Women on the left are responsible for austerity

[CarrotyO]

I've heard it said that women on the left actually support and are therefore in some way responsible for austerity. This is because both Labour and the Tories support austerity. Therefore any woman who supports Labour, or the Left in general, also knowingly and consciously supports austerity and are therefore also responsible for the 1000s of deaths of disabled people caused by austerity. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

WPUK was only founded a year ago AFAIK. Around the time of WNTT.

I'm not comfortable with WPUK being the only group having meetings with politicians either.

WPUK are not the only group having meeting with politicians. There have been a few events where various campaign groups (fpfw, wnntt, wpuk, and others) have met with politicians. Generally however we are ignored. WPUK are ignored. Women have been canvassing for so long for policians to meet with WPUK. Now we hear of one or two politicians who have actually done it, and people are pissed off. Go figure.

The message of WP is streamlined to be compatible with Labour positions

WPUK have advocated for keeping All Women Shortlists female only. Many labour women have been using wpuk templates to try and push anti-self ID motions through their local branches and CLPs. They tried to get a motion to conference but I believe were not successful.

Is this what you mean by streamlining with Labour's position?

It's a strange interpretation. Would you prefer that women did not try to change Labour's position on self ID? This action is being done by women at a grassroots level.

The attack on Maria was a year ago this week, and I think WPUK were founded after that?

The other thing I'd note is that I can completely understand why WPUK (and no I am not affiliated with them in any way) are keeping discussions with John McDonnell quiet. Politicians need to be able to engage with lobby groups with complete confidentiality and I can't think of any other organisation whereby they open their consultations/discussions with government ministers/shadow cabinet members to the public or produce minutes

Exactly this, people (who are clearly new to the world of political campaigning) are rubbishing the tactics of a campaign group for doing exactly what they should be doing.

The attack on Maria was a year ago this week, and I think WPUK were founded after that?

Yes I think so.

There have been a few events where various campaign groups (fpfw, wnntt, wpuk, and others) have met with politicians.

Which events? I'm not doubting you, just want to know which specific events you are referring to where GC women's groups other than WPUK have met politicians.

I'm not comfortable with WPUK being the only group having meetings with politicians either

I think the only reason why John McDonnell is meeting with WPUK (and an un-named group in south-east England) is because their founders are or were trade unionists. The same goes for Caroline Lucas' preparedness to engage with WPUk because they have their roots in left-leaning activism.

When you are being harangued on Mumsnet, its not so easy to ignore the uppity women in your party any longer. For McDonnell and Lucas, it's now a case of trying to build a flimsy rope-bridge across a giant chasm - starting with their core supporters.

FPFWAG has been around long before WPUK as a discussion group. And the We Need to Talk was the first formalised presence in the UK. WPUK came around after. There are many women's groups, and not just women's groups. There are local communities coming together to discuss the GRA and how this impacts their children and schools.

The fpfw website has been up and running for just shy of two years, but yes, the organising for a while longer

(i just went to check )

I think leveraging trade union connections to essentially force those Labour leaders who've been trying to ignore the controversy about various conflicts between women's rights and trans rights is a. a smart thing to do and b. entirely to be expected, politics as usual. This issue is too big and too important to women as a whole to be a partisan one, though, and transparency is key. A lot of dodgy guidelines were written and put into use via backroom dealing by trans activists, and we need to be better than that.

Having a political affiliation is fine, but let's be clear about what those are so that women currently realizing just what a problem all this presents for us and looking for groups to join know what they're signing up for (ideally there would be both individual groups and some sort of umbrella group that could coordinate strategies and produce a set of common demands).

Also, thanks Betty for summing up the issues with this thread far more clearly than I have the patience for.

it's because she's late to the party - FPFWG and WPUK have been organising for a number of years

Lisa specifically criticized select women in WPUK, which is barely a year old and you know it.

STOP TTIP was very effective with transparency regarding meetings with politicians. I always thought, clandestine meetings are only neccessary for special interest lobbyists who know they have no prayer in the court of public opinion, like big finance, big oil, the translobby.... and WPUK, apparently.

The discussions started in earnest HERE, on Feminism chat.
Many many of the people involved in any kinds of groups and collectives, however loose, were spearheaded from the Spartacus thing here, when women started to get banned for questioning the narrative.

The Caitlin Jenner thing, The womens sport and the IOC, the Fair Play website in its first incarnation went live not too long after that. I spoke in Westminster last October I think, as a guest of David Davies, on behalf of that original website. Dr Williams became involved after her great research into prison numbers started getting media attention, and she has made it a non political statistically and fact based resource. The new material released today is fantastic

Lisa has been talking on austerity though for ages. she did a series of 4 interviews with the artist taxi driver back in June 2015 and then another 3 in Feb 2016

I think MN has been key precisely because it's not partisan - the only overarching criteria for being involved here is being a woman, with mothers representing a clear majority. So what you have is a women coming from all possible points on the political spectrum, from different classes, different professions, etc, talking about what this stuff means for us as women, not as Labour party members or doctors or whatever.

WNTT was the first group setting up talks and Maria was attacked at the first one which was targetted and closed down in Lewisham Library after the Stonewall trans rep, Bex Stinton (?) pulled out after agreeing to take part.

WPUK was set up after the 2nd WNTT meeting at Labour conference last September, which featured some WPUK members speaking.

FPFW doesnt do talks.

The AWS issue had some attention from WPUK but they were not behind it - That was Jennifer James, and that is still rolling onwards. That obviously had a Labour slant

The point is that Lisa has been talking about austerity for a long time and only added her voice to the movement Feb or March this year.

Austerity should be a totally separate issue and it doesn’t seem either right or helpful to be attacking women like Karen Ingla-Smith. In a short space of time she seems to have come in and demanding that everything be done on her terms and abusing everyone who either questions her or disagrees.

I think a lot of people are won over by her seemingly authoritative and knowledgeable tone combined with highly emotive rhetoric. She makes the perfect an enemy of the good.

What I'm not aware of so far is a specifically Conservative leaning group led/focused on women. Is there one? There may be and I'm just not aware of it because I lean very left. I'd certainly be interested to know what Ruth Davidson for example thinks of all this, and since there are definitely some Tories pushing self-ID and TRA stuff in general it would be good to have that stuff being challenged internally by women.

also this insinuation of lovelypieceofTerf about the transallies Lisa had til her eyes were opened...

Like transally Miranda Yardley, slayer of TRAs.

The lenghts to which some will go to rewrite history on here are nothing short of impressive.

I was just wondering that myself, aak.

No history rewriting required. It’s all still there on Twitter. I won’t out the transwoman whom she insisted for ages was a woman. It’s fine, we can all change our minds but no one personality has the right to dominate and make it all about them and their demands.