when she was PM she wanted to bring in self ID? (who had more of a chance to do so due to being prime minister for more than 44 days unlike Truss)

There have been several pro-gender Tory MPs and peers, including the UK's only trans MP. This is not the gotcha you think it is. The question is which party would introduce policies based on it in govt. I believe the Tories wouldn't under Sunak, and Labour probably would under Starmer. But we will need to wait and read the manifestos to get a clearer picture.

To the best of my knowledge the one time that If we redefine woman as 'anyone who says they're a woman', it affects the safety of ALL women because legal protections no longer mean anything. has been an option it was proposed by Liz Truss when she was equalities Minister. Unless anyone can show me evidence that I am mistaken?

Disappointing that there's no poll on this thread, I'd love to know what the results would have been.

I wouldn't vote Tory unless someone held a gun to my head. Even then, I'd be reluctant.

I think the "this issue first and no other" line is one that is concerning on Mumsnet.

It keeps appearing on here. I make the point I always do, which is that women are more likely to vote Labour then men, and then that any manifesto commitment is not likely to give any detailed commitment.

The interesting thing is that Labour look to be heading for a huge majority. If gender critical trans policy is a vote winner, then it's clearly done the Conservatives very little good or they would be much more competitive. This is politics after all; you have to win.

I was considering voting Labour then got my nursery bill and I'm sticking with the Tories.

Single sex spaces are finite. If anyone can be a woman then women's sports, spaces, prisons and hospital wards no longer exist.
Similarly if any 50 year old can enter an under 11s rugby tournament, that protection of being for under children is no longer there.
There are also arguments about how it erodes protection from more subtle forms of discrimination, because the comparators used in discrimination cases no longer work, but I'm the wrong person to make those convincingly and it's too early in the morning for me to try.

It's the activist position (and there are a lot of them in the Labour Party as well as greens and SNP). If you're right and the Labour Party don't hold this view, it should be clear from the manifesto pledges in this area.

So we do know that a former Tory Prime Minister held the view, but we don't know if it is Labour party policy.

How then are some so absolutely convinced that Labour will be bad for women?

If we are to judge party's positions by their activists or perhaps donors, then I presume that we are all comfortable with agreeing that it is Tory policy that black women should be shot because Diane Abbott?

You are more likely to die needlessly from waiting in A&E than you are at the hands of a predatory man pretending to be a trans woman. But hey, vote for more of this.

www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/01/england-ae-wait-times-led-to-needless-deaths-of-up-to-14000-data-suggests

Are you proposing that all hospital wards should be single sex?

I'd wager somewhere in the region of 14000 times more likely.

It should be the goal surely? Are there cases where this is clinically not desirable? (I know about half the babies born on maternity wards aren't female but seems a bit harsh to exclude them on that basis)

They should, that’s the gold standard but I doubt they are any more because there just aren’t enough beds. Ironically it was a required standard in NHS trusts under the last Labour government and the Tories ditched it.

So what we need is investment in the NHS, currently we are in a position where for instance there are insufficient paedicatric intensive care beds to meet demand.
If you talked to an NHS bed manager single sex wards would sound like some unicorn grazing in a sunny upland.

We should all be holding the government to account for this state of affairs not castigating the Labour party because they have a plan to improve the situation that might not be completely perfect.

What about on a children's ward?
Should mum's be allowed to stay overnight with their sons?
Should dad's be allowed to stay overnight with their daughters?

No!

Not now and not ever.

@JessS1990 but this is the difference between intention and execution that feels important to me. If the Tories by pure luck had steered the economy perfectly through the last decade, tax takes were soaring and public services were well funded, I think they would be proud to declare all hospital wards single sex. A party steered by gender ideology in the same best case scenario would not. I think that's important because realistically Labour will inherit every tory problem. In the short term they may improve some things and make some worse, I personally believe that a left wing higher tax higher spending economy is the best way to run the country in the long run. But that's not on offer at this GE anyway. So because how well the country is run and funded is not guaranteed under each party, their philosophy on a currently contentious and divisive issue where I have a clear side becomes more important.

Tbh having spent too much time arguing against the full on craziness of TRAs over the last few years, its heartening to argue with people saying "obviously the Labour Party won't do X that would be too extreme" as opposed to "Of course we should do X and if you disagree you're a nazi".

Protect women? Unless they are homeless

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fee4bba5-421d-4ff5-8ce7-cccaccd08eee?shareToken=19fdfc2656669e96fb05e19504d5fd59

The way the Tories have run the country since 2010 was not of course unlucky. It was deliberate defunding of public services, using ‘austerity’ as a fig leaf. Cameron’s Big Society meant that the third sector was meant to pick up some of the strain. (Discredited) trickledown was meant to account for some of the rest. And then of course, fundamentally, modern Conservatism doesn’t really care about the vulnerable who are left behind. It’s all just turned out worse than they expected, for various reasons, and now you can’t even see a BUPA consultant for months, so it’s biting far wider than the traditional ignorable people before.