We need to talk about Labour

[Ereshkigal]

In particular this video, where the Labour Party suggest that changes to the GRA are just the start, they're going after the EA too and if you have any reservations you're like an 80s homophobe.

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155560176862411&id=25749647410

Ive always voted labour. What changed my mind about labour was brexit. I was disgusted by how the remain vote disregarded the working class. We were pretty much told to shut up about immigration and told we were racist. it was never about race. it was about competing for jobs which in my eyes was a very capitalistic idea and I could not understand how competing for jobs was good for the working class. Especially in northern working class deindustrialised communities. It made it worse. Its like being told to put up with being shit on all over again. After WW2 it was different, we had loans and jobs for new towns and infrastructure, now its just capitalism disguised as diversity, whilst the working class are competing for service jobs, with people who will work for less. I'm sad about politics right now. The last labour manifesto centred the middle class. Student tuition fees, if you are skint (and vulnerable)gets you full funding. If your parents earn more, vote labour, Labour will scrap it. It sickens me as to what labour have become and has made me question democracy as a process. Was Labour ever there for the poor? or were they there to make the poor fight for a
new version of social control, where the poor would still be poor. Just end up with new leaders controlling them

remove other outdated language such as ‘transsexual’.

HUH?! So what's the word we must use now? This is getting silly.

I'm afraid the time for talking is over as far as I'm concerned. It's a bit like coming out of a bad relationship: six months ago I was still desperately clutching at the slightest sign of hope; now I'm wondering what I ever saw in the fucker.

I am disappointed, I really hoped that sense would prevail. I first voted Labour in 1979 (that worked well) and always since.

I sometimes feel as though I have spent all my bloody life campaigning about something or other. I never ever thought that in 2018 I would still need to be campaigning for women, and women's spaces. I thought that battle was long won. Fucking men, they give us a little peek at what we might have, then snatch it away. A bit like Jim Bowen on Bullseye 'Here's what you could have won'. Well this time I am not going to walk away thinking 'well what would we have done with a speedboat in the middle of Birmingham'. Sell the speedboat and pocket the money! Sorry, off on a tangent.

We do need to talk about Labour.

So I see Baroness Chakrabarti, the shadow attorney general no less, is using the power of the word ‘self ID’ in an interesting way in the media today.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44286055

’Labour has challenged Theresa May to show she really is a feminist by backing reform of Northern Ireland's strict abortion law.

Shadow Attorney General Shami Chakrabarti said women in Northern Ireland "have been let down by privileged women and men for too long".

^She said the PM was a "self-identifying feminist" and "the test of feminists is whether they stick up for all women".
Following Ireland's historic vote, the PM has been urged to liberalise NI law.’^

It’s interesting to read this quote if you replace the word ‘feminist’ with ‘woman’ and then compare that to labour’s policy on legal gender self ID which takes self-identification extremely seriously

I mean, it’s almost as if people in Labour do actually know that self-identification, is not a trustworthy indicator, of being that thing (Nor of supporting the others within that category that you have just nominated yourself to...?)

I mean, it’s almost as if people in Labour do actually know that self-identification, is not a trustworthy indicator
But that just makes it even worse for me - the fact that they know it's nonsense, and dangerous nonsense at that, but they'll still vote it through. They can piss right off.

I agree Flo. Such dangerous (for women) self-serving, virtue-signalling, patronising (to trans people AND women) utter nonsense.

I think the baroness includes transwomen in the term women...

A bit like Jim Bowen on Bullseye 'Here's what you could have won'. Well this time I am not going to walk away thinking 'well what would we have done with a speedboat in the middle of Birmingham'. Sell the speedboat and pocket the money!

But that just makes it even worse for me - the fact that they know it's nonsense, and dangerous nonsense at that, but they'll still vote it through. They can piss right off.

YY exactly. Don't they have any sense of personal responsibility?

