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

[LK1972]

Don't know, I do it on the phone app, just click the icon and it generates.

I have to say, the Times comments are excellent.

And the although the 'No debate' is well and truly dead, Labour still think the answer is for everyone in the party to be 'on the same page', with 'iron-clad discipline'.

Bloody authoritarians

[Allthegoodnamesarechosen]

@TooBigForMyBoots

Jamie was elected to everyone’s astonishment solely as part of the Brexit debacle. His* trans ness’ only emerged later when under investigation for crashing into a telegraph pole and running away

• he has stated that he still uses male pronouns, so not misgendering.

I don’t think he has much relevance to the overall debate.

[Floisme]

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.

Ok thanks DelurkingLawyer I hadn't seen that - Joan Smith was tweeting yesterday that the party still hadn't responded but maybe she was referring to a separate conversation she'd had with Starmer. Anyway that's a start, and the absolute minimum kind of thing I need to hear. Hopefully LWD can explain to them why a promise to bring in self ID while protecting single sex spaces - the likes of which they tried last time - is meaningless.

[TullyApplebottom]

Soooo, Keir, a front bencher sides with strikers and you sack him instantly. One of your female MPs is threatened so badly she can’t come to conference and you do nothing. Oh wait, that’s not quite right is it? You go on TV to tell us all that “only women have cervices” is “a thing which shouldn’t be said.”
the Labour Party in a nutshell folks. Moribund. Time to let it die. Start something new, healthy, decent.

[DelurkingLawyer]

@Floisme hang on have just found it: the email I got on 20 July from LWD said “A cordial private meeting took place between ourselves and Keir Starmer and two of his staff on 12th July. Lines of ongoing communication were established, with a follow up meeting to be held in September if circumstances permit.”

[Floisme]

Thanks DelurkingLawyer

[DelurkingLawyer]

Despite my whingeing I have not yet cancelled my DD and a big reason for that was wanting to attend conference and specifically to attend the LWD event and a couple of other fringe events such as Labour Uncut.

I will report back here, including asking Joan for any details on the meeting she is willing to give.

[Floisme]

Thanks again Delurking

[FunsizedandFabulous]

All the known stuff Labour are not doing is what's wrong with it.

As a female union member, I feel angry.

I was anti-Corbyn and anti-Momentum. Too far Left for me, I thought. But at least Corbyn et all turned up to picket lines and rallies and had some fudging policies. They turned up. They didn't forget where Labour came from, or how the party started! So I'm coming from, hindsight is a wonderful thing!

The unions (not just the RMT) have done good work putting their message across, but without parliamentary support from the party, they may fail to hammer the message home. We need laws against fire and rehire, zero hours, all sorts of things, but Starmer can't/won't commit. The Labour Party is letting working people down.

[TooBigForMyBoots]

I was not the first person to mention the Tories, I merely responded to another poster and I did check with the OP, who assured me that rather than an Anti-Labour thread, it was a thread for politically homeless feminists. Posters have spoken about Political parties other than Labour.

Is it just the Conservatives (the only party with the power to actually do anything) that can't be criticised on this thread?

[TooBigForMyBoots]

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen

@TooBigForMyBoots

Jamie was elected to everyone’s astonishment solely as part of the Brexit debacle. His* trans ness’ only emerged later when under investigation for crashing into a telegraph pole and running away

• he has stated that he still uses male pronouns, so not misgendering.

I don’t think he has much relevance to the overall debate.

He has stated that he has a diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria and intends to become a woman.

In the last election campaign GC feminists urged people to vote Conservative because "at least they know what a woman is". This strategy spectacularly backfired in Bridgend. It was a Trojan Horse.

We are only 1 Conservative MP away from losing the right to single sex spaces and the choice being delivered Neo-Liberal style to the market.

[ResisterRex]

From that Times piece:

"Mahmood said that the issue of transgender people’s rights was a prime example of where the party needed to take more risks and admit there was a “clash” between the rights of different groups over single-sex spaces. Labour has tied itself in knots by trying to sit on the fence or avoid the question altogether and the author JK Rowling previously said that Sir Keir Starmer could “no longer be counted on to defend women’s rights”."

I really object to it being framed as a "clash of rights". It's not. Because that way of framing it, sets up - from the outset - the idea that you can say some magic words and that gives you "rights".

No. No. No.

Even with the wording around SSE, no. I don't and will never accept this way of approaching it.

If men people want women's rights, say it. Say "we want to remove single sex exemptions. We want you to have no choice about intimate care [etc]". THEN we will see if the public agrees this should be a "right". They won't.

[FOJN]

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.

Someone better tell WPUK, Sex Matters, For Women Scotland, Standing for Women, Fair Play for Women etc etc to up their game. I actually find it offensive that you would accuse feminists of looking away from what the government is doing which causes women harm and ignore the campaigning those brave women have done.

It was the persistence of feminists which got self ID taken off the table. Surely I do not need to list all the other achievements of various feminist campaigns.

If the definition of woman includes men then there are no women's rights and there is no feminism. I do not believe this is difficult to understand although those still loyal to Labour will insist it's is and it's more complicated than that.

Those of us who have given up on the left have done so because it abandoned us so we've decided to expend our energy where we will be heard, you do not need to agree with that approach but please get out of the way and let those of us who think it's the best way forward concentrate on the job in hand. If you feel Labour is still worth your time then crack on and come back and tell us how you get on.

