@Abhannmor
Rosie is brilliant. Owen Jones blocked me because I supported her in a discussion. Thanks for that Rosie !
You might be interested in this in the paper today:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/30/labours-silence-hounding-rosie-duffield-shameful/
Here’s a little game you can play at home: type the words “Labour MP defends Rosie Duffield” into Google (other search engines are available) and see what comes up.
Duffield is the party’s Canterbury MP and has become a hate figure among trans activists for her refusal to accept – as is now compulsory on the Left – the movement’s insistence that “trans women are women”. Duffield holds to the old fashioned, and widely held, view that “woman” can be defined as an adult human female with a XX chromosome, and has expressed concerns about women’s sex-based rights being pushed aside in favour of “gender-based” rights.
You might have thought that a party aspiring to take office in the near future would have been eager to support the many woman who share Duffield’s views, who believe that fears about the erosion of women’s sex-based rights at least deserve to be discussed openly instead of being dismissed as a symptom of “transphobia”.
Alas, no. That Google search will reveal the extent to which Duffield has been abandoned by her fellow Labour MPs and its leader, Keir Starmer. One of the first results, in fact, focuses not on the comrades’ solidarity with a young woman sticking to her science-based principles, but on the party’s disciplinary investigation into her action in “liking” a Tweet from an American rapper who accused trans women of being men doing “cosplay”.
The LGBT Labour organisation was on the case as soon as Duffield’s unforgiveable crime was revealed, Tweeting: “We are calling for the whip to be removed from Rosie Duffield MP and have submitted a formal complaint to the party about her conduct. [The Labour Party] must show zero tolerance towards homophobia and transphobia, including from its own MPs.”
So far, so depressingly predictable. And if you wanted confirmation that the Labour Party’s reluctance to defend Duffield from obscene attacks by trans ideologues was not a one-off failure of leadership, open that browser a second time and type in: “Labour MP defends JK Rowling”.
Here we have two women – one of the most successful and talented authors of our time and a brilliant campaigner who held on to a traditionally Conservative seat at a time when the party nationally was being routed in its heartlands – who have done two things. They have each expressed solidarity with and support for trans people in the undoubted challenges they face in trying to live their lives. And they have expressed the view that women’s sex-based rights – the exclusive right to changing spaces, for instance, or to participation in female sporting events – should not be compromised.
Any functional Left-of-centre party that claims to be in touch with the concerns of ordinary voters would not find this an insurmountable challenge to meet. It would acknowledge that some demands of trans ideologues (but by no means the demands of all trans people themselves) are incompatible with some women’s sex-based rights and would say so in order to set strict parameters for this debate. They would do so in loving, tolerant, sensitive and reasonable terms, and to find an example of exactly the kind of language that should be used in that debate, they could do no better than to read Rowling’s original blog post that started the appalling, misogynist hate campaign against her.
But none of that has happened. Labour did not seek to defend women or their rights. Despite a lifetime of support for the Labour Party, Rowling herself received virtually no public support from Labour MPs – many of whom depended on money donated by her in order to win their seats in the first place – after trolls and woman-haters started the #RIPJKRowling hashtag to try to intimidate her into shutting up.
That cowardice has evinced itself once more this week with Duffield seemingly abandoned by her party and her parliamentary colleagues as the usual online bullies and misogynists call for her head.
But here’s the thing, here’s the punchline in all of this: what we have here is a fine example of the Emperor’s New Clothes. These trans activists (and again I emphasise that they represent the voice of some, but not all, trans people) have become used to getting their own way. All that is needed is a well-organised Twitter campaign of confected outrage against this celebrity or that company or a politician or writer somewhere and, usually within hours, the wheels are put in motion: a contract or position has been removed, the offending individual has been cancelled and the process of healing and forgiveness can begin.
But it’s all fake. These Twitter accounts and the organisations they represent are like every bully in history. All it would take is for someone to stand up to them, to ignore or pour disdain on their “demands” for this or that person to be fired or expelled, and all their influence and authority would drain away before our eyes.
But for that to happen, whether in the political or business sphere, would require courage and principle. It would require our leaders to actually put their heads above the parapet, to stop confining their messages of support to private WhatsApp groups and to say publicly to the bullies that their time is done, that we as adults no longer need unelected social justice warriors to police our thoughts, deeds and words.
All of this is obvious. The tragedy is that our political leaders across all the parties can see it too. But still they choose to cower in their offices, too frightened of a virtual mob of people they’ll never meet to say anything in defence of their own colleagues and friends, even when that support is desperately needed.
So the question arises: if our MPs are too craven to come to the aid of people they like and work with, what are the prospects of them supporting the rest of us when it matters?