Telegraph - Keir Starmer: Pro-trans laws are needed across UK

[ResisterRex]

At first glance, just (just!!) a rehash of his video from last year. Which said what it said. But there's this:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/12/23/keir-starmer-pro-trans-laws-needed-across-uk/

"Asked by The Telegraph about the leader’s comments to Pink News, Labour confirmed that he stood by plans to reform the GRA.

A party spokesman said: “All political parties agree that the process needs modernising. A future Labour government will consult on what that looks like, while upholding the Equality Act and maintaining single-sex spaces.
“Labour has a strong and proud record of standing up for women’s rights. Our commitment to them is unrelenting.”
Trans rights have become a key electoral battleground in the USS_ and are expected to be similarly important in the UK at the next general election."

Do all political parties agree the GRA needs updating? The Tories just made it easier to get a GRC, and they've not said they plan to do more.

Once again the "maintaining single sex spaces" rhetoric. But next to the Haldane judgement? Come on.

What's surprising is that the trans lobby would ever even have considered working with the Tories on anything at all. Given how evil they are, it would overall have been much purer to have waited for saintly Labour to arrive.

In the real world, they don't care about who they collaborate with, so long as they get to remove women's rights and child (and public) protection measures. Also in the real world, it was stupid to have advanced this under the rule of a political party which is famed for being a broad church and championing free speech.

Now more and more of the public know what their aims are, and it's spilling out. It can't be contained. This isn't the Dentons way - for a reason.

I would also say that while this is low priority for many and seems less urgent than economic issues, there is an increasing population of people - parents mostly but also some grandparents, aunts, etc - for whom it is increasingly immediate and personal.

More and more families are having it affect them directly, or they are seeing it in schools and stuff. And while they may not see it is the same light as economic issues, there is a real whiff of danger about it. It seems like a cult once you've been exposed to that. And my feeling is that for people who might have a non-enthusiastic relation to all available voting options, that whiff might have more effect than people realize it will.

To try and be even handed here, Sunak has only said he will look at the Scottish change in the law.

There is no commitment to change it back at all.

I listened to Sunaks interview on it, he was very half hearted on the issue, which he shouldn't be.

Only Sunak can change things now, not Starmer.

I tend not to believe everything i read on SM least of all on Twatter, i wonder how many of those comments made by Labour MPs are actually accurate, let alone taken in context, they seem bizarre.

I don't know any Labour support (in my circle they are mainly women) who skip past Labour & trans issues but i do know many Tories on here who skip past the govt's record on womens rights.

The reason it will be a vote loser for labour is not because people care about women's rights,- they don't. But because when KS is asked to define a woman, which he will be at every bloody interview he will not be able to answer and will look like a shifty, nervous imbecile. God a man lost an election on the strength of a bacon sarnie.

a shifty, nervous imbecile

Yes, I agree entirely with that.

Which I suppose is why Boris avoided doing interviews for so long.

I'm pretty committed to women's rights, and I can still see the issue with politicians who are willing to mouth absurdities. Anyone willing to trot out blatant untruths is revealing themself as someone who can't be trusted.

This is perhaps where politicians get it very wrong. They calculate that women's rights are not something most people gaf about. That's correct.

They misunderstand that being unwilling to say clearly that there are two sexes, and that one can't change sex, and that only women are female, exposes either a willingness to acquiesce to an ideology and mouth absurdities, or mental instability.

'Formerly there were those who said: You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is injust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. If the God‐given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God‐given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well. And from this derives all those crimes of religion which have overrun the world.'

Voltaire

I think Boris generally came off quite differently than Kier, even when he seemed flustered.

It's maybe a problem that if he really rubs you the wrong way, you can't see it, but Boris had a charisma that KS just doesn't. It's one of those things that's hard to credit but nevertheless seems true.

Well said, @postcardpuffin.

This 100%

it’s not the women’s rights aspect, it’s the inability to state with confidence that which everyone knew until 5 minutes ago - there are only 2 sexes

“keir starmer doesn’t know what a woman us - why would you let him run the country?” That’s what the media will do

Apparently Boris does know what a woman is (perhaps because he has had so many?) and therefore he is clearly excellently qualified to run a country.

