Spectator article: Don't fall for it people

[JenniferJames]

Comrades,

The framing of the self-id debate as 'Corbynistas vs. Mumsnet' is a deliberate tactic by the right wing propaganda machine and done to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party and paint it as hopelessly divided. We're not.

It is important to remember that only a Corbyn gov't will lift women out of poverty, build homes, invest in the economy, make tuition fees free and stop invading the Middle East. Jeremy, though he doesn't hold our position, is the only Labour MP who has not only come out and said that women are entitled to a debate and to campaign against self-id, but that we have a right to raise money to see if the Equalities Act 2010 exemptions are being misused by AWS.

Hope everyone is well. Mumsnet you are indeed mighty.

I agree that self-id is a ploy to remove healthcare. After all, if it's a lifestyle choice rather than a condition the NHS are under no obligation to provide treatment for it. The only people who benefit the group formerly known as transvestites, and opportunistic sex-offenders. On the other hand, transsexuals will not be able to obtain treatment unless they go private and women will lose the right to even exist as a class.

Only a misogynistic, homophobic supporter of private healthcare would think this is a Good Thing.

I think the thing for me is that I would like to be able to vote labour. I am not adverse to more left wing policy. But it has to be pro democratic and it has to be honest with itself over its hypocrisy.

So date ive seen far too much from Corbyn to undermine that principle despite the claims of having more integrity.

Self ID is only one issue amongst many as others have said.

The Spectator might well be trying a divide and conquer strategy. It doesn't mean the article isn't wrong though either. In fact its strong because ot contains so many home truths that Labour need to address. Not thats just a problem for Labour.

If you dismiss that, then you are dismissing why many potential Labour voters are pissed.

Voters who will simply stay at home with the view that whatever they vote for they are voting against their own interests because they are not being represented.

They are not Tories. They are not neo-liberals. They are just disenfranchised despite having the ability to vote. A vote is meaningless if no one represents your interests and concerns and any trying to do so is ostracised and has to sign off sick.

Its a cross party problem. No one gets it. Thats the 'Westminster bubble' manifested in yet another way.

That's your issue. Thats why so many on MN are really raging.

There's so many reasons for not voting Labour whilst Corbyn is leader of it's just a question of which one to choose really.

I first voted in 1979 and up until 2017 had voted Labour in every single election but I'm out. I could not care less about all women short lists- I don't support them I bailed out and terminated my membership before this.

He is a petulant, misogynistic, vain , deluded and dangerous fool; McDonnell is simply dangerous and I deplore the rise of Momentum. I would only now contemplate voting Labour to keep SNP out but fortunately my constituency has no chance of going to Labour so that is a choice I won't be faced with.

Amortentia: I think the only hope for Scottish women who are pro independence is the Women for Independence Party, they are doing great stuff for actual women and have avoided trans infiltration so far.

Really? Their website says "Membership is open to all self-identifying women." So that's me excluded then!

Oh and don't assume anyone who doesn't vote labour will move right. I know more than one person who has said that if labour do not address this they are voting for the Communist Party. Who incidentally, seem to understand what a class analysis is.

Together THEY win. And we can go back to making the tea. And lading out the soup. And standing on the picket lines. And standing outside the rooms where the good stuff gets discussed with our noses pressed against the window hoping that someone will mention our concerns.

I grew up with this shit. Trades unions full of noble men giving of their lives to help their fellows and utterly bewildered by any intimation that women might have anything to offer the struggle beyond servility.

I thought it was in the past. It has been made very clear that it's not.

I won't vote for my own erasure.

And say what you like about Blair - he could clearly see that women are people too.

The reality of elections is that you have 2 groups of roughly equivalent numbers who if they vote will reliably vote for one party or the other, and then a group of floating people in the middle who might vote for either. Convincing the floaters to vote for you can mean a win, but if the people who normally would vote for you stay home then you lose. That is exactly what is going to happen to Labour if they persist with their current strategy. Most women who've always been Labour voters won't vote Tory (and certainly not Green, because in terms of gender they haven't just jumped the shark, they've wrapped it gleefully with ribbons like it's a fucking maypole), they just won't vote at all, or will spoil their ballots. If your people don't vote for you, you lose. That's how it work. So if Labour want to win they need to stop alienating female voters, not alternately lecture and insult them.

Exactly how long are women expected to put themselves last for “the greater good”? Seriously, women have been waiting thousands of years, you’re taking the piss asking us to wait any longer.

I joined the Labour Party post-Brexit, only to be told that my money was good enough, but my voice wasn't. No vote in the leadership election for me. Fuck that.

Labour was never going to represent me anyway. Their policies seem ill-defined, they are pro-Brexit, and this issue is just the icing on the cake. I don't really think there is a party for me at the moment.

