Conservative landslide - how are we feeling as feminists?

[Cwenthryth]

I feel very mixed this morning. So worried about what this means for public services, policing, NHS, social care, mental health services, housing, in-work poverty... all of which disproportionately affects women, either as those needing these services or picking up the pieces when dependents cannot access what they need. We now have an openly misogynist prime minister (we did before, but now he has a secure mandate), who won’t even acknowledge all of his children whilst slagging off single mothers, and has had the police called out due to neighbours fearing for the safety of his partner from what they could hear through the wall.

But there’s a tiny silver lining of it seeming that it seems very unlikely that self-ID would be brought in under this government, at least in the form the Lib Dems were touting for, so we are probably more secure on retaining sex-based rights than we would have been with any other result.

To be honest it’s not really much comfort to me right now.

Question for everyone bickering about throwing women under the bus:

Was there any wholesale proper feminist party at this election?

Will there be a new contingent of the Tory party that has previously not really been heard from much - the working class Tories - with all these new northern MPs? That could be a good thing.

I have wondered if there could be a shift like this.

It's already the case that leftist parties have gone from being grassroots based parties that are good at class analysis, to elitist and authoritarian and individualist in their ideology. Their support of social programs masks this a bit, gives the impression they are about equality, but they are really more like a benign meritocracy, which isn't the same thing at all.

At the same time, while the Torys have been neoliberal individualists since Thatcher, and that strain is still powerful, there is a significant conservative tradition that is based in a kind of class analysis though they don't call it that, and sees different classes as all part of a whole that functions together, and also a tradition of respect for a kind of localism. That is something that could possibly be revived and perhaps built upon.

Sometimes it looks to me like there has been a sort of flip.

Caroline Flint lost her seat, didn't she?

What do people think about Liz Kendall?

I hope that some day soon Labour will be a viable option again. But blaming the electorate for not winning isn't going to bring that day about quickly.

I wonder if that's true, though.

We keep being told not to get angry. I've seen so many social media posts insisting we must all learn to be more positive, to see the silver lining, to stop sounding off and to make sure we don't offend anyone.

That feels like very familiar rhetoric to me, and it really worries me.

I think we should be angry, and we should be thinking about what went wrong. And that does, unfortunately, include thinking about blame.

Otherwise we end up with more of the same - a Labour party so busy telling itself it's dead right-on and woke and couldn't possibly be anti-semitic or complacent ... and so it's slow to apologise and even slower to change.

Sometimes it looks to me like there has been a sort of flip

Agree! Labour now being a party of the educated, urban middle classes....and the Tory party being the party of the left behind and generally abandoned working classes in smaller towns and cities.

Some exceptions to that, though. Big cities with high levels of deprivation are still strongly Labour.

Was there any wholesale proper feminist party at this election?

Of course not. Why would you ask?

Sarah yes Labour should look at what they did wrong, absolutely. This is missing right now. The sooner they do this the better.

And there's you, a Tory, who understands what my politics actually are! Not fools berating me for what they think they must be because they don't have any depth of understanding whatsoever

Thank you! I think social media has really exacerbated tribal politics. The idea that you understand and respect someone’s position seems to be over in many forums. That’s one reason why this place is special

Otherwise we end up with more of the same - a Labour party so busy telling itself it's dead right-on and woke and couldn't possibly be anti-semitic or complacent ... and so it's slow to apologise and even slower to change

Unfortunately I think there will be a big resistance to change and to accepting responsibility. People who were sure they were on 'the right side of history'. This has already been discussed by the now emerging critical voices with Labour ranks: Lucy Powell; Lisa Nandy etc

Sometimes it looks to me like there has been a sort of flip Goosefoot

Agree! Labour now being a party of the educated, urban middle classes....and the Tory party being the party of the left behind and generally abandoned working classes in smaller towns and cities Justhad

That’s a very interesting analysis

YY, I think that's true, just.

Having missed the somewhat hyperbolic temper tanty can I add my voice to those thanking those who regularly take time to actually digest and respond in a mutually respectful manner even when diametrically opposed.

I had no idea who I would vote for, stood in my cubicle pondering. That I had had some quite heated, prolonged yet respectful debates here was far more helpful than all the bile and shaming I have read.

