Labour ‘must fix its trans stance to win the next election’ - party needs to clarify its policies to be closer to the public’s views on the debate

[IwantToRetire]

Labour is trying to position itself as the party of the centre-ground of British politics. It has identified middle-aged, suburban women as a target demographic to win over ahead of the general election.

Labour strategists have studied polling that shows how a gender gap in voting has emerged since 2010, whereby women are on average more likely to vote Labour.

But the polling notes that Labour’s advantage is “specifically among women under 50”, while the Tories lead in women over 50.

It comes as a network of Labour activists and staffers prepares to relaunch itself next month as a think tank that will produce monthly reports on how the party can appeal to its target voters.

The organisation, called Labour Together, aims to come up with a raft of policy recommendations that reposition the party as “socially to the Right and economically to the Left”.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/03/18/labour-must-fix-trans-stance-win-next-election/

I'm still open to voting Labour, but I need to see clear, unambiguous statements demonstrating that they do realise that women's rights matter, sex does exist (and is intrinsically ties to the long slog for women's rights), and that is all separate from the needs of people who would like to renegotiate what trans means and how it should be accommodated. By all means, let's discuss what trans is and what a more humane approach to GNC people should be. No, that does not mean rolling over women's rights and clamouring extreme body mods to children.

I do not believe the Tories are intrinsically better on tbis subject. We arrived where we are under their continuous leadership!

If Labour do lose they will only have themselves to blame. Again.

It’s not like people aren’t open with opinions on why they’ve lost a vote.

It's a bit more like Group A ate your goldfish and smashed your windows, Group B says "That's terrible, the right thing which we would have done if we could get near your house is mince the goldfish before eating it, smash the doors as well as the windows, and burn the house down! Oh, and we will also make cold fusion work while we're there..."

And then when you say "Hmm, I don't think I'll let Group B near my house," this is solely because you're unreasonably biased against them and don't you want cold fusion??!

Agree. Starmer and co are pure Blairites and would not nationalise anything even if it was so corrupt and inefficient that it did not work at all.

The point is that the mayor's office were given the responsibility with absolutely no power to appoint or hold accountable to a chief whose own accountability is to the home secretary who placed them in post.

This causes issues even when the same party holds both positions. It is never going to do well when those posts are held by parties and its a stupid organisational fudge which enables the organisation in the middle to play one against the other.

Nice try sunshine but this thread here includes many former party workers who have quit our local CLPs in sheer bloody frustration:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4757163-to-ask-what-stops-you-voting-for-labour

I'll spare you a repeat of my posts on that thread - I stand by all of them.

There was a suggestion upthread that a lot of labour party members who support self-ID are those that came into the party during its Corbyn phase. That may well be true, but I suspect that a lot of poeple who were part of that influx (me included) were just straightforward Labour leftists, not the slightly strange youth cadres that have come to be identified with that period.

I joined to vote for Corbyn because I thought he might re-invigorate the declining party democracy that Blair had centralised to within an inch of its life. I was disillusioned. Corbyn was undemocratic too, as well as stupid, so I left. But I carried on voting for Labour, until its gender policies made it unsupportably sexist and misogynistic.

I hope that the labour party scans these threads an understands that the 'suburban women' (clearly Labour-speak for 'Karens') standing up for women's rights aren't necessarily on the right of the party, and may be part of its left.

According to the Political Compass I'm way left of Labour. Even as it stood under Corbyn I could just about see them on the Eastern horizon. Painting the whole of their opposition as right wing is miles from the truth.

Unfortunately, as just demonstrated by Sturgeon's speech, you'll get the same response as from Brown all those years back when he accidentally showed his true colours in public by pretending to listen thoughtfully to an elderly woman describing her experience and then informing his aids she was just a bigot.

Anyone who does not share in the superior views is not a worthy human, has nothing of interest or relevance to offer, and is smelly and the Wrong Sort.

Yes somehow they will still expect to win an election being voted in purely by those they haven't Non Humaned.

Wow that thread is quite something. Poster after poster citing trans issues as their reason not to vote Labour - and that's in AIBU, not over here in the naughty feminist gulag.

