Labour Party latest policy

[DelurkingLawyer]

twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1542825291273363456?s=20&t=cGbkq-bi6icR8osxjKW-Pw

“The Labour Party will:
Ban all conversion therapy
Protect and uphold the Equality Act
Require employers to create workplaces free from LGBT+ harassment
Bring in tougher sentences for LGBT+ hate crimes
Modernise the outdated Gender Recognition Act.”

It says a lot that after months of criticism about a lack of identifiable policy, one of the first concrete statements from Labour is on this subject.

What do they mean “workplaces free from LGBT+ harassment”? Isn’t there already protection under the law from harassment due to sexuality or gender reassignment? And why should one protected characteristic attract higher sentences for hate crimes than any other? Finally of course they throw in the dear old “we will protect the EqA” without seemingly any consideration of whether this is consistent with (eg) reforming the GRA (and no details of how it will be modernised, I see).

Meanwhile Wes Streeting tweets “my lifetime I’ve seen, been part of, and benefited from, the onward march towards LGBT equality, but those who would turn the clock back are visible, well-funded and organised.” Who could he possibly be taking a pot shot at?

@Artichokeleaves

Very wise. Nothing will ever please them.

It's £5 and can be processed online. If they make it any easier, they'll be paying people.

I imagine it’ll be fleshed out in the manifesto. Starmer still hoping to fence sit for another year or 18 months. If he lasts that long.

And if he resigns after Beergate Streeting is thought to be a front runner for the leadership. That tweet I quoted in my OP shows that all the building consensus chat from Streeting earlier this year was garbage. “Well funded” is a dog whistle for “UK feminists are no different from the American far right”.

By the way the woman talking about “IVF for queer women” is a Labour councillor in Barnet.

Who is she? (I am a Barnet terven)

No, not the whole thread. Sorry, I can see how my comment could be misconstrued. I just meant the relevance of remarking on GCC was to do with Alison Bailey. I put two and two together that any visits from Starmer indicate his possiblr entanglement in support for their position against Bailey.
Of course he might just be friends with the barristers but the small world of barristers always seems quite incestuous so conclusions will be drawn.

Oh they have already reduced the fee? I must have missed that!

Streeting isn’t entirely wrong - there are homophobic people in the UK. There are transphobic people as well.

The problem is that as long as the baseline idea is that anyone who (like Streeting) recognises that human beings come in two basic biological types, and who (possibly unlike Streeting?) believe that this matters in a small number of situations, we’re not going to be able to separate out the prejudiced people from the normal people, to the detriment of the cause of equality.

It’s Ella Rose

Streeting is from a very ordinary working class background so he must be able to see how little the ordinary person on the school run or driving a truck or paving driveways cares about this stuff. It’s not a vote winner.

Oh for sure there is still homophobic and transphobic behaviour in the UK. And yes, the fight to end it is ongoing.

But “well-funded and organised” - who is he talking about here? I am not aware of any co-ordinated campaign to end gay marriage, or remove gender reassignment as a protected characteristic, or anything of that kind. I think that’s a swipe at GC women with our pesky crowdfunders and our ability to organise ourselves to defend our rights.

‘But “well-funded and organised” - who is he talking about here?’

Not me. 😂

He also worked for stonewall.

I don't believe he will see that. He's surrounded by people who think this is of the utmost concern so if most of the people he knows think that, he's going to believe most of the people he doesn't know will think the same.

Every time I (a former Labour Party member) start thinking I must backtrack and vote for them because the Tories are just too much, Starmer et al have an unerring ability to remind me why I still won’t be voting for them until they drop this arrant nonsense.

I guess it’s spoiling my ballot for the foreseeable future.

I’ve never voted Tory and if you had told 18 year old me I ever might I would have been astonished. But to be honest, I creep closer and closer to it every time some pompous Labour man indicates that women are going to be first under the bus as far as he’s concerned.

Very astute.

‘I’ve never voted Tory and if you had told 18 year old me I ever might I would have been astonished.’

100%. But then I’m watching Miriam Cates/Kemi Badenoch opposite Lloyd Russell Moyle and Lisa Nandy and it’s pretty clear I am in fact going to vote Tory. My own MP is a classic working class Tory and isn’t up for any of this.

Oh they have already reduced the fee? I must have missed that!

Liz Truss did it (IIRC) as a sop to TRAs when the government dropped its plan to reform the GRA.

Yup, it was Liz Truss who announced the new reduced £5 fee; Kemi Badenoch announced just a couple of days ago that online applications via the government portal had gone live: www.gov.uk/government/news/gender-recognition-application-modernised

It seems the Labour Party is unable to read the room and is prepared to destroy any chance in a future general election. It has just handed the Conservative Party some material to include in its campaigning literature.

Popped back to the tweet and had a laugh at the replies and QTs. They have managed to please nobody. The TRA reaction is no trans healthcare, Rosie Duffield, whingeing about references to upholding EqA. Nobody on either side thinks “modernise the GRA” is a meaningful explanation of what exactly the Labour Party intends to do. Slow handclap Keir.

PS I watched the godawful video again and he goes into the shop without his funky leather jacket and comes out wearing it so either he stole it from one of the other participants or the editing was shit and amateurish. You decide!

Thanks

Meanwhile Wes Streeting tweets “my lifetime I’ve seen, been part of, and benefited from, the onward march towards LGBT equality, but those who would turn the clock back are visible, well-funded and organised.”

Is that what he got out of the "Labour Against Transphobia" Stasiesque Facebook group that he was a member of back in 2018, set up by Lily Madigan and friends to target GC women in Labour to get them sacked and thrown out of the Labour Party?

Dropping back to update with the latest:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/03/labour-accused-of-silencing-women-in-row-over-sex-based-rights-group

Labour Women’s Declaration denied a stand at the Party Conference (along with FiLIA and LGBA).

LWD’s statement says they were told it was first come first served and booked early and that there were and remain stands vacant, making the excuse of “commercial decision” look like the pathetic lie it is: labourwomensdeclaration.org.uk/the-silencing-of-women/

Well it's coming out into plain sunlight in public view and plain terms now, isn't it?

Labour is anti woman and anti homosexual. Anti child safeguarding too.

Good. They need to own it and stand on that platform being clear: that's what you're voting for. And people will make their choice.

Every line of that LWD response is a zinger and it also said two things I wasn’t previously aware of.

The first is that the General Secretary, David Evans, was meant to meet with LWD in October 2020 to discuss women being excluded from the Party for GC views. Postponed by him and not rescheduled.

The second is that Keir is finally, finally meant to be meeting with LWD this month. Watch this space. Be interested to see if that too is “postponed.”