Keir Starmer on Sophy Ridge

[EdgeOfACoin]

On just now.

Asked about trans rights. Said that they didn't go far enough and the current process to transition is demeaning.

Criticised both sides (ie TRAs and feminists) for 'tearing lumps' out of each other.

Expressed sympathy for women who were victims of domestic violence but refused to say whether refuges should be single-sex or not (fence-sitting).

Disappointing. Again.

@Moonstone1234

Sasha. Totally agree, they are in their own echo chambers. I always thought that if I was say Labour that I would employ some right wing people to come and tell us honestly what our policies sound like before being launched.

But they don’t do this and make themselves a laughing stock.

Funnily enough miliband did do this after he lost. I heard a podcast with Matt Goodwin a uni professor that did go and speak to milibband and his team about why Labour were losing votes /?people ( you can get what his analysis said) at the end , Goodwin asked if they had any questions. They didn’t. He then crossed the road and gave the same presentation to Dominic Cummings, who was hugely interested in what he had to say and asked loads of questions. Labour, head in the sand sadly

Well bang goes any chance of me voting Labour unless this changes.

I think Keir is a classic weak politician - he will say what he thinks people want to hear and if it turns out he was wrong about what they wanted, he will swap opinion without a backward glance.

So right now in order to stay leader he has to placate the party which means going along with TWAW. When it comes to the election he will trying to appeal to everyone so it will be more 'it's complicated, we must listen to all sides' etc. Only problem for Keir is that women are waking up to the assault on our rights so his weakness is helping keep Labour unelectable.

To be fair to Keir though it's not just his thoughts on this that make him a useless leader of a useless party (and I'm a very old lifelong Labour voter who now is politically homeless)

I think Sir Keir is very aware of the backlash he will get, if he comes out for women

Nobody is asking him to specifically ‘come out for women’. Just admitting that sex exists and a driver of inequality would be a start.

So little is being asked of him.

I think if teenage girls can stand up for their rights, despite facing abuse for it, then a grown adult who is trained as a lawyer should be able to admit that sex exists (and yes I'm also looking at Keir and also the Scottish Government who can't even admit there are two sexes )

He's also got a funding problem, he's dependent on rich donors so is wide open to wealthy TRAs, identity politics advocates.

Wow, OK... I keep thinking that Starmer is just biding his time and that as the next election draws closer he will come out for women and girls, but I am really starting to doubt that now. No idea who I will vote for, I have always voted Labour, I even did in 2019. If GRA reform is on the 2023 manifesto I will not vote Labour.

What is he on about 'trans rights not going far enough' anyway? We are talking about the right to legally falsify your birth certificate, to change it to something that is objectively untrue. Trans people already have the right to do that with due process, no one else has that right! And they want to change it so that anyone can do that with the filling in of a form? To change a legal document so that it says something false and gives you access to rights that are not yours to take?

On yer bike Labour.

What is he on about 'trans rights not going far enough' anyway?

Yes -as a lawyer he should be able to explain what this means. Which bit of the current law does he want to change?

@EdgeOfACoin

Given that Labour haven't won an election since 2005, perhaps they should worry a little less about Momentum and a little more about the general electorate.

And the only times they have ever won elections is when they have held centrist positions - MacDonald (though strictly speaking he didn't win as they were minority governments) Attlee, Wilson, Blair. MacDonald got kicked out of the party for working with Tories in the national interest, and Blair - their most successful PM of all time - is an object of hate and derision within the party. They would rather tear down their own than attack the Tories.

To change a legal document so that it says something false and gives you access to rights that are not yours to take?

Except there are so many exceptions, it’s not clear what the point of a GRC is.

People think there is some kind of right to have your identity affirmed, but he must know this isn’t part of human rights law.

He is trying to present himself as a knowledgable safe pair of hands, but if he can’t talk clearly about this, why trust him on anything else?

so little is being asked of him

That's so true. If he'd said he supports trans people but also that Women/girls Rights and protections are crucial I'd have been celebrating.

He's had every opportunity to say something positive but he doesn't so that's his choice. And my choice not to vote Labour any more. Seems Incredible.

Lols. I thought over the years many of the Tories have been caught out in the Daily Mail for Crossdressing. Ha ha

Can you name any? The only cross dresser I have seen reported on recently is that Labour councillor who was sent to prison after being caught with vast quantities of csa images.

I think people are being unnecessarily discouraged here.

He didn't say TWAW which was quite significant.

The "both sides tearing lumps at each other" - yes, I know it's been one sided but that is much better than him talking about "transphobes" etc.

He spoke quite clearly about how much value women put on single sex spaces in domestic violence shelters etc. If you don't think that's a clear signal to "our side" then I think you need to get a better tuned in antenna.

Altogether I think if you are a TRA activist you'd find more to be discouraged than encouraged about in that section of the interview.

