How the Tories Weaponised Woke - Sunday Times - saying Tories see being against self id is a right wing strategy

[stumbledin]

Sorry dont have share token! www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-the-tories-weaponised-woke-jlmwh0p36

Says amongst other things, eg taking the knee, that campaign strategy to appeal to Red Wall new tory voters (who they see as personal conservative, all for Queen and Country and object to trendy left over reaction to issues) was to oppose self identification for trans people and that Boris actually thinks this is "unkind".

I'm really only posting for two reasons.

One if this is true is this what the Times thinks and that their coverage of trans issues will get more new Tory Red Wall voters?!

And two on an earlier thread (last year) when it seemed likely the Govrenment would reject self id, that I speculated that this didn't mean they were committed to women's rights and we should be careful. (The article implies that this decision was pushed through by Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch)

I always take article that claim to have the inside knowledge of what is going on in Government with a pinch of salt, as this article may be as much about the author saying you all though Cummings was the one pulling the strings, I can exclusively reveal it is Dougie Smith.

Lots of tittle tattle, but it does maybe explain why the Tories seem to think repeating bland sound bites is a vote winner.

(And how Clare Fox - allegedly - got her peerage!)

Here's an archived version of the article:

archive.fo/rxnib

Like you stumbledin, it does need to be read with a pinch of salt but the thing that struck me is that the Tories are thinking strategically about this. I wonder whether Labour is.

Also, I did comment elsewhere:

The people involved in pushing this strategy for the Tories are not those I'd want to ally with. However, if they say something that in my opinion is right, then I'm not going to dismiss it because of the source.

These kinds of manipulative games are damaging for the country and show utter contempt for the electorate.

(Especially considering it was Maria Miller and Justine Greening that introduced self ID in the first place)

@Thelnebriati

These kinds of manipulative games are damaging for the country and show utter contempt for the electorate.

(Especially considering it was Maria Miller and Justine Greening that introduced self ID in the first place)

And let's not forget Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt, who recently said 'TWAW & TMAM' in a Commons response on behalf of the Government in her Cabinet role as Paymaster General.

It's in Hansard.

I wonder if her Constituency Party in Portsmouth North are remotely concerned given the Forstater ruling.

Thanks for the archive link nauticant! I had just seen it on the other thread and was going to add it (having asked permission!)

I think all of the political parties spend too much time thinking about what will go down well with the media, or equally start a media spat.

I think this is why Boris Johnson always survives. he knows that for the media it is a game. Everything has as much value as today's headlines.

I think why so many former Labour voters turned Tory in the last GE is far more complicated than a woke agenda. Although many in the Labour Party may have been turned off by Momentum, not because of polices but their behaviour.

And apart from feeling abandoned by a self serving London elite, all the arguements and sentiments that Brexit bought up must have played a part. And the reality that the arguement about the being part of the EEC would improve our lives doesn't ring true if you part of the country doesn't seem to have benefitted at all.

Yes an obvious Tory tactic is to appeal to working and "lower" classes who are exhausted and don't have the time to indulge in identity issues like BLM/trans and gender fluid issues/some elements of feminism etc.

It's a horrible but very very effective strategy.

that campaign strategy to appeal to Red Wall new tory voters ...was to oppose self identification for trans people and that Boris actually thinks this is "unkind".

It is interesting to learn that Johnson favours self-id, but hardly surprising. The TRA movement to dismantle sex-based rights sits well with many conservative-minded men: typical comments BTL on Tory publications runs along the lines of let these two deplorables duke it out between them.

If anything, the natural conservative instinct is to silence feminists: they secretly admire how effective TRAs have been in doing that, and in effectively colonising womanhood and reinventing feminism in the image of the men's rights movement.

Brilliant op-ed by Nadine Batchelor-Hunt re working class communities and the LP.
www.joe.co.uk/amp/comment/blaming-jeremy-corbyn-for-labours-failures-sign-of-a-party-in-decline-272238?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=PoliticsJOE&utm_campaign=feed&__twitter_impression=true

@peadarm

that campaign strategy to appeal to Red Wall new tory voters ...was to oppose self identification for trans people and that Boris actually thinks this is "unkind".

It is interesting to learn that Johnson favours self-id, but hardly surprising. The TRA movement to dismantle sex-based rights sits well with many conservative-minded men: typical comments BTL on Tory publications runs along the lines of let these two deplorables duke it out between them.

If anything, the natural conservative instinct is to silence feminists: they secretly admire how effective TRAs have been in doing that, and in effectively colonising womanhood and reinventing feminism in the image of the men's rights movement.

Boris is very much of the libertarian right wing isn't he?

Which makes sense because it's about individual freedoms rather than collective benefit. Those tendencies are probably why he's flipped flopped about with Covid restrictions, often making decisions too late because he's not naturally inclined to limit freedoms or restrict the private sector.

I think a great many men view it through the the lens of saying no to something a male person wants is mean and infringing on liberties. The attitude rarely extends to women though, I expect we're just selfish when we want things.

