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

I'm now going back to Sunfriedegg's post about how Labour came to occupy the moral high ground because I thought that was interesting. For me, it's not quite so much the high ground as a very strong emotional tie. It feels akin to breaking away from your family's religion.

I speak as someone who has over the years voted Tory, Lib Dem and Labour, and as a recent entrant to the party who was always deeply turned off by the “Labour = I am a good person/we are better” way of thinking.

I think it comes from several factors including:

1. long periods in opposition - having to have self-belief that you are “better” to buoy yourself up.

2. origins in TU and working class movements - self-perception as the underdog, fighting for a more equal society (and for many years and in many ways actually doing so).

3. Being part of the tribe is attractive, and even more so if the perception is that the tribe is the “correct” one. I have found as a recent member that welcoming you in, and involving you as a new member is something Labour is very good at. Suddenly you feel a valued part of this new community and you get praised for any contribution like delivering leaflets, and encouraged to get more involved. Cynically I’d say that this is because the Labour Party is dependent on free labour, especially from women, because it is not as well funded as the Tory Party. But I also think it’s the case that those within the Tory demographic may be more likely to find that sense of belonging from other places: university, school, professional associations. I know everyone says the LP is demographically a lot more bourgeois than formerly; but I still think there are many who don’t have other places from which to derive that sense of belonging. Whether that tribal feeling follows from or creates the sense of greater moral worth, I don’t know. Perhaps a bit of both.

To be far Priti Patel told the police to stop recording the non-crime hate stuff. There is a large libertarian, free-speech wing in conservatism. It is blinkered to think otherwise. a lot of people do have Labour-blinkers which stops them seeing what Conservatism is for.

I'm a floating voter - I have friends who vote for all the main parties and some of the minor ones. I have friends who are members of different parties. Actually they value systems are pretty similar - they all want those at the bottom of the heap economically to have a fairer crack at success. No-one joins the Conservative party because they are nasty - you've Labour-blinkers if you think so - they join mostly because they think that everyone gets better off that way. They believe that. They believe in a hand up not a hand out - they truly believe that is were the greatest gains are for the poorest members of society. You might not. It does not make you right and them wrong. It does not make you good and them scum (like Rayner thinks)/evil/uncaring or anything else.

We're in this mess because people think Labour good, Tories bad. So on the basis of that Labour have got away with being truly awful for years - antisemitic, racist, misogynistic, opportunistic, unimaginative, tin-eared and lazy.

And today we have this from Nadia Whittome - twitter.com/NadiaWhittomeMP/status/1554771750336057347 - another weak MP probably picked from one of those virtue-signaling patronising all-women shortlists that Labour have. Which is why so many Labour women MPs are useless: Angela Rayner and MPs Jess Phillips and Stella Creasy all elected on all women short-lists. They have only stopped the sexist practice because they had to under the Equality act. Respecting women being able to get to the top on their merits is also why the Tories have had two women leaders and are probably about to get a third with a potential fourth waiting in the wings.

I started this thread because as a floating voter, and as a woman, I am fecking fed-up. We need a decent opposition. Kids and women need protecting and where the hell are they???? Not just on the TRAs thing but also the girls let down mainly in Labour Council areas Rochdale, Bradford, Telford, etc. There must be some Labour Police and Crime Commissioners, where are they? Where is the shadow cabinet?? I am concluding they don't like women and just don't care.

Don't know OP, I'm in total agreement with your last post and come from the same position of a floating voter.

I'm somewhat reassured by the DelurkingLawer posts on this thread, and am hoping they'll start listening to women in their own party soon - recent news on Allison's case, Tavistock, Stonewall's tweeting about 2-yr olds etc should give the Labour women plenty of ammo to raise the issue again you'd think.

If I was actually inclined to vote Labour at all times I'd probably join them to see what can be done from within, but I'm not prepared to go that far

Something from Joanne Harding for Labour Uncut:

labour-uncut.co.uk/2022/08/02/come-on-labour-happy-to-back-womens-football-and-the-brilliant-lionesses-but-still-denying-labour-womens-declaration-a-stall-at-conference-women-are-watching/

@ChristinaXYZ I am also with you, a floating voter all my life, I probably sit just right from centre as someone who had a financially poor start in life but was encouraged to work hard and make a career

Im now disabled but lucky to be married and fortunately secure. I really hoped that Kier would be the answer but I just don’t recognise anything about Labour I can presently support and as a retired practitioner in paediatrics I am beyond horrified by current practices with trans children

I feel utterly homeless, we’ve always relied on a strong opposition to counter the worst of both parties but the current opposition are a joke I cannot get behind

Joanne will be waiting a long time...judging by this second comment under her article:
'The reason Labour Womens Declaration is not being allowed a stall at Labour Conference is clear to all. It’s not because it is discriminatory against women as you imply. It is because it has strong discrimatory views that have no place in the Labour party.