Tommy Robinson's petition has got 45000 over night and ours has taken weeks to get to 11,340. I despair. The authorities are adopting self id no questions asked.
It sickens me as to what labour have become and has made me question democracy as a process. The very reason I supported magic grandpa was I believed he would make the party MORE democratic. No one is trustworthy is the message for me. The left is as bad or worse than the right. I have become nihilistic overnight. I never trusted politicians but made this exception. I don't know how this will end-we might be fighting this stupid playground level (sex segregation is nobrainer)rights battle a hundred years from now. Because we're not going anywhere and neither are the TRA. And the MRA behind them. What I do feel is that this will become the miner's strike for the labour party. Yes tories have been re-elected since but they lost the hearts of large swathes of people and ruling has become a lot more tenuous for them- you could even account brexit to that at a stretch. I wish I had more confidence in common sense prevailing but the history of mankind is not encouraging. When you see what has happened to Amnesty and their support for legalising prostitution. The South Poverty Action Committee's condemnation of 'terfs' and Hands Across The Aisle. The takeover of LGB. Today on news YET ANOTHER report of aid workers exchanging food for sex from women and children in their care. And yet no danger from men with penises changing-and-room-sharing with women

I think Jeremy Corbin does get it, which is why he won't debate it. He knows there no argument, just emotional anecdotes.

We just have to keep pushing the message out there. People are genuinely unaware what's meant by self ID as a wider concept.

If they think it will lose then a considerable number of votes, they'll drop it. And the Tories definitely will.

Sorry for being so negative. I guess I'm still at the 'fuck the fuck off you fucker' stage of the breakup.

Trying to be more constructive.... I personally think the best, if not the only hope of a change would be if someone in the party to were to break ranks - MP or senior official, female or male but as big a hitter as possible. If someone like that were to come out as gender critical then I think others would follow suit (for all kinds of reasons but we can't be too choosy). Then I think things might just get interesting.

No idea if that's even likely though, or who.

Corbyn has completely positioned himself to blame Stella Creasy and Dawn Butler for when self-ID goes south with the voters.

He has said nothing since the Marr interview, in which he was cornered and said "It is the position of the party..."

If he genuinely believed that it was a vote-winner, he'd be talking about it.

He'll say that all the senior women in the party were all for it, and since he is such a big supporter of women's rights, he trusted their judgement.

Call me cynical.

If someone like that were to come out as gender critical then I think others would follow suit (for all kinds of reasons but we can't be too choosy). Then I think things might just get interesting.

I agree. I think it would be something of a domino effect.

You're rightly cynical I think Popchyk.

Corbyn has completely positioned himself to blame Stella Creasy and Dawn Butler for when self-ID goes south with the voters.

This - it smacks of a classic glass cliff setup orchestrated by men in the background to isolate them from any fallout - as undoubtably there will be. Glass Cliff is when women are put in leadership positions of failing ships - like taking the helm of the Titanic.

It's a disaster waiting to happen at the next election and all bets are on the Millennials- until George Soros throws a 2nd Brexit referendum spammer in the works - did I just hear a clang?

I think it would need one of the old guard to set off the dominos - the likes of Stella Creasy are still building their careers and won't rock the boat. I'm probably out of touch as I've not been a member for years but I keep coming back to Harriet Harman. I don't believe for a minute she's swallowed this nonsense and at 67, she might not be too worried about deselection threats. She'll be thinking about her 'legacy' but that could go either way.

If anything is going to stop self id it is the unions. Most of the big unions are divided and internally discussing this issue. If you are a member of a union speak to your officials about your concerns. I did this (had concerns about becoming publicly GC and being targeted by TRA's) turns out they knew very little about it (some believed the general pro trans equality line) I sent them a load of info and I believe they agree with me now. If unions vote this down at conference it will be dead in the water.

This - it smacks of a classic glass cliff setup orchestrated by men in the background to isolate them from any fallout - as undoubtably there will be. Glass Cliff is when women are put in leadership positions of failing ships - like taking the helm of the Titanic.

No. Dawn Butler is one of the most useless politicians I have come across in a long time.

I loathe Corbyn, have done so since day 1 and voted against him in both leadership elections but I think it is entirely fair that if the women appointed to senior positions decide this is the way to go it isn't for him to criticise.

Creasy and Butler are responsible for their own decisions- stop infantilising them.

So far as affecting election chances , there are plenty of reasons not to vote Labour with Corbyn in charge; self ID doesn't even feature in my list.

I read in an article that Laura Pidcock is against self id but she is very much in the Corbyn fold and wouldn't be disloyal. I think maybe someone like Jess Phillips could speak up, although the reason may be to cause trouble for the leadership rather than out of concern for the issue itself

I know Jess Phillips has admirers on here but I can't see her speaking out - she's still on her way up the greasy pole. I think it would need a Michael Heseltine or Geoffrey Howe type of figure - someone pretty senior, maybe with an axe to grind, who doesn't mind stirring up a bit of mischief.

Creasy and Butler are responsible for their own decisions- stop infantilising them.

Unless your name is Google stop acting like you know everything