Starmer and the Labour Party Really Cannot Read the Room

[ChristinaXYZ]

Labour and Self-id

twitter.com/PinkNews/status/1402586773499244549

Rosie Duffield gets the predictable kicking in the comments. Still no public support for her. That's what the Labour leadership think about women's rights and women who have an opinion.

Why any women would vote Labour I really do not know.

Being the "star" of a hostage video doesn't say "I'll save you from the Tories" to me.

@Tanith

Yes, I think he will open his own letters if they are addressed in a particular way.

They will also be a physical presence, rather than disappearing at the touch of a button.

Well, I suppose you could try a letter with a hand-written envelope to his home address.

Which he might or might not open himself.

But everything else, and even possibly that, will be opened by an assistant and he will only read it or be told about it if the assistant judges that he needs to see it or be informed of its contents. If the assistant decides he doesn't, it will be answered by a staffer and filed, or ignored and binned.

Having said all of that - he needs to do something firm. If I were his advisor (& I'm not), I'd be telling him to make a hard-line statement saying the abuse of Rosie Duffield on social media is completely unacceptable.

The mad years of social media warriors that were a real feature of Corbyn-era populism - it's time to draw a line under that.

Can you imagine the RAGE if he made a statement in support of Rosie? They don't support him as leader as it is.

@TrainedByCats

I don’t vote for a political party on a single issue, I vote for them based on how I think they will handle many issues, some examples below

• VAWG - what are they doing to reduce this
• Prisons, are prisoners kept safe and in dignity with some attempt at rehabilitation
• safeguarding children
• STEM education (and teaching biological lies is a concern)
• discrimination
• maternity rights
• health care for women
• online safety
• LGB rights

This is not a single issue

Exactly this - it's not a single issue

You know, I used to think I should stay in Labour and try to fix it from the inside, but then I thought - if someone shits in your tea, how much time do you spend trying to fish it out before you just think it's time to just bin it and get a different cup of tea?

This is the best political analogy I have ever heard.

As someone said earlier, this looks like a hostage video to me. It also shows that Starmer is pretty spineless, because there is absolutely no way he wouldn’t have known just how contentious the Trans issue is and in particular SelfID.

I’m done with Labour. I stupidly thought that Starmer was one of the only adults in a room full of blue haired children, handmaidens and misogynistic men. Seems like he doesn’t have the balls to stand up to them.
Here’s hoping Labour remain in the wilderness for the foreseeable.

it's not a single issue

But self-Id is. An ideology that men can declare themselves women - for me that's not only misogynistic, its utterly stupid.

And is that how he's going to conduct all his policies? if you declare something, despite all evidence, despite all meaning, it becomes so? That'll lead to an interesting foreign policy...

@bellinisurge

Being the "star" of a hostage video doesn't say "I'll save you from the Tories" to me.

Quite, bellini. Astute observation.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Having said all of that - he needs to do something firm. If I were his advisor (& I'm not), I'd be telling him to make a hard-line statement saying the abuse of Rosie Duffield on social media is completely unacceptable.

The mad years of social media warriors that were a real feature of Corbyn-era populism - it's time to draw a line under that.

Can you imagine the RAGE if he made a statement in support of Rosie? They don't support him as leader as it is.

He has to get off the tight rope at some point.

Today the main opposition to Johnson's governmental fuck ups is coming from Joe Biden, ffs.

I think his silence both ways is very telling. He's not a trustworthy man.

This link has a breakdown regarding party membership numbers over the past few years :
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn05125/

Thanks @RhapsodyandAshe so Labour had/has was more members than any other party. Yes they do so badly in elections.

I'm not going to rejoin Labour to help shore them up when they are espousing anti-women policies that they know will cause physical harm. I don't owe Labour anything. On the contrary, they owe us and if they are continuing with their idiocy then it's in my interests for them to be finished for good (which they are imo) and something new and better started in their place. Let them go, or, rather, drop them and move on.

You can't argue Starmer, a party lady in his 50s who has been in law and politics for decades, doesn't mean what he's saying either whether you're right or wrong, the conclusion makes him look absolutely dire.

leader not lady, autocucumber is being freudian there.

