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

For the Tories, Justine Greeninh would do it. For Labour, I think Chuka coming out for women and LGB would do it.

womanformallyknownaswoman

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

Unless your name is Google stop acting like you know everything

I think you should stop telling another woman not to express an opinion.

This poor little them being hung out to dry theory is infantilising- they are big girls- they chose to get into politics.

If anything is going to stop self id it is the unions. Most of the big unions are divided and internally discussing this issue.

YY I've heard this.

There was an article about the internal battle between the unions and Momentum which mentioned the self ID to AWS issue, can anyone remember which paper?

This poor little them being hung out to dry theory is infantilising- they are big girls- they chose to get into politics.

I didn't get the impression anyone was meaning it like that, Lass.

The thing is, Labour does seem to be speaking with a unified voice on this at the moment - which, given the viciousness of their factionalism, is unusual. Even those we can guess to be gender critical, such as Jess Phillips, are not saying a thing. But it is interesting that the right-of-the-party/"Blairite" faction - not just women like Creasy but also the men, such as Wes Streeting - is the one doing the most doubling down and taking the most hardline pro-self-ID stance, along with the pro-Corbyn activists like OJ.

The old hard left faction - Corbyn, McDonnell - might well be misogynistic but it's not postmodernist, so it will be interesting to see which way it breaks, should it become obvious that self-ID is a vote loser. And what will the pro-Corbyn activists do if they decide against it? Support the postmodernist Blairite faction? Or do a volte face on the issue in order to continue to support Corbyn?

I know more left wing people who are against this than right wing. It's weird, it's as if when you're left of centre and you get it, you REALLY get it. When you're right of centre and you get it, the feeling is more 'God that's ridiculous' and moving on, without taking it seriously.

(I suppose it's only us long-suffering ex-members who have this painfully nerdish interest in which way the fiendishly complicated Venn diagram of vicious Labour factionalism will evolve!)

I have a special contempt for Creasy after she dismissed the reports of a girl being told off for objecting to a male student "but I'm a girl" wanking in the female changing room.

I have a special contempt for Creasy after she dismissed the reports of a girl being told off for objecting to a male student "but I'm a girl" wanking in the female changing room.

Peer on peer assault - made my blood boil.

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

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.

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

This is what I was referring to. Lang-. Creasy and Butler are responsible for their own decisions and their own mistakes.

I have a special contempt for Creasy because she completely blanked a woman who actually lives in a refuge.

This is what I was referring to. Lang-. Creasy and Butler are responsible for their own decisions and their own mistakes.

I know and I agree with you that they are. But, that said, I also agree that within Labour, there are constant machinations between factions.

Vis a vis self-ID, Corbyn and McDonnell are aware that both the activists for their faction and the MPs in their most inimical faction support self-ID. I think they are probably also aware that awareness is increasing and public opinion may well be starting to turn against it. So it wouldn't surprise me to find they are saying as little as possible until they calculate which is best - support self-ID to keep their activists on side, or walk back on support in order to deal a blow against an inimical faction.

"So it wouldn't surprise me to find they are saying as little as possible until they calculate which is best"

Agree Lang. But not, 'what is best' but rather they want to be on the side of public opinion after the storm has settled. They know that there is a risk to women but won't say it now for fear of being branded 'TERF'. So we are being thrown to the wolves in the meantime.

And I think Jess Phillips is at this game too. Shower of cowardly bastards.

Anyone see Dawn Butler on the red carpet at the GLAAD awards in LA?

According to Guido Fawkes link, Butler has declared the purpose of the visit as a “Women and Equalities LGBT fact finding visit“.

9 day trip. Cost £14K apparently. And paid for by Anthony Watson, the guy who bankrolled Owen Jones' attempt to oust Corbyn.

There was an article about the internal battle between the unions and Momentum which mentioned the self ID to AWS issue, can anyone remember which paper?

I think it was mentioned in The Times a few weeks ago - I might even have posted a sharetoken link but darned if I can remember the details now.

But not, 'what is best'

Indeed. I don't even know if the primary motive is vote triangulation eithr, if I'm honest. I'd take any bet that "beating" the opposing faction comes first in the minds of most Labour politicians.

Thanks Errol. I will have a hunt. I have a digital sub to the Times.

Times link

Times article about the split between Unite and Momentum when it comes to self-ID.

Was it by someone like Andrew Fisher? I do recall this article but unsure it was in the Times? More like New Statesman or Labour Uncut? It was a prominent unionist Labour adviser laying out a possible collision course between the unions and Momentum with things like AWS becoming serious battle grounds?

Unimpressed by the senior Labour women, and corbyn, on this, but not surprised.

Andrew Murray! That's it! Was it in the Morning Star? Goes off to search...

BBC Radio 4 Today this morning has a segment on child poverty, especially in working families; and there's a statement from Peter dowd at around 2:49.
There's a lot of fluff about improving the lives of working people by creating jobs, it seems Labourt do not intend to reverse the benefit cuts;

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b42pvc

UpstartCrow

You need pages 56 and 57 for the Labour welfare manifesto commitments: labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/labour-manifesto-2017.pdf

As you can see, there is a big emphasis on changing the culture (eg performance management for DWP staff and scrapping sanctions - which, by the way, cost more to administer than save money) and this will make life a lot more bearable for claimants.

But the money? That's much less generous. There is a low level effort to reverse the most punitive of the cuts - bedroom tax, rape clause, HB to young people - but the vast majority of them, including the benefits cap, will remain.

This manifesto spent 4x the money on university students than it did on all welfare claimants (low paid, unemployed, disabled) combined.

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.

Excellent point. This makes perfect sense. How do we get unions to understand this issue better and to propose motions for their members to vote on?

Should union members be asking their unions for speaking slots at conference?
How does that work?

Should we be fundraising to send WPUK to have stands at union conferences? to organise fringe events with speakers- seeing as they have a pretty great format already going?
Or WPUK to leaflet union conferences outside if the above too costly and difficult to organise?

What about that awesome group from Manchester who did a town centre pop up info spot, where they made placards and chatted to people about the issues? We could model on that.

I think this point is really valid not just for unions which fund the Labour Party. Though it is an EXCELLENT idea to seek to influence Labour towards providing a vote on this key area of policy, by having Labour funders debate this issue openly. And unions should be worried that Labour have not given its members the basic right of debating this before forming their pro self ID policy.

It would be great if any and every union or group, club or society of any kind were having this discussion and voting democratically to form their policy on this, if their area of work or interest would be likely to be affected by gender self ID.

Their members should propose debates and these organisation should not feel they can make policy that supports legal or just in-effect gender self ID (ie which has no legal basis) without this debate because that would be an abuse of their power (looking at you, the Labour Party)

We should also look at doctors, nurses, NHS commissioners conferences. Teachers, headteachers, social workers, prisons, sports groups and sports funders, preschool, nursery, childcare provider conferences, psychologists, local government conferences, leisure industry conferences, retail industry conferences, etc etc could all discuss it-there will be loads of other areas. this needs really broad discussion.

There’s usually an ‘any other business’ slot kept in any membership conference, so people shouldn’t feel put off if the agenda has been already set and advertised months in advance.

Popchyk that's disgusting, the Dawn Butler-Brent jolly.