As Rishi ever said he knows what a woman is? He knows it is ok for him to break the law while in government and lie about it.
I don't think Liz Truss ever did, probably why she made such a mess of things

Sunak said he would ensure women had access to same-sex spaces.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/27/rishi-sunak-sexual-violence-against-women-girls-national-emergency/

"He said he would also ensure all survivors of sexual violence have access to same-sex spaces."

IIRC he once didn't get it in an interview then it changed during the leadership elections. I suspected at the time that someone on his team brought him up to speed sharpish. He could have ignored it or waffled on about gender, but he didn't. And he's become more bold about it since the summer eg that Sky News interview.

@ResisterRex

Over 50% of women wanting a DV refuge are turned away right now, lack of spaces.
NHS cannot offer women, female staff for those who want them.

He talks as if his party has just come into office.

T.May said she would vote against the Govt because they are wanting to water down modern slavery definitions and protections, this will endanger women.

Talk is cheap.

Feel free to write to him then. May was behind self-ID. The NHS has forged ahead with Annex B and pushed mixed sex wards, while hiring all manner of very very well-paid "diversity" roles.

The country won't magically have more money under Labour and they will push more and more of this agenda.

I think it would've been much easier for the Tories to have ignored concerns about this shadowy movement - especially as a fair few of their own were in thrall to it. But they didn't. They had a debate, welcomed views and they did change their minds and now they might ensure Scotland can't act ultra vires and legislate for the whole of the UK. That happens to be in this area but again, they could've ignored it AND the myriad problems it would bring.

In fact, they could do that, knowing Labour seem to be on course to win and really throw us under the bus. They could then complain from the opposition benches about how terrible it all is, having let the S35 opportunity go by on purpose.

I'm not a Tory. I'm politically homeless like so many here. I was always left leaning. But I never understand why there are SO MANY excuses made for the left and so many "maybe Starmer is just saying nothing and then he'll fix it" type posts.

Wake up. What happened in Canada, Australia, the States, is now very very close to happening here.

Once we lose our rights it could take 100 years to get them back. I am not willing to sit back and do nothing while that happens.

Exactly @ResisterRex the responses on here do nothing to encourage me to vote Labour

if that is the level of debate going on in the Labour Party about women’s rights it’s no winder they’re all for self ID

so many "maybe Starmer is just saying nothing and then he'll fix it" type posts.
No I don't believe that. I have no faith whatsoever in these sensitive, behind-closed-doors talks I keep hearing about, nor in this secret army of gender critical Labour MPs. But what I can believe is the idea that Starmer is under siege from inside his own party. He wouldn't be the first leader to come a cropper because of warring internal factions and he wouldn't be the last. And I don't particularly want him to be brought down because, however exasperated I might get with him, I'd still prefer him as leader to Angela Rayner.

@ResisterRex

You were praising up Sunak?

I pointed out that his talk on women only spaces is BS, he could fund DV refuges very easily, right now but will not

But you re right, it took decades to acknowledge DV & rape in marriage but as we can see in recent years, we are going backwards and it will take many years to undo the damage Austerity & the Cons has given us.

I will pass judgement and my vote, on what i see the Tories do right now, whilst in power and what is in Labours manifesto.

I was not "praising up" Sunak. I was saying he didn't get it (in fact, it might even have been an MNHQ interview?) and then he seemed to change his mind.

Yes they could fund refuges etc. I'm not saying different. I'm just saying it all needs looking at closely. Also it does seem like Scotland is a warning in terms of state funding! It can go so wrong.

I think all liberal democracies and all politically liberal parties (included the conservatives) will get to where Keir Stamer and Nicola Sturgeon are on this issue. It’s inbuilt into the broad belief system that liberal democracies follow, it’s not unusual for the Tories to be 10 years or so behind labour on social issues and reach the same conclusion later.

