Sheffield Central Labour Candidate - Abtisam Mohamed vs Eddie Izzard

[fromorbit]

If you are based in Sheffield please lend your support to Abtisam Mohamed a strong local woman candidate, a solicitor of Yemeni descent and longstanding Labour Councillor who has done valuable local work for the community including on nurseries. Sheffield Central is a safe Labour seat so whoever is selected is going to Parliament. Eddie Izzard has also launched a campaign but besides being a celebrity, has more glitz than steel, hasn't lived in Sheffield since being a student, plus as we all know is unclear about who they are.

Mohamed has an inspiring story, worked her way up to get a great career going and is focused on getting practical stuff done. She will make a great MP.

Abtisam Mohamed interview
www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/sheffield-councillor-launches-her-bid-to-become-a-city-mp-3871921

Abtisam Mohamed Campaign page including a great video lots on her local concerns for the city:
abtisammohamed.com/

In contrast Izzard's campaign, getting loads of press coverage, is thin on detail:
www.eddieizzard.uk/

The local paper talked to people who questioned Izzard's chance of winning a few months back:

"In contrast, Jane Armstrong questioned her claim to run in the city.

She wrote: “I had heard this for a while and if she is fancying Central I know a lot of Labour members in that area who are really hostile to having her as a candidate. Not because she isn't nice person, but because people do not like celebrities being parachuted into wards above local candidates."
www.thestar.co.uk/news/politics/eddie-izzard-sheffield-readers-share-their-thoughts-on-comedians-bid-to-be-city-centrals-next-mp-3821984?itm_source=parsely-api

Apparently several other councillors may be standing as well so it should be an interesting contest.

I am not sure when the cut off point if you join Labour locally you will get to vote on who the candidate is. The actual contest has not yet begun yet but if I were local I would be signing up.

@mauvish The photo of EI shows him on the coast, and there's no coast in Sheffield!

It's global warming dontch know? The sea has come in as far as Sheffield Station.
I'm surprised the Greens aren't all over that.🤔

Izzard very much dodging the question again. However the fact that Izzard sees Rosie as an actual member of the party, he is willing to put up with despite disagreements shows a gulf between him and other TRAs.

Remember Labour TRAs recently attempted to get her to lose the whip again utterly failed:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4664759-young-labour-etc-demand-rosie-duffield-lose-whip

No wonder Owen Jones won't back him. Eddie really doesn't understand the social activist mindset - he has the jargon, but not the pure zealotry yet. He was already semi cancelled for not not demanding Rowling was burned.

Meanwhile Glosswitch has just written an excellent article looking at the 60 year old Izzard's weird ideas about the 21st century and the power of older women. Worth reading:
archive.ph/ZWD8S

Rosie retweeted it.
twitter.com/RosieDuffield1/status/1590647067248308226

Short list announced. Only 4 left in the race:

Jayne Dunn
Abtisam Mohamed
Eddie Izzard
Rizwana Lala

Paul Mason and Mike Buckley are both out. Not sure why Izzard was included over Buckley both had 1 endorsement from a branch and similar levels of affiliated organisation support.

Final votes to be taken by party members and affilates by early December. So another 3 weeks or so to go.

It seems likely final winner will be Abtisam or Rizwana.

Bad he's got this far, seriously labour should be so ahead and they pull shit like this.

Should have had a picture in Sheffield's Megatron, located under the station. 🙄

So true. There are some great candidates, it's what makes EI sweeping in so frustrating, these people have been working incredibly hard and doing some amazing things in Sheffield for years. I'm fairly sure Abtisam will win, but we'll see.

I do wonder what Eddie's next move will be - he was very focused on a career in politics, I have heard him say so many times in interviews, he's been planning and looking forward to this for decades.

It must be very disheartening to have fallen at the first hurdle, so to speak. I wonder if this will cause a moment of reflection for Eddie and the Labour Party in general?

Maybe dismissing concerns of women isn't a good look after all?

Also, I am not entirely sure Eddie has, even managed to reassure trans women or allies that he would be a good representative.

What is he claiming to be, exactly? Trans women, by their very definition, don't have 'boy mode'. So is Eddie trans? Is that what trans means? And if that means trans women can have an element of 'boy mode', how does that work with including them in our spaces, then? Even the most supportive of women happy to allow trans women alongside them in vulnerable scenarios might hesitate if Eddie is representing trans women as actually having a 'boy mode' as well?

It's confusing.

'It's confusing'

To be honest, I think he's just a pisstaker and a chancer, who is openly trying to have his cake and eat it. He's jumping on this particular bandwagon and is trying to claim that he 'came out as transgender' 30 years ago. I think he knows perfectly well that he's a man, who likes to wear stereotypically feminine things, and that most people are fine with that, it's been done before a million times. It's just not attention-grabbing enough anymore, so he's had to embellish the story for extra headlines. He's incredibly tiresome

He's a self confessed transvestite who is adopting gender ideology as he sees it as advantageous. All the woke points of being trans, but back to non trans for lucrative film roles.

Unfortunately, blithely switching 'trans' on and off to suit your lifestyle doesn't tally with the official line of the terrible suffering of being 'born in the wrong body.'