We might not like the fact that the majority of Labour membership is very pro-TRA but it is. And if you think that coming out clearly as on "our side" would achieve anything other than give succour to the existing "Starmer Out" mob then I think you're being pretty naive. Do you think that in the subsequent Leadership contest anyone would dare say anything that wasn't total submission to the TRA side?

There is no political party that is going to give us exactly what we want - the Conservative Party is also busy trying to undermine Liz Truss's decision on self-ID in an undercover way. We all just need to focus on getting as many of the decisions going our way as we can.

@Imnobody4

He's also got a funding problem, he's dependent on rich donors so is wide open to wealthy TRAs, identity politics advocates.

Then he needs to be fussier as to who he takes money from. Cronyism can be left or right.

I agree he did the best of a bad job. He needs to get labour into power, if I was his advisor I would tell him to be as vague as possible on this issue. Its destroys any political party that touches it.

I think he thinks it is not a battle worth having at the moment. I get that argument but it ignores the fact that changes are being made right now to legislation etc which will be harder to roll back in the future than campaign against in the first place.
It’s a trap for Labour whatever happens, it is not something they can ignore, it will not go away but better to fall into the trap in 2021 and climb out than in the election campaign in 2024 imo.

He spoke quite clearly about how much value women put on single sex spaces in domestic violence shelters etc. If you don't think that's a clear signal to "our side" then I think you need to get a better tuned in antenna.

HPFA, yes he did say that women value single-sex refuges. However, he did not say that such refuges should be kept only for women. He essentially ducked the question, which is what he was asked specifically.

He talked about a 'war' between the sides.

I think he is fence-sitting. I'm afraid messages that I need to pick up with a special antenna are not good enough.

@Langsdestiny

I agree he did the best of a bad job. He needs to get labour into power, if I was his advisor I would tell him to be as vague as possible on this issue. Its destroys any political party that touches it.

Absolutely - I thought he went further than any completely cynical advisor would advise in that interview and that was encouraging.

I have no great attachment to Keir as a person - if I thought there was a credible, popular Labour leader waiting in the wings that was more on "our side" then I'd be happy to back him/her.

But there isn't. No one who espouses our position fully is going to get elected as a Labour leader. If Keir gets kicked out then any replacement is going to be 100% on the TRA side. We should be working to push him to go as far as he reasonably can, not hoping for some imaginary replacement who's going to say everything we dream of. It's not going to happen.

@HPFA yes it can be read the way you suggest and you may well be right that this is his way of signifying support. But it's just offering us crumbs and I'm fed up of women getting the dregs of what is on offer.

Plus Keir standing up for women may well end his career as leader but just once I'd like a politician to put others ahead of themselves

We should be working to push him to go as far as he reasonably can

What does this mean, though? If there are enough compromises we should be happy? Which areas should we compromise on?

Sorry if I've misunderstood, I'm just trying to work out what this means in practice.

@EdgeOfACoin

He spoke quite clearly about how much value women put on single sex spaces in domestic violence shelters etc. If you don't think that's a clear signal to "our side" then I think you need to get a better tuned in antenna.

HPFA, yes he did say that women value single-sex refuges. However, he did not say that such refuges should be kept only for women. He essentially ducked the question, which is what he was asked specifically.

He talked about a 'war' between the sides.

I think he is fence-sitting. I'm afraid messages that I need to pick up with a special antenna are not good enough.

You're never going to get a Labour Leader that can do more than send out bat signals to our side. Such a Leader wouldn't get elected in the first place.

The fact that he talked about shelters at all in that context shows the compromise he's trying to get to. We would be better to help him get to that compromise than trying to undermine that.

One of the weaknesses of our cause in general is that we don't recognise that politically we are quite disadvantaged. Half the population doesn't care anyway as they don't think it affects them. Of the other half many are entranced by the belief that they're fighting on the "good side" and are happy to throw their sisters under the bus. Corporations have worked out that we don't have the economic power to really hurt them when they pander to the "woke mob".

None of this means we just give up but it does mean we get realistic about what we can achieve and how to achieve it. And demanding that political leaders adopt positions they simply can't does nothing to help achieve anything practical.

What exactly does the phrase ‘tearing lumps out of each other’ actually mean? I’ve never heard it before. Is it an English expression ? Or regional?

There is a real and very dirty civil war being fought in the Labour party at present, and Kier Starmer is hostage to that. The Momentum faction hate his guts and want him gone. They have been busy ejecting long standing Mps and councillors in seats & wards around the country and replacing them with Jeremy Corbyn supporters.

It is this faction of the party that has him hostage, as they now form a large part of the membership, and bit is they that are enforcing the trans agenda/TWAW.

Tony Blair warned him not to sacrifice the party to identity politics. But he knows he has no choice. He is not a conviction politician. His role is to unite a party and win an election, and he will say and do whatever he needs to do to achieve that.

it is they ( momentum) that is enforcing the TWAW mantra/agenda