A reminder that Labour has a long history of not supporting women only services and the legacy is hurting women still

[IwantToRetire]

Much of the dialogue on FWR is the attack on women only services by trans ideology.

However long before this became dominant, women's services were being closed or amalgamated into generic services by funders / local councils who did not think women warrented special support.

Another tactic much favoured by Blairites was giving housing associations(*) the opportunity to expand their base of income (rents) by taking over women's refuges.

This news story illustrates how completely inappropriate that was and still is.

There are calls for all women's refuges to ban access by men following the abuse of a woman in Shropshire at the hands of a male worker.

After fleeing a violent ex-partner, the 21-year-old sought help from the Shropshire Domestic Violence service.

She was subject to repeated serious sexual assaults by Stephen Russell, who arranged accommodation and claimed to carry out maintenance for the refuge, which at the time was owned and managed by the Shropshire Housing Group.

Russell had full access to all parts of the refuge, including the woman's bedroom and her personal file.

^planetradio.co.uk/free/local/news/calls-for-womens-safe-spaces-to-be-male-free/^

There is a real danger that at the end of March councils will be looking at ways to make savings as they will have to cut budgets and women's services will be vulnerable. They have never been valued by politicians(^) and it is something that maybe we should all be keeping an eye out for, particularly if your local authority puts proposed cuts out to consultation, as even to the public at large women will come lower in priority to other vulnerable groups. Or to the expansion of the lowest form of support exempted / unregulated housing used by some councils committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/43346/html/

(*) I never understood why Blair thought Housing Associations were sufficienlty "community based" to be allowed to expand their work not only in running refuges, but also special needs housing, support etc.. It was partly this political decision that led to HAs becoming bloated corporate organisations that ceased to be a source of affordable housing. Although on that score Labour could have reversed the right to buy, or at least allowed Councils to use the money from the sale of housing stock in to create new council housing.

(^) It wasn't until Boris Johnson as Mayor of London gave money to fund 4 rape crisis centres in London, that rape crisis centres were recognised as being a service that authorities should support. And it wasn't until this year that there was funding for a National Rape Crisis Helpline, as the one run from south London Rape Crisis relied on funding from a trust. Such a political embarrassment that someone like Boris Johnson was more willing to support women than Labour ever had done.

I don't laugh at these posts. I've made some myself. The trans shitshow is happening now. Under and because of the Tory government. Women are suffering under and because of the Tory government.

The looney left are not running the country. And it is not loony left to call the government out on their disgusting treatment of women over the last 13 years.

I don’t have the time to RTFT today but I agreed with the excellent post by CrikeyO and others at the start and obviously over 13 years if the Tories had wanted they could have reversed what you have pointed out OP.

It’s not that women on here do nothing about the decline of women’s services. Some of the key recent legal actions in various women’s issues have gathered much of their crowd funding and support via this board for instance. I can’t say what other women are doing at grassroots level because we’re anonymous on here but I know it’s not nothing.

I would add that the Tories’ work to specifically dismantle public rights to judicial review of government decisions will have a significant reduction in what ordinary people can do to challenge government or public authority decisions which will severely hamper legal cases to preserve or extend women’s rights.

The Conservative David Davis MP has been warning of this against his own government: Be warned: this government is robbing you of your right to challenge the state: The bill designed to prevent government actions being reconsidered in the courts is un-conservative and undemocratic
amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/25/judicial-review-peoples-right-fight-government-destroy-courts-undemocratic
This shows how future cases brought against the state for justice against rapists like Worboys, against murderers and traffickers of women could all be threatened and not happen in the way that ordinary women have previously challenged injustice to women by this long Tory government.

And the Osborne-era Tory economic austerity since 2010 has savagely cut about 30% off central government money going to fund local authorities’ budgets. At a time when local authorities fund social care with a rapidly ageing population and public health was devolved to local authorities away from the NHS in the Tories’ NHS reforms and we have just had a global pandemic - all this has devastated funding for local services and local projects.

That loss of central government funding money to local authorities over the past decade plus has simply never been replaced or recovered from. So yes women have got much much poorer services available to them now. Under the Tories…

So I’m all for lobbying the Labour Party and the others to do much better than this. And great to make those points to this government if you think individuals in it might have the power to sway decisions. Who knows how long this government might go on for.

But overall electorally the Tories look like a lost cause for women if you look at their policies and the actual money they are willing to commit. We are right to be judging the Tories on their actual actions, that’s what being in government is and they have had plenty of time to show us who they care about.

I believe that until middle class leafy suburbs take their share of DV victims and other services helping the marginalised, we wont get anywhere.

It is very unfortunate that most women seeking shelter from DV are the ones with the least. This situation means that ideology can step in because the residents tend not to vote. Somewhat like prisons, try it there first and if any issues can be covered up (areas of the media are complicit). Labour has been trying the ideology root since its inception which is why it tends to be less successful - a talking shop, a student debating society, yes I supported Labour until becoming politically homeless. I am hoping that ideology will take a back row seat as local government et al take a look at gender ideology and its impact on women's services.

Sure Start was a superb idea and then, as always happens, the middle classes took over and those it was meant to support were pushed out, I believe Tories took the view that supporting the middle classes who could afford good child care was not a great idea.

I agree. It's the countries with 'progressive' leftish governments in control that have fallen really quickly. If Labour had been in power in England over the last six or seven years we would be Canada now.

This is what is making a lot of dyed-in-the-wool Labour voters like me back away from voting for them again. Here in Wales I'm with others who say that I would prefer the short-term pain of another five years of Tory rule to the loss of women's rights under a Labour government. It could take us another 50 years to get back the things we took for granted before gender ideology really took off. You only have to look at abortion in the US to see how precarious our rights are.

Bueller? Err...Starmer?

The source said: “We need to get back on track by pursuing things that matter to the people of Scotland, not pushing stuff that the public is vehemently opposed to."

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/02/15/nicola-sturgeon-brought-trans-row-snp-prepares-rip-gender-bill/

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