MPs are elected to be representives of the people and to act in their best interests.
There are occasions where, this rightly means going against popular opinion in the national interest for the benefit of everyone or to protect as many people as possible from harm particularly if they are a minority group, vulnerable or unrepresented.
If someone can explain to me how self ID falls into this category and on balance reduces harm to as many members of the public as possible I'm all ears.
Instead it harms the interests of women politically and in terms of their representation and ability to point out sex based harms, is full on sexist in perpetuating gender stereotypes, is homophobic by saying that people no longer can be same sex attracted and must be open to heterosexual sex or are bigotted, is full on racist, massively over privileged and ignores the impact on more vulnerable groups in society who have no political voice but have human rights (eg female prisoners) and destroys womens access to sport at all levels and particularly harms elite competition, it also harms the health of women by compromising research and poses a health risk to trans people themselves and interestingly we have had the BMJ publish an article about the need to see sex and not hide it just this week. It also presents safeguarding issues of various kinds to minors (especially perhaps those with autism).
What harms exactly are we reducing in turn? And how many people does this benefit? Is this more or less than those actively harmed by the desire not to have nuance and a blanket no exceptions / no questioning rule.
Remind me again, what is the point in a public consultation if you only want to listen to views you already agree with and remind me again what is the point in having an MP who is actively campaigning and working against your interests and supports a policy which creates more harm than it reduces because of this failure to represent public concerns accurately and fairly?
I'm vehemently against populist government but if you are going to go against popular opinion, you damn well best have a good explanation and be prepared to defend your position with proper debate (which is at the heart of liberal democracy). People will generally come around to an idea if it has merit overall.
If you fail to do this, you cease to be a politician who is going to pay the price at the ballot box. Quite right because you have forgotten the central pillars and principles of being an MP in the UK's liberal democracy.
Its not necessarily about agreeing but it certainly is about understanding the issues fully and acknowledging potential problems and conflicts in order to be fair and just to all and to be able to legitimately argue you are doing the very best overall for your constituents.
Labour fundamentally have managed to get themselves into a shit creek scenario on this one with Starmer continuing to paddle upstream blithely unaware that the crocodiles are circling and about to eat his paddle and then him fairly soon.