Labour's Ben Bradshaw on the attack

[CysticMeg]

twitter.com/BenPBradshaw/status/1607991584234115072?t=cBmrw2vp-ik9Q-5oSqyJow&s=19

So disappointed to read this tweet and the very clear direction of his follow up.

Interesting to read the overwhelmingly challenging replies though, with so many people feeling able to state their concerns. Another demonstration of the own goal nature of the Scottish ruling?

So mystifying to see see a gay man who is otherwise open to listening (or who has given that impression over his career) be so absolutely defiantly resistant to acknowledging the concerns of female constituents.

Depressing to think that surrounded by Tories in the SW, Labour are prepared to do nothing to listen in an effort to represent and engage with their electorate.

Yes @nilsmousehammer sexism at the root. Infuriating!

I think that this is one of the best replies to Bradshaw:

Flynnsmum1
Replying to
Ben Bradshaw

What excites you the most about female prisoners being housed with violent male sexual predators? What gets you going the most? Is it the fact they can’t run or the fact they’ll get their sentence increased for complaining?

CysticMeg

I wonder if he's read and reflected at all.

If so, he'll be weeping and wailing that someone has set all the Terfy transphobes onto him and how unfair it all is. The massive prat.

To the point, but upsetting too!

I just can't imagine being so pig headed and so fixated on you're own righteousness to have no cause to pause and reflect and wonder if any of these disparate repliers have a point...

BB was previously known for his listening, engaging, integrity (low expenses etc), genuine community work...why go so hard in the other direction?

You must let any male in whenever he demands but at the same time, any woman that doesn't keep herself pure will be shamed as a slut. All perfectly logical and no double standards at work

BB was previously known for his listening, engaging, integrity (low expenses etc), genuine community work...why go so hard in the other direction?

As a former constituent of Mr Bradshaw's I'm so so disappointed @CysticMeg for exactly the reasons you give. And so so exhausted that we have to keep fighting this battle for the basic definition of what it is to be a woman (and also to be same-sex attracted).

Yep, Self ID was Tory policy, drawn up by Caroline Noakes, announced by Theresa May and rammed down our throat and into legistlation by Penny Mordaunt amongst others.

I do wonder how all these people who believe anyone is a man or a women regardless of what their dna says, think they were born.

Presumably if they wanted to use a sperm donor or donor eggs then they'd want these to come from a biological women for the eggs and a biological man for the sperm? Biology would matter then.

CysticMeg

To the point, but upsetting too!

It is, it gives me the fucking rage. We're none of these hidebound morons bullied at school? It's bad enough to be pinned in a secluded corner, but the bell comes for lessons and home time, eventually.

The poor women in prison will never get that and they have no chance against grown men.

Toilets, changing rooms and sport are all bad, but fucking prisons. It's making me angrier and angrier.

Yep, Self ID was Tory policy, drawn up by Caroline Noakes, announced by Theresa May and rammed down our throat and into legistlation by Penny Mordaunt amongst others.

If I remember rightly the irony (much worse than that of course) was it was instigated by the then Women and Equalities Committee who chose to prioritise who was more important by consulting with the LGBTQI+ community to help form the proposed reforms.

Yes. The other things are disgusting, but there is an element of choice.

In prison you're talking about women who cannot fucking escape.

Sex offenders are being given access to vulnerable, incarcerated women as part of their fucking sentence. This is the fact of it.

And women, over 60% of whom will already have head injuries due to previous abuse, are being forcibly housed with rapists, as part of their sentence.

The out and out misogyny involved in the difference in these two scenarios, is positively inhumane.

It's so disgusting, that I find it incomprehensible.

How do we get this properly, truly acknowledged?

Sex offenders are being given access to vulnerable, incarcerated women as part of their fucking sentence. This is the fact of it.

This.

It is being viewed as a human right of males to be provided with the bodies of females. And let's be honest about this, it is bodies. No other part of those females is of any interest: no one cares about their thoughts, feelings, identity, intersectionalities, consent - it is merely forced provision of their physical self.

Let that sink in.

Men have apparently a human right to be provided with the non consenting bodies of females if they speak unto the right words and go down the right legal paths.

Where the actual fuck is this in any international law?

When did this get put to the electorate?

And how the fuck can any idiot recognise the truth of this and still repeat the lie that binary sex is not absolutely fundamental to this?

By sheer accident of biological birth, some of us are walking therapy aids (and sex aids in the case of sex offenders) while others are the entitled owners of such provision.

And for those still wibbling on the 'but I don't want to look at the nasty bits because it doesn't make me feel nice, and surely you're exaggerating' fence, look at your daughters. Look at the little girls passing in the street.

And reflect that this is happening with self ID not yet dry on the paper and absolutely not a fixed thing in Scotland, and doesn't exist in England yet at all.

Wtf do you think is coming as the next steps for those who believe that female prisoners are just therapeutic aids for their betters if this is permitted to roll on? What do you plan to say to those girls?

A muddle of laziness and good intentions, sentimentality and unwillingness to face up to unpleasantness has caused the body count of women harmed so far - and those women's names would take a hell of a lot longer to read than the names of TQ+ people actually physically harmed and injured this year. Politicians have to start owning this, if you are not standing up to it then you are enabling it and you do hold responsibility.

I wish people like Ben, who right such firm statements on Twitter would at least acknowledge and engage with the replies.

It's perturbing and frustrating to just shout into the void...

Well that's the $64,000 question. There doesn't appear to be any kind of magic key. You'd think the very fact of it would be enough. But it clearly isn't.

Comments like that on Twitter are effective.