This is really depressing. I'm also worried that if Labour get into power they will roll back all the recent changes - total commitment to Stonewall, self-ID, hate crime etc.

Thinking about self-ID and the GRA, I think I'd be happy with people being able to self identity a gender identity, but for that gender identity to be totally separate from biological sex. So no more re-issuing birth certificates / passports / driving licences with the sex marker changed. But the opportunity to add an extra field with your gender identity (like how you can add a title to some web forms). That wouldn't be popular at all with people who want gender identity to replace sex, but it's a sensible middle ground that would expose the extremism of the hard-line self-ID position.

"But everything else, and even possibly that, will be opened by an assistant and he will only read it or be told about it if the assistant judges that he needs to see it or be informed of its contents. If the assistant decides he doesn't, it will be answered by a staffer and filed, or ignored and binned."

Have you a better suggestion?

@Tanith

"But everything else, and even possibly that, will be opened by an assistant and he will only read it or be told about it if the assistant judges that he needs to see it or be informed of its contents. If the assistant decides he doesn't, it will be answered by a staffer and filed, or ignored and binned."

Have you a better suggestion?

No.

I suppose people can try it.

If I'm right, though, and the idealogues have taken over the Labour Party's machinery, it would be pointless.

I thought it was a good speech, even though i don't support self ID, which got just a small mention, it encompassed all rights not just trans.

However, i have experienced extreme domestic violence, the police were useless.
My friend was almost killed by her partner, again police didn't care.

the tories have closed down domestic violence refuges, allowed falling rape convictions, allowed our school kids to be sexually abused at school... fuck all done, indeed encouraged by our racist and misogynistic PM.

but lets have another tory govt by not voting Labour?

It seems to me he is reading the room - the room being his own party. No it doesn't feel like a great general election strategy but I doubt he's thinking that far ahead, right now his priority will be to keep his job.

We're always saying he only fights battles he can win yada yada and my guess is he's decied that if he tries to fight his own party on this, he will lose. It doesn't matter whether he really believes TWAW, the people he needs on his side if he's going to save his arse believe it. That's my reading anyway.

To the argument that we should fight this from the inside: 'This' is nothing new. I used to hang out with CLP types in the late 70s but didn't join for some time and the reason was their attitude to women was troubling even for those deeply sexist times. 'Stop moaning and, come the revolution, we'll see you right, did you put two sugars in that?' Kind of thing. The issues might have changed but the belief they are entitled to women's votes has not.

So stay and fight and the absolute best of luck to you but please desist with the finger wagging. As for being doing something other than moaning - I hear you, but I'm now wondering if supporting the SDP so they can field more candidates might be a more productive use of time.

I am also a DV survivor and former Labour Party member. I won't vote for a party which is claiming to represent me as a woman better than the current government but in reality has utter contempt for me, my feelings, concerns and rights and puts out goady videos demonstrating this. And I won't be emotionally blackmailed into doing so. Hope that helps.

leader not lady, autocucumber is being freudian there.

I lolled. That might explain it

It's important to keep our party memberships so that we can keep the pressure on them all.

Sue Pascoe is a member of the Conservative party. Sue is Area Chairman of North and East Yorkshire of the Conservative Women's Organisation.
Sue publicly welcomed the appointment of Mridul Wadhwa.
Sue is one of a group that wants Liz Truss replaced as Equality minister. Sue wants the GRA amendment and Sue wants self-id. Sue believes TWAW.

Right now, the Government can't return to full on TWAW because Keir Starmer is holding out, however wobbly he may be.

What do you think is going to happen if women start resigning and releasing the pressure on them all? Where will women's voices be then?

Perhaps we should all join the Tories.

@Floisme, I don't disagree with your analysis but, ultimately, KS will only retain his job if he wins a GE. Labour aren't as ruthless/efficient as the Tories at dispatching losers, but even they will eventually defenestrate a losing leader.

Blair would have been reading the comments sections of the Times, Telegraph and DM (about everything, not just self-ID). I suspect KS and his advisors only read the Guardian and Twitter. That is why they will never win a GE.

It's released the pressure on Benjamin Cohen very nicely, though. How long has he been sitting on that clip, I wonder?