You can feel the distaste as, once every GE cycle, Labour/the Greens/the LibDems are forced to deal with "women over 50". Shouldn't they have all just died on their last fuckable date? At the very least, they should just shut up and do the grunt work of envelope-stuffing, so that the Clever Young Men can focus on the important stuff.

Quite.

I've voted Labour my entire life. This betrayal feels like I've come home from work to find my husband snorting coke off a prostitute's tits on the dining room table. I'm appalled, disappointed and angry. But I'm not naive or stupid.

This is the best and most apt analogy I think I've ever read for it!

Yes it is.

Have you never heard the interpretation that the two political extremes of left and right meet round the back and are the same as each other?
This is how National Socialism in Germany can be viewed as right wing despite having socialism in its name.

Nope, because the majority of the posters on here have already made their minds up "too late for me, wont be getting my vote" whilst never having any intention to vote Labour or consider it

I am neither a Labour or a Conservative voter but I will vote for anyone who states what a woman is and that they will not introduce self ID. Not is correct that things will be even worse if self ID becomes law and things are pretty bad now.

Labour, Libdems and Greens will not get my vote because they have actively participated in abusing women. The bar for my vote is so low that the Tories passivity seems preferable. Twenty year old me can barely believe that 50's me is even writing that statement but I've had enough of spoiling my ballot.

Labour don't stand a chance in my constituency but we can get rid of the Libdem bestowed on us by low voter turn out in a by election, I do not my intend to waste my vote again so will almost certainly vote Conservative, it will not be an endorsement.

100% this. Esp your last sentence.

Which is why i will be waiting until manifesto's published.

But one nail in the coffin for the Conservatives is inflation, its rising, 10.4% with food inflation at 18%! 18 fucking %!!!

Who does this hit the hardest? yes women, lower wages (generally) and more likely to be managing household budgets.

Meanwhile, Eurozone inflation is 8.5% and falling, in the US its 6%.

So more mismanagement of the economy.

@fojn Self ID is already here, its perfectly legal without surgery, as i posted up earlier, its all on Gov.uk.

I'm really struggling with the narrative that it isn't and its horrible Labour who will make it legal and the Tories will defend our rights.

I'm really struggling with the narrative that it isn't and its horrible Labour who will make it legal and the Tories will defend our rights.

There is Stonewall law and the actual law. Self ID is not enshrined in UK law. Fighting the cultural changes which allow people to self ID into single sex spaces is far easier than trying to get an actual law repealed. Labour have not taken making self ID law off the table.

Please do not make the mistake of assuming I think the Conservatives are feminists, I do not and I will not be guilted out of pragmatic voting because you don't agree with my priorities.

Self ID is already here, its perfectly legal without surgery

Self ID does not mean 'without surgery'.

I will not be guilted out of pragmatic voting because you don't agree with my priorities.

This is excellent and should be repeated often.

There’s enough noise on this if Labour want to listen. If they don’t and it contributes to losing it is entirely on them.

This “what do women want” question is deeply misogynistic. They should know that women want the same things as men. Equality, safety, fairness in work, the home and sport.
Labour should be looking at how to deliver equality, safety and fairness, I’ll give them a clue, erasing women, safeguarding and single sex provisions is not the way forward.

So, basically what you are saying is not so much that you will watch and wait and see what is in the manifesto - but that you don't care whethere it is or not because as far as you are concerned Self Id is already legal ( which it actually isn't as I highlighted before).

If it is already legal ( by your definition) then why do you think Starmer keeps on saying it is "too intrusive" and "needs to be modernised?"

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/22/uk-government-drops-gender-self-identification-plan-for-trans-people

Well, we are due a debate on updating the Equality Act, so I will be carefully watching what each of the major parties has to say about that.

I want the Tories out of Government. They are unfit to rule. However, that does not make Labour an automatic option and given how Stonewall has Stanmer's ear, I am very wary of supporting them. I've watched how this shitshow developed in Ireland and it's done entirely behind closed doors with a nod and wink between men. Labour's not any better in that respect.