Boris is very much of the libertarian right wing isn't he?

YY. He's certainly not a feminist, by any stretch of the imagination.

I was just thinking it was probably less than a year ago the news reporters claiming special inside knowledge were saying it was all down to Boris' then fiancée that the Tories were not going forward with self ID.

But still wonder why the Times, if it thinks it special report is accurate, is also promoting gender critical statements.

What's a tory red wall voter please?

I don't think the Tories care about women's rights. I don't think they care about many people's rights. I'm leftwing and I see fighting for women's rights as a normally left wing subject, although I'm obviously politically homeless at the moment.

I think a great many men view it through the the lens of saying no to something a male person wants is mean and infringing on liberties. The attitude rarely extends to women though, I expect we're just selfish when we want things.

I'll apologise in advance because this post may turn into a load of post modern bollocks. I think I'm on to something but I'm not sure I can explain it...

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist”

IMO the core and driver of gender ideology is not actually the false construction of Woman as a gender but the false construction of Male/Man.

Trans women are rejecting this image of what a Man is, but Trans Orthodoxy's construction of trans women as women allows this to happen without challenging the construction of Man itself but in fact reinforcing it, because it says "if that's not you then despite your male body you mustn't be a man, you must be a woman". Trans men identify as men yet are not forcing redefinition of Man in anything like the pervasiveness that trans women (or rather their allies) are forcing a redefinition of woman. The right wing/small c conservative mindset sees the debate as arguments between various groups of not-men.

In the middle, untouched like the eye of a hurricane, is the self image of men as the calm, neutral and logical objective observer. Only Woman is a thing in flux, the thing that has to be recategorised and redefined.

So all the fire and energy and anger and sense of wrongness generated by Men co-opting the right to "neutrally observe" (but in reality define) reality is being deflected away from challenging that image and towards women and non-conforming males.

But since it's the tension and disconnect between that incredibly limited conception of what a man is and the reality of how different male people really are that is powering the whole thing, I don't think it will stop until either we start looking at that blank hole in the middle, or society restructures and settles around ideas of gender that accommodate the real-word variety of males without challenging that constructed neutral Man. And losing female voices will be collateral damage.

Why am I going off on this tangent in a thread about Johnson and the Tories? Because Johnson epitomises that self image (delusion) of the white privileged male as the default, neutral view. It's the voice that wrote our history books and prides itself on being able to debate without getting emotionally involved.

So I can absolutely see that Boris would support self id because to do otherwise, to ask at what point a gender-non-confirming male stops being a man, requires turning analysis onto that blank shape Man and acknowledging that it's just as much a construct as the much-analysed Woman, and the Men who identify with that construction of Man just can't do that because it means destroying their own self-image.

The Red Wall was meant to be traditionally safe seats for Labour in the Midlands, Yorkshire (and Wales?).

But in the last GE there was a big swing to the Tories in these areas. Some people talk about these new Tories as Red Wall Tories, ie former Labour voters. That's all.

But I think the article is suggesting that because the Tory perception is that these are all working class people, they will have very old fashioned views and want to appeal to them to make sure they stay Tories. I am not sure that any one in these seats is particularly worried about women's rights, because as elsewhere in the UK Women's Rights are not high on anyone's agenda.

Here are a couple of links to articles about the Red Wall, but like everything should probably be taken with a pinch of salt.

yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/05/17/stereotypical-image-red-wall-residents-accurate

ukandeu.ac.uk/the-red-wall-how-blue-is-it-now/

Not sure what post modern is but ...

The trans ideology is also about rejecting the notion that there is a sex class (women) that are oppressed by another sex class (men).

It suits men to be able to say there is no sex, because it then allows them to say if there is no sex then there is no sex discrimination, therefore men can not be blamed for all the things that hold women back, or lead them to be the victims of male violence.

I don't buy it tbh.

I mean maybe this guy is pulling strings or not.

Suggesting Priti Patel is only in her job because of her race is shit. I mean I think she's awful but that's not the point. She's a classic Tory. Behaviour, opinions. And she's only in the job because of race.

Fuck off.

Ditto the other stuff. It all sounds like normal political stuff to me.

The idea the Tories are 'weaponising woke' is simplistic and there's more like the above.

The idea that fighting racism is 'woke' is fucking shitty and insulting. There's also an assumption that people who support or could support the Tories are racists. That's. A very big claim.

So in order to attract
'working-class voters in the new swing seats in northern England'

They need to signal that they are sexist, racist etc etc?

Erm... Well that's not good.

The fact is that the Tories are behaving totally normally.

The left is screwing itself over. By itself.

Anti semitism
Misogyny
Leader who I'm sure is clever but has no charisma or clear message
In fighting- momentum. Back to the 'loony left' of the old days.

Nope. Not buying it. And in order to make his arguments he's said some really, imo as a raging lefty, awful indefensible things.

Blibbyblobby

It's same old same old.