I am a life long labour voter. I am cancelling my membership and wont be voting labour whilst they support self ID

From one scouser to another JJ Give your head a wobble!

You have support from a lot of women here. Labour, tory, snp ,liberal dem . This issue isn't a single party issue. This issue is a huge issue that affects all women. That's why your crowdfunder did so well. It was linked to from here, because we have been discussing the implications of self ID for over a year and most of us recognised immediately that you had a cause worth funding.
Up to now no newspaper ot tv or radio show would highlight self id for the danger it is, because of the actions of TRA's Its has become a political hot potato.
We have been fighting and organising for over a year trying to get this issue debated and a legal challenge is the perfect tool for this.
Please don't alienate the very women who are willing to support you.
As Germaine Greer once said. "Women dont realise how much men hate them". If you think we can stay in a party and change it from the inside, especially with momentums bully boy and cult like tactics then you need to take off the rose tinted glasses. They would get power and chuck you under the bus faster than you can say when's the next 86a due.
I,ve torn up my Labour card. I cant in any good conscience support a party that doesn't even see me as a legal category that's worthy of laws. I,m politically homeless. But registering why I left was the only way I could get my voice heard. Even if they think I am a dreadful Terf and bigot. I dont give a rats arse tbh. This is my hill and I,m willing to budge over for any woman of any political class to join me.

I will set up a bonfire on that hill and share my tea and biscuits with any other women who show up and are willing to stand with me, because again, this is not a party issue, it's a women's issue.

Just as an aside.

I donated to the Go Fund Me.

And almost immediately started getting a massive increase in spam mail, all the new stuff from porn sites and now more recently from the Labour Party itself.

I didn't sign up for any of that, and it seems too much of a coincidence that I donated and this happened.

Gahhh this thread is like meeting your hero and finding out they’re actually a bit of a twat......

I agree with pp, this isn’t party specific - it’s for us to deal with as humans.

I’m not a Labour voter.

I am, however, convicted, that my rights as a woman are better protected when all parties, opposition included, work for them.
So, in a way, I am in agreement with the “together we win” sentiment by the Momentum fanboy above.
Together as women thought.

I'm not particularly happy about having no place to put my vote. But I'll be damned before I put a cross next to a party who intends to represent the interests of women when their understanding of womanhood is a vacuous performance of gendered stereotypes.

My spoilt vote plan atm is a big female symbol and "votes for women". With the point that despite now legally being allowed, there is no vote I can make as a woman.

Jennifer James is guilty of the 'them v us' trend in politics atm which is the very thing that destroys debate.

It stops you listening.

If you have the attitude that you can't learn something from people with different views you close off yourself.

True liberal democracy comes from that. Jennifer James has previously said she isn't a liberal but is a proud socialist. In which case she fails to understand the principles of democracy or outright rejects them. Liberalism is but another word which has had its meaning corrupted and changed. Momentum are big offenders on this score. Not that they are alone in this. You do not need to reject liberalism in order to be a good socialist. The idea that you must if profoundly authoritarian.

If you ever need reminding or inspiring on the subject of what democracy is and what it is not go read a bunch of quotes by Thomas Jefferson. Here are but a few. I love that Jefferson gendered reason as 'her':

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

There is not a truth existing which I fear... or would wish unknown to the whole world.

It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.

Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

The way I see it, Labour can't have my X on the ballot paper until they acknowledge my XX chromosomes.

I actually stand with JJ. I think the best tactic is to fight from within (although I think that JC is being a right royal idiot over this one). It also terrifies me that the most likely scenario is another Tory term with more cuts that will disadvantage women and the likely 'sneaking in sideways' of pro self-ID anyway.

Right now the right are pissing themselves laughing at the left tearing itself apart yet again.

Amortentia: I think the only hope for Scottish women who are pro independence is the Women for Independence Party, they are doing great stuff for actual women and have avoided trans infiltration so far

Really? Their website says "Membership is open to all self-identifying women." So that's me excluded then!

Yes that made me smile. I know one of the leading lights in Women for Independence- she toes the party line rigidly.

All parties are tearing themselves apart and no one is winning anything from it.

(Cross-post from the other thread)

We do need to remember that the poster calling herself Jennifer James may be an imposter. Whoever is posting as her clearly knows her views well, but may be shit-stirring by exaggerating them. For example, JJ posted an update to the Go Fund Me appeal, praising the Spectator article (and just commenting in passing that she disagrees with his views on Corbyn), whereas she appears to be condemning the article totally here. The tone is inconsistent. A clever TRA or general trouble-maker might be trying to discredit the crowd-funder.

I actually stand with JJ. I think the best tactic is to fight from within

That's your choice. I personally can't.

although I think that JC is being a right royal idiot over this one

He is being an idiot over many things not just this.

I vote Thomas Jefferson!