Where is the Labour Party

[ChristinaXYZ]

In the light of the several significant things that have happened over the last few days re women's rights where is the Labour Party. They are the official opposition. Where is the statement demanding an enquiry into how the Tavistock mess could have taken so many years to uncover and address? where is the statement on women's rights in the work place post Alliosn Bailey's success? Where is the statement about women's safety in sports such as rugby?

Zip, zilch, nothing...

On the other hand they have refused Labour Women's Declaration a stand at the Labour party conference

twitter.com/soniasodha/status/1553654729011601411

Not only are the wrong on the subject of women's rights and misogynistic in their repeated lack of support for women MPs like Rosie Duffield and Luciana Berger and but they are also completely gutless.

Either too gutless to admit they are wrong and start addressing the way women's rights have been squeezed

or

too gutless to continue with their previous line on the subject thereby throwing their version of trans rights under the bus as well.

Meanwhile we have right wingers like Michael Gove praising Kemi Badenoch for her stance on the Tavistock.

The Tories have been in power a long time* and should have done something earlier but at least they have done something and can see and name the problem. They have been slow rather than hypocrites or gutless. If you cannot see and name the problem then you can and will do nothing, just like Labour.

I am so angry with them.

And whose likely to be the next leader Nandy, Creasy or Rayner? (assuming Labour capable of electing a woman) or changes-his-mind-to-suit-the-weather Wes Streeting?

On the plus side at least a few (very few) Labour MPs have signed that letter in the Guardian.

*admitted more like a series of governments rather than one Tory government

The people in opposition are not irrelevant. A robust opposition is essential for democracy; Labour are failing to do their job.

If you were genuinely concerned about women's rights then surely you would be pleased that the Tories are now taking action. It's all well and good pointing out it happened on their watch but you would have to be particularly disingenuous to pretend that there hasn't been a concerted effort to push this agenda by corrupting the usual mechanisms of government and reporting in press and other news media.

What we do know is that when any other political party is given the opportunity to comment on the issue of women's rights they use it to reinforce their commitment to self ID. If any other party were in power right now then self ID would already be law and we would be screwed.

What concerns me is the intolerance of divergent views and sheep-like waiting for 'authorised opinion' before commenting.

With the Labour Party it feels like a a feature, not a bug.

With Tories, not as much.

Well they could start by apologising to the Women's Declaration firstly for ignoring their letters, and secondly for the fuck up over the conference. And then Starmer could announce that he's going to meet with them.
All perfectly do-able from where I'm sitting, and the fact that they don't even seem to be capable of making these tiny steps really makes me wonder why I still bother.

Agree with this in particular, and the rest of your post @FOJN :

'The people in opposition are not irrelevant. A robust opposition is essential for democracy; Labour are failing to do their job.'

Sorry the above was to LK1972 - fast moving thread!

@Floisme It may yet happen, the momentum is surely behind women in Labour to raise it everywhere, again, using recent judgments?

I'm not a Labour or Tory voter, but massively value an effective opposition, it keeps democracy functioning well, so really hope Labour put their house in order, and actually listen to their own members.

Probably hopelessly over-optimistic though

Kemi said in her Times comment piece that - basically - the opposition have not held the government to account. She's not wrong. Labour have thrown this away with both hands. What is it about:

• upholding the law
• providing safe care and dignified services for men, women, boys and girls
• supporting evidence based medicine and getting the best we can from the NHS

That Labour don't want? They've been MIA for years now. Are they interested in their role in democracy and - gasp - getting into power or not? Cos it feels like all they want to do is faff about with manifesto changes or DQST pictures or calling us dinosaurs or posing with stupid placards about "trans conversion therapy" rather than contributing to Parliament and to us - the people who bloody pay for it all.

Maybe LK1972 but as I think I said somewhere upthread, they haven't got much time. They can't just wait till it's manifesto season and then say something meaningless like they did in 2019, not for me at any rate. Even if they started now they'd have their work cut out because they'd have to take on all their activists - that'll be a big job.

I'm going to be following their conference in the autumn. If nothing positive comes out of that then I think that'll be it, which is why refusing the Women's Declaration a stand is such an ominous sign.

They would have to come out and say that TWANW and that they are committed to maintaining single sex provision for females. But I'm still not sure I'd trust them even if they were to change their stance.

The people in opposition are important because not only should they be holding the government to account but they could very well be the next government in two years or less. Unless the global economic outlook changes or the government pulls some rabbits out of hats it seems likely that a lot of people will suffer dreadfully this autumn/winter and the Tories will pay dearly for that at the next election. Labour might end up in some kind of coalition with the LibDems or SNP so unless they and other left leaning parties do a huge about turn we will be in big trouble. Yes, we need the Tories to get their finger out and work hard to secure women’s rights before that, but also we need not to be living in dread of what might happen to our rights once they are gone.