Man was created in the image of God. (Christian country the UK). Woman was created of man, to keep him company.

Men are what men say they are, women are what men say they are.

Historically well recognised, now in many countries felt but not vocalised. Man is the template. Woman is alike but not. Inferior. Physically. Intellectually.

In so many areas we are disadvantaged because male is default. The norm. Women are... Well they don't fit the template and that's their problem.

Reproductive systems that are complicated and prone to malfunction. Just how women are. So test the stuff on men. Build it for men. Women need it? Just do it on weight. Treat them like a small man.

The greens was it? Called us non men.

None of this is new.

It's just got a shiny new outlet.

If a man says he feels like a woman. Well he's opting down the scale. And men deserve to be happy. He joins the non men. What's wrong with that?

Thanks for the explanation and links, @stumbledin

I'm in the Red Wall. People feel betrayed by Labour, ignored, dismissed, taken for granted and let down. It's complictated but the stance on Brexit was baffling because so many Labour voters here voted to leave. Then the name calling by activists

On trans issues, they might not know what GC means or all the other academic terminology, but they understand that women's safe spaces should be protected. Mothers and Fathers understand that it might be their teenage daughter and friends in that Top Shop changing room or womens refuge. Also don't underestimate the Grooming Gang scandal and how Labour let us down there. Some of the reporting in local newspapers and their opinion pieces here on this has been savage. Especially when the Jay Report was released. Feelings are still running high.

We see the party as bourgeois, "woke" and London centric. Dismissive of old fashioned heartland class concerns, such as poverty and crime. Too caught up with USA academia and BLM concerns. Caring more about Palestine than Preston. Too pandering to student politics, again middle class. The middle class Metro city liberal progressives are really despised here like never before and that's saying something.

..and it isn't so much that people wanted to vote Tory. It's more they wanted to kick Labour out

Yes they've totally lost to their way.

It's militant tendancy / loony left type thing all over again. With momentum, it's all infighting for power in the party, rather than any interest seemingly in getting elected etc.

Kier starmer I'm sure it's clever but he's got no charisma and doesn't feel like a person who can pull everyone together.

Someone posted on here s while back. The labour party seem to despise those they expect automatic support from. Jewish people. Women. Probably more.

Brexit was a disaster. It wasn't a party political issue but the essential nothingy approach by labour was rubbish.

I don't even know what their vision/ goals/ priorities/ policies are at the moment.

They're fucking useless tbh.

The anti semitism whole thing was disgusting.

Yes gerbs

Also I don't think the Labour party understand the North anymore and its scepticism of USA critical race theory for example and from an old fashioned working class left wing point of view .

I'm an average age voter. I'm old enough to remember the 70s. In school we were taught by commies and hippies, think the teacher in the film Kes. We went to huge Comprehenisve schools. We might have been destined for the mines and the mills but our history was important to us. The rise of the trade unions, the fight for peoples rights, the TA slave trade, US civil rights, WW2, the fight against Fascism and the Soviets. If any child had used any kind of racist or sexist language we would have been caned. Taught all this and then went straight into closed shop heavily unionised work and then now some bourgeois clown in The Guardian is preaching at us that we're all racists, that we must de-colonise the curriculum, that our children and grandchildren must be taught what evil bastards we have all been, take the knee and smash up statues. The bloody disrespect and cheek of it!

Working to reduce racism etc is good.

But if you're living in poverty and can hardly get by and there's no jobs and and

I don't even know what their policies are around housing, employment, taxation, benefits, schools, the NHS etc etc. No idea.

And they're the labour party FFS.

Getting bogged down in debates about identity politics is ridiculous.

They are divisive topics. They hold no relevance to most people.

What do they even stand for? I have no idea.

I have sympathy for the statue smashers.
But that's the whole point.
They are focusing on really involved sort of philosophical debates.

They need to be focusing on ordinary people and how to improve things. Esp after austerity gave the Tories an excellent excuse to fuck loads of support etc over.

Food banks FFS. 10 years ago or so they were not much of s thing. Now they're normal. Just accepted.

They have massive internal problems and s shit leader.

Working to reduce racism etc is good

Yes but my point was that we were doing that in the 1970s and that is being denied now. Now Hyper racialist theories and politics are rammed down our throats every 5 minutes and class issues are actively being rejected. This is coming from the USA and it's being swallowed without question.

When George Floyd was murdered, 4,000 miles away, it was on our News channels as headline news for 6 weeks. Why? An African heritage woman was beheaded in a Church in France by a terrorist around the same time. This was just over the channel. No one even knows her name

When I was at school in the 70s, very multi ethnic very working class, we studied slavery alongside Victorian child labour, the opium wars alongside revolutionary France and early trade unionism. It was inclusive and based on class struggle and fights for all rights. No child was made to feel that their ancestors were guilty of anything and no child was made to feel that they had any kind of privilege, historic or current, above their classmates. We had it right in the north on this but no we have to reject all that for the woke and identity navel gazing