'Virtue signalling coward' Labour's war escalates

[BovaryX]

The Labour war over the trans pledge has escalated, with Rebecca LB et al accused of virtue signalling cowardice. Also, the decision to allow self identified 'women' onto women's only Labour shortlists is going to be legally challenged. Labour have created this absurdity and now the laughable contradictions will be exposed to public scrutiny and ridicule.

Labour’s civil war over transgender rights descended into even deeper bitterness last night after one of Jeremy Corbyn’s senior aides called leadership hopeful Rebecca Long Bailey a ‘virtue-signalling coward’ for threatening to expel feminists from the party – and a crowdfunded legal challenge was mounted against the party

What the fuck is JC trying to achieve by introducing his pronouns before he speaks?

You just can’t make it up. Feel like I’m in la la land.

Except ... 'they' clearly are, Regina.

And, living on the 38 bus route myself, I'm forced to say that, having now had my cognitive dissonance shattered by the Ashcroft report, I am noticing those conversations more.

It's all over the place. I overheard a woman beautician chatting about her waxing business and who she might have to wax, for example.

I wouldn't have even heard that before. The possibility of a very non-woke, very mainstream-looking woman having heard of the Yaniv case wouldn't have struck me as plausible.

But ... 🤷‍♀️

I'm still getting my head around it.

I do wish some of the women on these threads would put themselves forward to be leaders of our political parties. With offerings such as Theresa May, Caroline Lucas and now Rebecca Long-Bailey, I am not surprised that men who join women's short lists with qualifications of lipstick and a dress are voted in.

At the moment, women in the UK resemble the lions led by donkeys of the First World War. We have many strong, able, brave, intelligent women in our midst who should be there in government fighting our corner. Instead female politicians bring to my mind Monty Python's military march with the sergeant's comments " silly and a bit suspect I think".

What the fuck is JC trying to achieve by introducing his pronouns before he speaks?

Pandering to Twitter muppets. Labour think Twitter reflects public opinion. And this explains their astonishment at the election carnage....

It's been front page news over the last few days Regina, there has been stories in every major newspaper, with he exception of the guardian.

Do you think people aren't discussing the news?

The last week on twitter I’ve seen two minor celebrities that I follow post something along the lines of ‘Stop DMing me telling me to unfollow Graham Linehan’.

There seems to be a massive mobilisation behind the scenes targeting individuals for minor transgressions and telling them to toe the line.

These activists are forcing people to take a position. That may backfire.

The last week on twitter I’ve seen two minor celebrities that I follow post something along the lines of ‘Stop DMing me telling me to unfollow Graham Linehan’.There seems to be a massive mobilisation behind the scenes targeting individuals for minor transgressions and telling them to toe the line.

This authoritarian zealotry, this desire to silence debate, control the narrative and demonise anyone who dissents? It is such an ugly look. This is about freedom of speech and they continually demonstrate they don't believe in it.

To go back a bit ...

I've read Lachlan Stuart's Medium piece. And there are a couple of things in there that could do with emphasising.

The clear implication is that the signatories of this pledge are:

• incompetent, or
• very cynical bandwagon jumpers, or
• both, and
• had no knowledge of Labour's position in Trans Rights,
• had no knowledge of the legal position regarding current discrimination and sex equality legislation, and
• had not bothered to read the Ashcroft Report

All of these are damning in Leadership candidates.

It's only because we are immersed in a river of shit as regards politics that we are pretty much reduced to shrugging and sighing, 'Oh dear: more crap.'

In any normal political situation, such abominable crapnesses from Leadership contenders would get them laughed out of the running.

Keir Starmer is clearly the only candidate who has seriously taken in board the implications of the GE result and had enough sense to read the pledge and realised it contravenes both existing law and the Labour manifesto.

It is impossible to overstate how bad this is.

No matter what your position on trans rights is, we deserve a fuck of a lot more from those seeking to be Leaders of the main Opposition Party in the UK.

Cynical bandwagon jumping and incompetence is not good enough.

It really isn't.

And it is cynical bandwagon jumping - because, as Lachlan Stuart's article makes abundantly clear, those signatories signed precisely because their commitment to trans rights was utterly superficisl.

I feel for him. I really do.

He lays out just how hard he worked on trans rights - and just how much none of these signatories even noticed that work. He lays out just how little these signatories cared about trans rights - to the extent that they didn't even bother to notice Labour's manifesto position on trans rights - prior to this pledge signing.

Their knowledge and commitment is negligible.

It is empty virtue-signalling.

It must be gutting to be committed, to work your arse off ... and then have a bunch of shallow opportunists throw you to the wolves, labelled a 'transphobe'.

Reading between the lines, I get the sense he expected no more or less from Dawn Butler - but feels genuinely betrayed at the cynical incompetence shown by R L-B.

For myself, I'm less surprised.

Though I am by Lisa Nandy.

Just to repeat (because I'm so angry) we deserve so much better.

However you feel about trans rights, all of us deserve a basically fucking competent Leader of the Opposition.