They are irrelevant to me because they have no power. Just as the Tories were irrelevant to me during the Blair/Brown years. Anyone remember anything Hague, IDS or Michael Howard did of note?

The But Labour... argument causes people to look away from what this government is doing and has done to women's rights over the past 12 years. It has actively damaged women. And now they are refusing to include our right to bodily autonomy in the Bill of Rights.

Our rights are up for grabs now. I want the government to protect them. If this was a Labour government I'd be saying the same thing and if Labour comes to power, I will say the same thing then.

In the meantime women deserve better than what the Conservative government is offering.

Very true. Will I sound insane if I would beseech any woman who's a still a member to write to whoever they can within a party, again, based on last week's ruling?

Well, perhaps you could look at the posts stressing the need of functioning opposition in a democracy and consider other opinions?

Anyone who wants to discuss the Conservatives and their record is welcome to start a thread. However it's pretty clear from the title that this thread is intended to about Labour, and I think it would be really good if we could stick to discussing what they could do now, while still in opposition, to reassure us that they intend to uphold our rights. You never know, someone in the party might even get to see it.

Exactly

It’s clear what the title is about

There are many others threads to fill if it’s not interesting to someone

Not sure if anyone’s posted this on a separate thread, but:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/labour-party-urged-to-take-gender-stance-by-elections-chief-shabana-mahmood-svnnddlc9

Same old, same old. We will defend single sex spaces and we will also bring in self-ID. No awareness of the contradictions inherent in that stance.

Meanwhile 1: a recent LWD email said that they had now met with Keir and one of his advisors. The email said the meeting was “cordial” but no further info. Hopefully more details at the fringe event.

Meanwhile 2: a (female) candidate for the NEC has been running an anonymous AMA using a google form, and posting her responses on twitter. She says she won’t respond to abusive questions, reasonably enough. I asked whether there was a place for the LWD in the Labour Party as a whole. No answer. I had her down as very pro-TRA and of the “chuck em out” variety. I am
slightly surprised she has not responded to that effect. Maybe she’s realising that it isn’t the great vote winner previously thought.

Labour are doing a shit job in opposition, that does not an excuse for feminists to look away from what this government is doing to damage us and what they can do better, right now.

Feminists are scrutinising what the current government is doing. They are however telling you that this particular thread, which is about the Labour Party, is not the place in which to carry out that exercise.

Too Big. please start your own thread on what the Tories aren't doing, rather than persistently try to derail this thread which is about what Labour aren't doing.
I can't be much clearer than that.

I was just about to post a link to that Times article, Delurking. As you say, it gets us no further forward and certainly does nothing to reassure me that a Labour government would be anything but a danger to women’s rights and children's safety. The vast majority of comments are very sceptical. A lot of them are to the effect that Labour's policy (which the article purports to clarify) is as clear as mud. As things stand, there is no way I can vote for Labour, however awful the current government might be.

Labour is doing all the damage to women at the moment. I follow labour MP Stella Creasey on twitter, and she is a proper , full on supporter of TWAW.

Recently she posted in support of Drag Queen Story Hour. AND for years she has been a supporter of Nancy Kelly the head of Stonewall.

@jhuizinga I thought it was all rather smug and prissy.

“I think the initial risk would have been to be much more upfront about the contestation of rights that is taking place, and the fact that it requires a considered and thought-through answer, but having come to our considered and thought-through answer, I think we should have just been much clearer straight off the bat.”

1. your answer is still shit and shows no sign of having considered or understood the issues.

2. oh you do admit there is a conflict of rights, now?

3. please do not insult our intelligence by implying that you have had “an answer” for a long time and it has been a case of not articulating it as well as you might. You have been all over the shop and groping around for an answer that won’t alienate any element of your base. As recently as September 2021 it was upholding SSS but only in “specific circumstances” (unherd.com/thepost/labours-support-for-single-sex-spaces-is-too-little-too-late/). Is that still policy?

Hope this has the share token, thanks @DelurkingLawyer, 'interesting' article.

Labour needs to be bold on trans rights, says party’s elections chief

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3c9577a2-10f6-11ed-b5dc-213f5c972cc4?shareToken=acdacb41edcf0acd800be6dcb81bf7fc

TVM - how do you get the share token BTW? I have a subscription and clicked on the link icon next to “share this article”. I assumed it would generate a share token but seemingly not!