This has been both the best and the worst of MN... and looking at those making up the worst is quite eye opening.

Sometimes it looks to me like there has been a sort of flip.

Yes there has been a political realignment.

I've talked about it before.

It's why both the Conservatives and the Labour Party have had something of an extenstional crisis.

The Labour Partys core support is now middle class university educational professionals and young people primarily in cities.

And the Tories have moved away from business being their core principle to much more social Conservativism which appeals more to blue collar workers.

The FT did an analysis of last nights results and found that the biggest driver of seat changes was the blue collar vote. Not Brexit and not education.

It looks on the basis of that, very much a backlash against wokism.

This should have been obvious to Labour and LD political strategists: Brexit was a symptom of wider political issues not the cause of issues. The US voting in Trump and the culture war that has developed there and has increasingly raged here was the other big clue. It wasn't a trend restricted to the UK. Its in the US and Europe too.

Lass is a Tory isn’t she? Or at least right leaning iirc. And she didn’t agree with most people on the importance of self ID at all. And yet she is a massive miss to the board.

Talking of OJ et al and class etc, do you remember when WPUK or FPFW went campaigning in Moss Side? Shon Faye’s reaction said it all.

I think you are completely right, Red

Corbyn and Momentum seem to be like marmite to working class people. And most of the Labour activists or canvassers I know have at least one university degree ...

To be fair they’re doing a good job at turning off the university educated too.

Just read that Liz Truss might be for the chop in a cabinet reshuffle and Penny Mordaunt tipped for a return. That might not be good news for the women and equalities brief.

Wes Streeting MP@wesstreeting
There are many things that need to change in the Labour Party. Let’s start with something simple: there are no ‘right wingers’, ‘neo cons’, or ‘Tories’ in the Labour Party. Nor are there ‘slugs’ or ‘melts’. Let’s deliver kinder, gentler politics for real this time.

So does this mean that people who call others Terfs or try and restrict discussion of gender issues need to be pulled up on it then Wes?

[https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3144285-Labour-Against-Transphobia-Facebook-group?pg=1&order=]]
You know like those who were part of the infamous Labour Against Transphobia Facebook group?

I think we need to hold you to this pledge...

I would rejoin Labour just to vote against Wes Streeting as leader.

Red - a prescient tweet from July:

2019 upside-down politics

- Labour party slowly goes through a process of embourgeoisement as the Conservative party slowly becomes more proletarianised

- Liberals are becoming reactionaries i.e longing for a mythical harmonious past as reactionaries become revolutionaries.

twitter.com/post_liberal/status/1151419340845199360

Wes Streeting used to work for Stonewall which will surprise no-one.

Sarah

Give me a Labour party worthy of my vote, and I'll vote for it. But that has to be one which recognises the legal rights of women and girls.

I speak as a lifelong Labour voter and former party member (and no, I didn't vote Tory yesterday).

There was no realistic outcome for this election I wanted.

I loathe Boris and most of what he stands for and feel embarrassed that the narcissistic, sociopathic, misogynist is our PM. However I think Corbyn with McDonnell pulling the strings would have been a disaster.

I was going to vote Lib Dem but simply couldn’t given how far they centred trans issues in their campaign. So in the end I very reluctantly held my nose and voted labour even though my household would have been hit quite hard by their policies and they aren’t much better on trans rights.

I fear for the Union and worry the SNP will get their way for another indyref.

The only consolation I can take from the outcome is that if Boris has to be PM, there is something to be said for him having a comfortable majority. That way he is not constantly at the mercy of small factions in his party such as the ERG nor can be bullied as easily by Sturgeon on indyref.

I am hoping against hope that Boris will put his big boy pants on, rise to the occasion and become the PM the country needs.

Kinder gentler politics is a luxury for those whose lives are not under threat by the current regime.

Instead of appealing to women’s socially conditioned sex role stereotyping to try and guilt us into being nice and kind in the face of our own erasure what we need is actual politics. We can discuss politics as aggressively as needed without calling everyone names. There’s no need to demand we be nice if it’s expected that the issues will be discussed not just insults hurled around.

Liz Kendall I think would be a real outsider. Again from previous administrations. Bombed last time she stood for leadership.