He's blowing a hole in the narrative and everyone can see it.

None of the 'ideology' stands up does it. As soon as you examine it it becomes apparent it's two things, both sides of the same toxic coin.

Men wanting to do what they want without any checks or boundaries. Hey guys, if you're trans you can enter any single sex space you like, gain acclaim, awards, election as an MP, have sex with lesbians, plead in mitigation of crimes, work in a children's charity.

For men it's a golden ticket isn't it. And you don't even have to cut your cock off. Grow some breasts if you fancy but a bit of part time sparkly nail polish will do it.

For women, not so much. They'll are desperate to escape sexism and misogny. Hey girls, if you're trans you can break free of the patriarchy. Sorry, short hair, and wearing a suit on Tuesdays isn't enough. You'll have to cut off your breasts and take drugs which will make you infertile.

I feel so sick and angry thinking about it.

@criticalcondition too true.

You never see men identifying as trans because they are keen to do more of the housework amd picking up the kids, be paid less, overlooked for promotion and talked over in meetings, and cos they really love endometriosis!

Abtisam Mohamed put out a tweet yesterday on "Transgender Day of Remembrance" with some pretty vague statistics saying that "crimes against transgender people saw the biggest rise, with 4,355 reports, up 56% from the previous year."

I'm assuming she means reports of non-crime hate incidents which by definition are not crimes. But she does not say where the stats have come from so who knows?

twitter.com/Abtisam_Mohamed/status/1594375049594736646

Yes, the men are eagerly embracing something they want and the women are desperately trying to escape a situation they don't want - largely generated by males in the first place.

It's a woman hating ideology from start to finish.

Well she's a bit shoehorned into this isn't she if she's still competing against Izzard.

I do wonder if Izzard is a bit puzzled by all the boring paperwork and processes and committees and procedures required to get your name on a ballot paper. I wouldn't be surprised if Izzard thought he just need to declare interest in politics, talk about Izzardself on the telly a bit, and then the hard bit: deciding whether Scarlet Harlot or Flame Blush are the best shades of lipstick with the red rosette.

Shoehorned into conflating crime with non-crime? It's hard to know what she thinks from that tweet. And if she's saying things she doesn't mean just to get the votes that's not great is it? Having said that, she's clearly a better option for local people than EI.

twitter.com/EddieIzzardLab/status/1594420500402413571?t=k_7x_2KlV9GoOo34C_G59Q&s=19

the ratio on this tweet is nice!

Vote for me cos I'm famous!

Where are all his supporters?

Why aren't they supporting him on twitter? It is literally pretty much unanimous.

Do you think the Labour Party actually understands what a disaster it would be?

'integrity'

Great reply on that Twitter thread:
"It's a southerner in northerner mode" 😂.

(Could that poster be - - - a Mumsnetter??)

According to Izzard he came third in a bunch of the local votes in branches. The sympathy vote for minority identities is a thing in leftist circles. Obviously Izzard does have positive qualities, his fame is impressive, he is engaging, he just is bad at making his case in local terms - he just isn't that good at politics. Part of that is his negative self obsession - he isn't someone like Boris who can be egotistical and easily make people feel he is for them at the same time. Non local candidates with good qualities/tactics have won over local parties before.

Abitsam's Post on Trans Rights

Remember most of us on this board used to be supporters of genderism to some degree. It is incredibly seductive. It is particularly attractive to left leaning women. We can argue about why, but it clearly is.

As a Asian Muslim women she will have a suffered abuse online etc plenty of times. Naturally this makes her sympathetic to appeals to support other victims of abuse. It also will make her defensive about people challenging her:

This is her thread about what she has gone through:
twitter.com/Abtisam_Mohamed/status/1588182376043233285

Let us not pretend she doesn't care about women. She has worked with women suffering from domestic abuse:
twitter.com/Abtisam_Mohamed/status/1589712937551134720

Sadly I suspect some of the approach of gender crits online will have alienated her. I saw a bunch of tweets on her page demanding she stand up for women's rights openly etc. Of course we have a right to ask that, BUT we also have to recognise the tortuous difficulty there is in escaping groupthink. It can take years, it can take a moment.

Many of us who have swapped sides are angry - our past mistakes seems so clear now we can be uncompromising in demanding people listen and swap to our side. Others who saw through this from the start are even more upset because they have been fighting so long. When you are online you naturally might be more strident as well. The reality is most people are naturally going to try to find a compromise. They are potentially going to get defensive if we get too forceful in demanding they listen to us and agree with everything right now.

We need to be uncompromising, AND also make our case in a way which is sympathetic and understand why most people do not realise what is going on. Ultimately genderism is part of a wider system of oppression, most people might be more concerned with everyday economic hardship, sexism and racism.

It is very difficult to take a stand against genderism in public - which is why we need to support those who do and push others to change - but recognise for most it will be a slow gradual realisation.

Good post @fromorbit

They are official hate crime figures issued by the police - in other words genuine crimes where hate of a particular group was a motivating factor:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63157965

Despite the largest percentage increase being in hate crimes against trans people, the actual numbers are very small - and are completely dwarfed by hate crimes motivated by racism at 109,000, and even disability at 14,000.