The SDP is alive and thriving — and it doesn't believe TWAW

[pattihews]

Is the SDP the party many of us have been looking for?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c8bb78e8-48c9-11ed-8b55-aaf85c581598?shareToken=ffbf0b3d664619ebd19a2a194c7c4458

I voted for them in the last election, but I live in possibly the safest Labour seat in the country so it doesn’t make any difference

Yes I don’t agree with all of their policies. But I think they are probably centrist enough for me to consider them a better protest vote than voting for an independent candidate which is where I’m currently heading.

Checked the list and I do have a candidate in my area. They are adding to the list in the run up to the GE with more representatives so worth keeping an eye.

Agree that some of their policies as mentioned are a bit unrealistic.

However, I went onto the site after looking at the Communist Party of Britain and The Communist Party of GREAT Britain, so in comparison it all felt quite sane and rational over at SDP!!

I wasn’t considering backing the commies by the way, just doing some researching. Interestingly, the CPGB are pushing for the backing of the Equality Act 2010 when to comes to sex based rights and are opposing the TWAW argument. Mainly because women’s equality and liberty is at the heart of communism so they don’t really have much choice. It goes to show that the gender ID movement doesn’t really have a sound political home.

After being disenchanted with the left for so long, and what with Greens having lost all grip and with the Tories so dire, I’m relieved to find an economically left leaning and socially right party that represents the British working class.

I’m going to stick with them for a while.

I’d vote for any party that said women are female. At this stage I don’t much care whether that party is far left or far right - I just want my rights to single sex spaces and am willing to join any party that makes the clear statement that sex is real and science matters and who listens to experts.

maybe we should have a mumsnet party?

I would vote for an SDP or a Communist candidate if one ever stood where I live. Otherwise, I have no idea. Definitely not Labour or LibDem or Green, unless maybe the candidate was sworn to defending women’s rights within the party.

There is a cataclysmic difference between SDP and Communist party though. They are built in very different values so you can’t be casually ‘either/or’ based on one or two policies.

Fist it’s important to define if you believe in capitalism. Then if equality of opportunity or equity of outcome is most important to you. Then you can start looking for your political home.

You have to know the answers to these important philosophical, social and economic questions first before looking at actual policies otherwise you could be voting for something you really do not want to vote for.

No, I don’t need to approach it that way. Maybe that’s the way you would approach it, but I don’t see whether capitalism is good or bad trumps ether sex is real. A society that pretends the earth is flat or gravity is optional or sex can be changed is not a society that will work economically. If you don’t get the basics, like reality, right then there is no way to build an economy or justice system or healthcare.

So, no, I’ll vote for any party that stands up for reality before a party that aligns with my social/economic/justice/immigration/environmental/social justice leanings.

if they won’t define me then I’m fucked by any passing policy.

That ^^

Go clean your own house, or give it a rest. Or read up on Lundy Bancroft and what such disparate double standards tend to indicate.

thankfully you don’t need to worry then as both those parties are opposed to TA so now that’s cleared up you can settle down to deciding capitalism vs communism.

First it’s important to define if you believe in capitalism. Then if equality of opportunity or equity of outcome is most important to you.

No, Mezmer. Those are your priorities, which is fair enough. But that doesn't mean anyone else has to prioritise the same way.

The erasure of women as a sex class is more important to me than either of those. The withdrawal of women's long-recognised right to single-sex spaces and services. The loss of our freedom of association. The imposition of a fantasy-based ideology with serious penalties for not pretending to believe in it.

Although I'm a socialist, these are more urgent and serious to me than any economic issue.

The policies of any party can change, and indeed do change all the time.

You may find you vote for a party based on the women’s rights vs trans rights policy and then find it’s been changed or conveniently forgotten once that party is in power.

yet the fundamental principles of a party - the underlying belief system - is thing that makes it what it is.

so, voting for a communist party on the single issue of sex based rights even though you don’t believe in the fundamental principles of communism is to me pretty reckless.

Reason being you may not even be recognised as an individual human being under communism - yet alone as a woman - if it indeed ends up going the way communism often goes.

It might not be like that under communism but that’s what needs to be analysed before jumping in with both feet.

Policies change, sex doesn’t.

it’s not an economic or structural issue for me, it is more fundamental.

a right wing party that won’t define sex as a class won’t address my sex based needs. A left wing party that won’t define me as a woman will not address my sex based needs. Same difference.

women at the extreme ends of politics have exactly the same sex based issues.

what is that saying? The left will put you in jail with a rapist, but the right will make you have his baby?

we can agree to disagree. You do you and I will continue to seek a party that will stand up for reality. My priorities are not yours, that’s democracy.

Interesting thread . I cast my first vote decades ago for an old Jewish Communist candidate in Tower Hamlets , called Solly Kay.

So of course I love being told I'm a right wing bigot by TRAs online. Just as much as I get a kick from being called antisemitic by Tories for supporting Corbyn.

Later on I mellowed a bit and canvassed for Labour in general elections. This gave me a jaundiced view of the SDP . A typical election result in the 80s looked like this :

Conservative 31, 000
Labour 29,000
SDP / Liberal 27, 000

The 80s taught me you can't have real democracy without PR : a minority party can win a stonking great majority. Now , I'm glad the SDP believe in reality. Of course they also believe in the magical 🧙‍♂️ 🌈 wonders of Brexit. But maybe that's a bit irrelevant now? Yet another mess for the next generation to clean up.

In a sane world where woman had those tiny few rights that we gained over millenia then yes maybe I would look at philosophical, social and economic questions, but now, when women are not to be spoken of or to, when we are locked up with men, when our sport is being dismantled, when we cannot even safely access rape counselling, then no. I am a proud one issue voter. I dont care if that makes me look a fool.
Very soon on the current trajectory we will have nothing, not words, not spaces, not sports, absolutely nothing. We cannot let this happen. If that means one or two parties only, say twanw then I will choose between the two, and if only one party says twanw then that is the party I will vote for, even if it makes no difference now.

Our lives hinge on this, hyperbole, maybe. But if we dont turn this supertanker around, we will soon find out if it really is hyperbole.

Stealth you are getting me all wrong. I am not here to debate with you - or anyone - but to have dialogue with you. I apologise, I guess my tone earlier up thread came across as telling you what to do, when I didn't mean it to do that at all.

I thought this looked like quite a nice thread to join in on and talk about parties that supported sex based rights. After all we agree on this whole-heartedly which is why I was quite pleased to have found a centre ground party that was willing to stand up to TWAW debate. In my view, the SDP means no one has to vote for an extreme party to get this nonsense out of the mainstream, unless they want to of course, which is their choice.

I have not disuputed sex based rights, democracy or anything. Quite the opposite.

I do wish people weren't so quick to assume the hostile position.

I am not saying you look like a fool. Just wanted to clear that up for a start. My worry is that if everyone voted for the Communist Party as a protest vote then we'd have a lot more to worry about then pronounds and preserving sex based spaces. To the left, the woman's body is public property, to the right it's private property. It may be that you are recognised as a woman, but with that comes a heavy price in many other ways.

There is a lot going on and nothing happens in isolation. I just think be careful with placing an extreme vote based on a protest.

Yes I wouldn’t vote for an extreme party because they support womens rights. But I would consider voting for a centrist party if they support womens rights - on either side of the spectrum

I was talking about voting sdp. I've never seen the communist party be an option to vote for and I've lived a lot of places.