[ilovesushi]

Where the hell are Labour!?!?! This is the week to stand up for women's rights, for workers' rights and for child safeguarding. Absent and silent. They will not have my vote.

[JustSpeculation]

@LK1972

Don't know, I do it on the phone app, just click the icon and it generates.

I have to say, the Times comments are excellent.

And the although the 'No debate' is well and truly dead, Labour still think the answer is for everyone in the party to be 'on the same page', with 'iron-clad discipline'.

Bloody authoritarians

This. The Tories strength is that they don't even pretend seriously to like each other. They just work together because of common interests. They do business with each other. Labour isn't a broad church. It's trying to be an obedient church. Everyone has to be on message, and on the same message. And the fight is about the purity of that message. As you say, bloody authoritarians. Labour looks for traitors, the tories look for allies.

[Floisme]

We have virtually the whole of Mumsnet to discuss the performance of this government, and its impact on women. The only board where we can discuss our sex based rights is here - if we try and start a discussion on it anywhere else, it will be moved.

For posters like me who, God help us, haven't quite given up on Labour, I believe next month's conference represents the last chance to make any progress, because by the time the 2023 conference comes around, all the focus will be on the general election. I think it's now or never and I would really like to see my party (ok ex party) with their feet held to the fire. No excuses, no whatabouting.

[ChristinaXYZ]

@DialSquare

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.

I wouldn't trust them either - none of them that have supported this mess from within the shadow cabinet. I might vote for a new leader that was definitely not up to his or her armpits in either thinking exactly the TRAs line or gutlessly following anyway.

[ChristinaXYZ]

I really do think you are scare mongering @TooBigForMyBoots - you sound like you want abortion rights to be in trouble. This not America - we don't have that kind of religious right. Stop pretending a few outlining voices (who we never hear from) are influential.

As to the Bill of Rights it is just legislation like the legislation that gives abortion now. It is not some kind of tablet of stone constitution. If one law is at risk from changes so is the other. You don't know what you're on about so please stop stirring and creating fear and mis-direction. Mis-direction away from the main problem and the point of this thread which is that Labour have been a useless opposition and have nothing to offer women if they get into power - except loss of rights

The left-wing end of Labour sulked after Blair and got rid of the wrong Miliband. David Milband would have been far more likely to stop the Tories in 2015. But politics of envy again -weirdly envy of the the one man who has given them true electoral success - Tony Blair - made them reject the candidate closest to him and most likely to win. The unions make the Labour Party poor decision makers.

The Conservatives either like Mrs Thatcher or ignore her. The Labour Party just hates Blair - this makes them a permanent party of opposition (to be fair to Starmer I think he can see that but is too thick or too much of a virtue signaler to do anything about it) and yet since Corbyn with the antisemitism and then with the kneeling and TWAW that Starmer/Rayner have adopted, they are fighting the wrong battles (American ones) rather like you @TooBigForMyBoots
I rather like living in a parliamentary democracy - it is the best version of the system, potentially the freest for the individual, and yet least prone to extremism. Yet no real opposition means it does not work properly. We are lucky the Conservatives have talked and listened; with that 80 seat majority anything could have happened. I will always be grateful to the current crop of Conservative MPs (and Lords) for that (Mordant, Noakes and Blunt excepted!)

[ChristinaXYZ]

Thank you @jhuizinga @JosephineGH @LK1972 and others for a really interesting on-topic debate (and the link to Times article)!

[TooBigForMyBoots]

I am talking about sex based rights. I would like them to be included in the Bill of Rights. Good on you for holding Labour's feet to the fire @Floisme. I hope it pays off if they ever get into power.

In the meantime no amount of "whatabout Labour" is going to make that happen. As a PP said, 12 years of "look at those awful people over there* has resulted in devastation to women's rights under the Tories. It's time to look at what they are doing and hold their feet to the fire.

[TooBigForMyBoots]

I'm not scaremongering @ChristinaXYZ. I'm in NI, I know how government can make abortion nigh on impossible in a country that, in theory,🙄 "allows" it.

There have been recent court cases trying to reduce availability of abortion and the American lobby are increasing their influence, giving forced birthers tips and even coming over to protest against abortion in the UK. Pretending it isn't happening or is of little consequence is what eroded our single sex spaces and rights and brought us to this point. That, and the Tory government.🤦‍♀️

We would do well not make that mistake again.

[MangyInseam]

Your criticisms of the CP don't even make sense, you want people to hold them to account for earlier policies they have changed in the way women wanted them to be changed.

[MrsOvertonsWindow]

@MangyInseam

Your criticisms of the CP don't even make sense, you want people to hold them to account for earlier policies they have changed in the way women wanted them to be changed.

Labour worries me with their silence about the GIDs scandal in particular. If they're (yet again) refusing to stand up for the rights of children, this time to safe ethical medical care, then they're of no use at all.
At least the government have recognised the problem and, judging by what they're saying ,will be tackling it - presumably with labour shouting transphobes and bigots at them in partnership with Stonewall?

[MangyInseam]

I wonder if they haven't become so unpracticed in thinking about this stuff in terms of things like medical ethics, or how best practice is determined, that they can't.

Like the only tool they have no is identity hierarchy, and when reality impinges on that they have no capacity to make a decision. Its quite weird.