Conflating a proud moment for the whole country with this anti-Trans organisation is frankly sickening.'

So embarrassed I was ever a member of this cult-like political party.

Yes I think we have a lot of similarities @LK1972 and @Tomnooktoldmeto the crying shame is we're exactly the ones, who might change our vote, to whom Labour have to appeal. The reason they are so electorally useless is they don't get that. They (Labour) also don't get that the far left have no great electoral appeal in this country - never have had which is why the mild-mannered Atlee, Wilson and Blair are the most successful Labour leaders. Voters don't like rabble-rousers who shout into microphones like Nadia Whittome has today. In fact, if you look at the 19th century the Tories had slightly fewer years in power than in the 20th - the old Liberal Party was far more resonant with the voting public than the Labour Party has been. The Liberals would be turning in their graves if they could see today's LibDems. Meanwhile Labour are just a clique ridden metropolitan club. They need to stand for something not just against things. And if they don't stand for women's rights and the safety and security of children then they really are lost.

Unfortunately I think there's a good chance they're about to double down in order to put distance between themselves and the Tories.

DelurkingLawyer thanks for posting. Obviously neither Kate Green or Andrew Western posted anything about the Lioness's win.

Colour me totally unsurprised by that…

Your third point is intersting, I do think one difference between the type of person who is most active in the LP now, and conservatives, is they get their sense of who they are and belonging from different kinds of places.

Increasingly it seems to me like LP members get their sense of identity through identity groups and actions related to political solidarity within and between those groups. And they see LP membership as part of that.

They don't seem as likely as CP voters to get their sense of who they are from their geographical community, civic organizations, churches, and so on.

@MangyInseam Yes I think that is all very true. I was thinking of CP members historically having much greater access to “old school ties” type networks of belonging, but I think you are right about this too.

(For all the posturing about doing good in the community, the monthly meetings at my branch and CLP are disappointingly devoid of community engagement. They don’t encourage fundraising or volunteering. It’s all either campaigning or proposing yet another motion entitled “Tony Blair war criminal.” My local community hub does a monthly pub quiz and my branch turned up solely when there was an election in the offing. Everything’s about the clucking Labour Party getting elected.)

I suppose maybe the difference could be, if your idea is that changing social policy, or people's ideas, is the best way to bring about material change, you will see that as most important. Whereas if you see individual action as more important, your focus might be different. Granted most people thin both are true to some extent, it might reflect a difference in the culture of the group.

Seriously? Catch yerselves on. I am not a Labour supporter or voter. And I'm not Angela Rayner. I wish I was, i could do with the wages. I am still poor and live in small council house.

I am a feminist. My focus is women. I was taught if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got. Twelve years of Conservative policies have fucked things up for women.

What can we do differently?

@ChristinaXYZ , you remind me that Labour let down the young women girls in Rochdale and Telford among others whilst virtue signalling on a huge scale, thousands of hours of campaigning effort about fox-hunting. Never again will we support Labour.

Gradually moved away from my working class roots.
I recently joined the Conservative Party. I shall vote for Rishi.

Depressing news in the NEC (internal governance) election. Lunatic pledges - eg what is affirmative housing FFS?

twitter.com/rob_marchant/status/1555209963189968902?s=20&t=HmSFhMcPEQDuwhejP95RaA

Rob asks the “moderate” candidates from the Labour to Win slate whether they support these pledges. Silence.

Every time I think Labour is crawling out of the hole I realise it is completely fucked.

Liz Truss has certainly been doing that. I wonder why she wants her reassurance to LGBT groups to be given privately?

Hmm sex and gender used interchangeably in that letter

Say what you like about her, you can’t write off a working class woman who got a first in Physics from Oxford and has used the wealth she acquired through her inventions and business sense to genuinely change people’s lives for the better.

She’s a million miles from someone like Corbyn, an academic failure who has never had a career outside politics and who was given a safe seat based on nothing more than blindly parroting left-wing slogans.

Every time I think Labour is crawling out of the hole I realise it is completely fucked.
Same here. I've said this before but I feel a bit like I'm in a toxic relationship with Labour where the smallest sign gets my hopes up but realistically I can't see any future together.

I feel the same. If we were on AIBU then it would take about 2 posts before someone said LTB.

I had such high hopes after Starmer became leader. Get away from the toxic Corbyn years when I’d been politically homeless, deal with anti-Semitism, make the party electable, GTTO. And Starmer didn’t sign up to the stupid pledge that all the other signed. There would have been little downside to him signing it given that he was so far ahead and would probably have won more votes from Young Labour than he lost from GC women. I really believed he wanted to find a route through.

Alas. Like every undesirable boyfriend who has a guitar, a motorbike and no discernible employment, it always ends in tears.

Except Starmer didn't have a motorbike or a guitar. He was more like an accounting student with a mazda hatchback.