Angela Raynor in the Sunday Times - There has to be some movement that is compassionate and in line with our British values

[IwantToRetire]

She can probably guess, I suggest, the contentious issue on which we may disagree. She looks blank. “I have no idea.”

Is Isla Bryson a woman? “The recent case?” Looking slightly thrown, she starts talking about guidelines, processes, safeguards, circumstances. “So from what I know about the case, I would not have been putting that person in a women-only prison.” But that wasn’t the question, so I ask again.

“Well, that person’s identifying as a woman now. But they’re right at the beginning of a transition — that they believe is right for them, however, and that’s fine. We respect that. That doesn’t mean to say by respecting it you instantly say, OK, well, that person then goes into a vulnerable space.”

The Bryson case is important because it exposes the logical implications of allowing a person’s legal gender, irrespective of biology, to be a matter for them simply to decide for themselves. I want to be reassured that Rayner has really thought this through. But she doesn’t seem to have interrogated her own position on this issue very thoroughly at all, and looks increasingly confused when I try to.

“I think people just want to see the human side of being compassionate for people, but also seek that reassurance around safe spaces. I don’t think those two things are incompatible. There has to be some movement that is compassionate and in line with our British values.”

She repeats this “our British values” line more than once, making me wonder if this will be Labour’s new soundbite in the debate on trans rights, but never explains how these values might reassure all the left-leaning women who tell me they can’t vote for a party that won’t even define what a woman is. I can only think Starmer has calculated that he can afford to lose their votes. Has Labour, I ask, at least conducted private polling to find out exactly how many they are risking?

The suggestion seems to surprise her. “I don’t know.”

Bits from quite a long article in today's Sunday Times www.thetimes.co.uk/article/angela-rayner-i-overshare-keir-starmer-undershares-nwvxx97xh

(f you paste this link into the box on archive.ph you will find the whole article there.)

I am a member of the Labour Party. I won't be voting for them at the next general election. I despair.

If they will life about something as blatantly obvious as this, how can we trust them to get anything right? How anyone stupid enough to talk like this to a journalist be trusted with affairs of state?

There’s a thread on this already

I don’t trust Labour and won’t vote for them despite historically being Labour voter all my life

There’s a thread on this already

I did look but couldn't see anything.

Do you have the link?

Unfortunately the Labour Party always seem to have to have someone of this calibre as the deputy (think John Prescott). It appeases a part of the membership. However, it is all well and good for Starmer to say how the Labour Party has changed, when in reality it hasn't. All the same people are there and Corbyn hasn't even been kicked out.

They need to try harder

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4745805-rayner-on-the-isla-bryson-case

this is probably the one you want

This

In 1997 Worcester woman were key.

Rayner was clumsy today.

But clumsy because she knows she can't defend her previous position (and we can only assume its still her current position)

I dont actually care what Labour MPs think personally.

I only care what they will do if they are in charge.

re the other link, it intersting how those who start threads think what will get attention. I saw that one and just passed over it.

For me the ineresting part was the one I (obviously) highlighted in my title. The idea that somehow what the Labour party is doing is based on British values, and that AR would think this is something a journalist would buy into. (What do British Values even mean?)

But going back to titles of threads, I think that FWR can become an echo chamber, or rather it / we assume we are just talking to a group of friends.

In the back of my mind is the fact the FWR is tracked online (usually for the wrong reasons) but that means it has influence. So just linking two names together, who for 99% of the population will have no recognition factor, doesn't really indicate much.

But back to the interview.

Apart from the daft comment about British Values, I find it really hard to understand given AR's own history, how she doesn't see (or want to admit) the need for women's sex based rights, because of the entrenched discrimination women experience because of their sex!

And how as a politician she wouldn't be aware that in giving an interview to someone from the Times, she would almost inevitably be asked about trans rights vs. women's rights.