... Fucking Twitter Muppets ...

I don't see Starmer as any alternative. OK he wasn't stupid enough to put his name to a libellous document. But the one he did say is exactly the same (just without the libel and expulsion threats) . It looks like sheer desperation to see him as acceptable on this.

noblegiraffe

Hats off to those two celebs, minor or otherwise.

On which topic I'm kind of looking forward to the wrong person being told to 'be better', or whatever the earnest woke entreaty du jour is.

This is about freedom of speech

I think it is unfortunate for R L-B and co that this argument is kicking off at exactly the same time as newspaper headlines condemning Orwellian thought-policing.

Even if people aren’t totally aware of the details of the issues, being ‘scared of saying the wrong thing’ is very much on people’s radar.

Thought-policing is being publicly discussed in a negative way at exactly the same time as they have signed a pledge to expel people from the party for the wrong opinions.

Wrong-Daily and Nandy-Panderer.

Yy Starmer would bring in self ID too. He’s no friend of women either.

I must have missed it. Who has brought the crowdfunded legal challenge?

TheCatfromJapan - excellent and thoughtful post.

The whole approach to this issue is just beyond belief, frankly. Denial, absurdism. It's amazing.

I agree, NobleGiraffe.

Mama, You have a point. However, I think there is a big difference in KS' position. I really do.
I think he appreciates that women need to be allowed to discuss the implications of gender recognition.
That's actually quite a big recognition, for a whole number of reasons.

It sounds so small and reasonable. And it is small and reasonable.

But there is a reason the TRAs are doubling down so hard to prevent it.

And, if they lose that battle, I think the rest falls like dominoes.

So, KS recognising that right to debate is a big deal.

Just to go back a little, I am posting this excerpt from James Kirkup in The Spectator.

He writes thoughtfully and often about the chilling effects of transactivism on the rights of women and girls, and about the lengths that its adherents go to in order to stifle debate.

In this article, he was writing in defence of Laura Pidcock who recently stated that “The women’s movement needs the space to talk about sex and gender, without fear of being ‘no platformed’”, and who was subjected to vitriolic abuse as a result.

"I have a theory about why some abusive trans activists are so keen to silence women on the left over the trans issue. Simply, their existence spoils the narrative that concerns about trans issues are a right-wing, social conservative thing. It is common for people who raise this matter to be accused of right-wing bigotry and possibly being affiliated to (or even paid by) ‘the American Christian right’.

This is, of course, nonsense. The trans issue isn’t about left or right. It’s not even about social liberalism vs conservatism. It’s about democracy and the way we do politics and policy.

Politicians, largely by neglecting the issue, have allowed a set of policies and practices to grow up, partly driven by a small number of activist-lobbyists, in the name of trans rights. Some of those policies will potentially impact the lives and rights of other people, especially women.

This impact should be debated and considered. The women who worry about the impact should be able to raise their concerns without fear of abuse or worse, and they should be listened to by their representatives.

The position I’ve just set out should not be controversial or even require a description since it is just the normal functioning of democratic politics and governance in Britain. That is not left-wing. It is not liberal. It is not conservative and it is not right-wing. And Laura Pidcock proves it."

With offerings such as Theresa May, Caroline Lucas and now Rebecca Long-Bailey

It is extremely unfair to Theresa May to lump her in with those idiots. Brexit was her undoing but she was a competent mp, shadow minister and minister for years.

Does anyone know who is behind the pledges? The group (@labour_trans) who wrote them are not affiliated to the Labour party but seem to have self-selected as the trans representatives.

Considering the havoc they've caused the leadership campaign I'm starting to suspect they may be outside agitators.

I'd love to know who the individuals are behind this, if anyone knows.

Yes.

Laura Pidcock coming out for the right to debate is Good.

She really was the Momentum #1 choice for Next Leader.

It would be nice if it gave the Woke faction a moment's pause for reflection.

I wonder if she would have done that if she'd kept her seat?

think they don’t actually care if they lose voters now as They are playing a long game and betting on where the trend will go

I'm sorry, I don't think they are playing a long game at all. A bunch of TRA entryists have worked their way into the party and they are working to push the TRA agenda and nothing else.

You can see the same in the SNP where the TRAs manoeuvre themselves into increasing positions of power and organise for their opponents to be removed. Yet they don't give a shit about the SNP or their policies, all they are fighting for is the removal of women's rights. See also the lib Dems. This is the under the radar stuff alluded to in the Denton's report.

Bots, Russian trolls, art students?

unwashedanddazed

The twitter feed strated in October 2019, so has only been going for around four months.
All of the deputy leadership candidates have signed the pledges and all of the women leadership candidates.
Here is a document outlining the pledged, aims of the group and the people who have signed.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd_wPyenUicSJgKv1YTknZ47gDGU4b_389zYbqH10TGSTRrpg/viewform

twitter.com/labour_trans

The Labour party has around 580,000 members, but only around 3,500 have signed the pledges. I wonder how many members they will lose after this?