It is not a coincidence that it’s only the liberal democracies of the world making these changes to their laws. Counties that are democracies but not liberal once’s such as Hungary or Poland in central and Eastern Europe or countries such as Malaysia or Singapore in Asia aren’t making these changes, it’s just in the liberal West. That’s not a coincidence and there seems to me to be a very obvious reason for that.

In liberalism the rights of the individual are paramount. Rights are granted to individuals not classes. Liberalism says that if possible people should be free from constraints and limitations and responsibilities except for those that they choose for themselves. It’s not surprising to me that a liberal society would eventually reach the point where it would seek to free people from the constraints of their individual sex or gender by giving people the legal right to choose which gender they were in law, in fact it seems like the next logical step after other socially conservative constraints that once existed were abolished and people were liberated from those first.

The centre left parties seem to be further down the same track on social issues than the centre right do, but the centre right do seem to be on the same track so to speak and seem to usually end up at the same place. The only parties that I don’t think will ever go there are communists and far right parties as they’re obviously not liberal and don’t have a liberal ideology and parties that are very nationalistic or parties that were founded to return to the faith based socially conservative traditions of the past such as the Scottish family party.

There was never going to be a point where liberalism just stopped because it has no logical end point. The question is not if liberal democracies in the future will allow self ID (I’m sure they will) the same question I ask is will the future be liberal?

Sweden and Italy now have their most right wing governments since world war 2. In the USA an illiberal hard right faction is slowly taking over the Republican Party. I expect the VOX party to be in government in Spain by this time next year. Even in Scotland which just passed this legislation groups like the Scottish family party are growing. Hungary’s leader now openly says he doesn’t want his country to be a liberal democracy but rather be an illiberal one.

Maybe the tide is turning but not in the way people think? I’ve been following these boards for ages now but just wanted to give my thoughts and hear what others think.

Very interesting post Westerty88. I have no idea where this is all going to end up.

It’s an interesting take but I think women saying no is a counter effect

It is an interesting way to look at it. I wonder if the UK will become "isolated" and then, once the dangers have come true, we are seen as a not-bad way to do things. But that's if we keep the GRA and there's a school of thought that says we may not because of how things are working out (TRAs going too far, leading to a backlash).

I'm not sure we will repeal the GRA. But if there's another Tory government then bits of it might be changed and then we'd see what happened from there.

If there's a Labour government, they'll face a tough time in the Lords if they try to bring in "gender identity". The Lords are a protection against the worst excesses of any government. Currently, the Tories are having to bring a separate Bill on protests as previous measures under another, much broader Bill, failed in the Lords. Part of what the Lords said was that the proposals were so "big", they should be in their own Bill - if at all.

If Labour get in and its by no means a certainty, the list of issues they will face are going to be huge.

I doubt very much they will have time to change the GRA but again, the Tories have had over 12.5 years to change/repeal it and they have not.
Your faith in the Tories changing the GRA is touching, if anything, we will go Scotlands way & before the next GE :(

The collapse of the DV refuges and rape charges/convictions are of much bigger concern, they are real and effect people day to day, TWAW don't, however much you want them too, it is not, as they say, a cut through issue.

Then there is cost of living.

I'm not sure I think these western countries are so in thrall to individualist liberalism. Certainly there are elements of radical individualism, but they are not the only thing and may not be dominant.

Mainly because they are right now, particularly on the left, in thrall to identity politics, which is all about things like group rights.

In the UK I think maybe this is a little muted, or at least in England. It's not in places like the US or Canada or NZ or Australia, where you have people seriously talking about instantiating group rights. Things that are under discussion include whether we can encode affirmative action targets and racial quotas, in some places groups of indigenous people have separate sets of rights to descendants of settlers, here in Canada if you are black and get arrested you might be entitled to two phone calls rather than one, on account of being from an historically oppressed group - even if you are a middle class kid and the white guy in the cell next to you grew up in care.

The claims of gender ideology do to some degree rest on claiming the rights of individuals to define their own reality. But they also rest on the claim of belonging to a group with its own special set of rights.