",What excites you the most about female prisoners being housed with violent male sexual predators? What gets you going the most? Is it the fact they can’t run or the fact they’ll get their sentence increased for complaining?"

The poster is picking the shit up that Bradshaw is agreeing to, and rubbing it all over his face.

And while of course, there will be people who don't give a flying fuck, other people, will be noticing.

And keep on doing what we're doing. And supporting KPSS, of course. It's their entire focus.

Thank you all for your posts this situation is absolutely nightmarish. I really hope that those women prisoners affected will hand together and take this Tory government to court for allowing this to happen in breach of their human rights- because it’s entirely happened on the Tories’ watch. Worth remembering for everyone planning to vote Tory because you believe that they ‘know what a woman is’. Utter horseshit.

This is the same Tory party that wants to remove the Human Rights Act that Labour brought in, which these prisoners could use to get redress.

But then for that legal case to ever happen those women would need good advice, resources, time, money and be willing to be publicly known as a ex-prisoner or a current prisoner and to have some faith in the legal system. which I’d imagine in their situation is by definition almost practically impossible. So their vulnerabilities are compounded.

So we’re back to continuing to lobby the present government who so far as I know haven’t acted on this, despite Rishi Sunak‘ knowing what a woman is’, but I would be very happy to be wrong on that.

And no I don’t have any party to vote for on this issue but I can see what the Tories have done to women in this country both inside and outside of prisons.

Yes, I feel like I need to be brave enough to make this my hill. To join in KPSS and start going public.

I really, really want to know if Ben Bradshaw has read the replies. How could you not see that ratio and be led to ponder, just a little bit...

I can see what the Tories have done to women in this country both inside and outside of prisons.

Yes. Absolutely.

Sadly however, all the other parties would do the exact same, just faster and with a lot more enthusiasm.

Frankly we have a lot more chance of getting the Tories to develop some morality and social conscience than we have of getting Labour et al to develop some sanity. But yes, it leaves women selecting not a party that they actually wish to support, but the least worst option out of a range of bloody awful ones.

I have never been so politically homeless.

For me this is the problem with say the petition to change the wording of the EA.

It is already clear under the EA that there are circumstances where single sex provision for women based on sex is needed and legal. (Did you know that the EA even specifically mentions that survivors of rape don NOT have to accept TW)

We need to be campaigning loudly and clearly that first of all single sex provision is legal, and secondly make sure that all the services and institutions (such as prisons) are included in it.

But at the moment not just politicians, but funders and the legal profession are somehow able to disregard this legal realilty.

I think in terms of fundraising for legal cases it would be much more worthwhile for a high court challenge to those who are breaking the law.

And why Sarah's court case will be so important, because if a provider and their funders can say no we can operate and ignore women's rights outline in the law, what is the point of having it as a legal right?

I think it's pretty likely that the Tories will address the prison issue. We know it's on their radar.

It's not always possible for the ruling political party to directly tell bodies within the government what to do. I know that seems a bit odd on the face of it, but there are layers of political direction, and some parts of the state are deliberately insulated from being directly run by elected politicians. There are also people within these different layers of the state who have their own mandate to make decisions, and these people and groups sometimes may oppose the direction elected officials want to take. I think we can all see why this could be important in some scenarios, in fact we might be better off if they had done this with reference to gender ideology.

If another party was in tomorrow, I think we could count on them reversing any movement in that direction. I know it's maddening, but that's how it is at the moment.

MangyInseam - I see what you are saying about how adminstrative systems can mean there is slippage in intention. But that is why I said there needs to be a legal challenge that make it clear the framework in which Government departments can implement decisions re for instance prison services.

I don’t want to argue with anyone because we can all vote (or not) according to our conscience in the UK thank god, but if the Tories had any inkling of a social conscience we wouldn’t be seeing the proliferation of food banks and warm banks that are a feature of every part of Britain at the moment.
Its easy for politicians or anyone who lives in a naice area not to see or understand how absolutely devastating poverty is particularly at the moment.

The Tories have already addressed the prison issues. They said that men will not be housed in female prisons except for when exceptions are made and they are put into women's prison.

Oh and they have appointed Jamie Wallis MP to Women's and Equalities. The minute he rocks up to work in his best Thatcher outfit (I don't think he'll wear his leather mini skirt but you never know) and walks into the Ladies toilets, it's all over. We won't have any rights left.

The Tories have destroyed the lives of women in the UK.

A quick look at the ECHR flags up to me:

ARTICLE 3
Prohibition of torture
No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

ARTICLE 5
Right to liberty and security

1. Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.

(wrt security of person which is not guaranteed if you are women locked up together with men)

ARTICLE 14
Prohibition of discrimination
The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.

How can it be that the public bodies or authorities who are ultimately answerable to the government and who are duty bound act within the law would be able to resist the government pointing out that by housing men in with women they could be in breach of the Human rights Act and the Equality Act? It seems plain as day.
Then bring a case so if those bodies and authorities want to continue putting men in women’s cells they will have to justify it in court.

My personal suspicion is the government don’t want to do this because they don’t want to acknowledge any utility in the Human Rights Act because they have said they want to get rid of it, because it’s being used to successfully challenge government decisions. That is more important to the government than the interests and safety of women prisoners. I would really love to be proved wrong by the Tories doing something about this issue but they have known about it for years and been told about it for years and done nothing.

The Karen white case made national news over four years ago. That showed that White was not in a unique situation and this practice of men in women’s prison estate predated White’s offences.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-45825838.amp

i think we have to wonder why hasn’t anything been done yet?