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/

Yes, I've said I think they need to work out for themselves where they've gone wrong but here's a hint Labour: If you want to convince us you take women seriously then start by taking a long, hard look at some of your own representatives. I'll wait.

It has identified middle-aged, suburban women as a target demographic

When they say women....

Walk the walk

clean house

discipline the weirdos targeting Rosie Duffield

then maybe I’ll take this change of heart seriously

I’m not a ‘woman over 50’ (what is this category - the ‘scrap heap female’??) and I despise these craven cowards. Actually, a lot of them do not seem to be cowards but arrogant sadists who enjoy putting others in their place

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.

The Tories have many faults (I have never voted Tory) but their party age profile and pragmatic approach to winning votes from any available source means they have always been less explicitly ageist. They know the value of the over 50s.

You're right @LlynTegid , the Labour Party is very shit in so many other ways so much so I stopped voting for them about 10 years ago long before they picked up on TWAW.

Their current trans ethos is just the icing on a inedible identity politics cake.

I was brought up on a Guardian reading household and rarely read anything else up until I was about 40. I still consider myself centre left but I wouldn't vote for Labour/Lib Dem/Greens again.

I'm beginning to think the best we can hope for in the next GE is a hung parliament. That will give each party a chance to regroup, kick out the loons and start representing the electorate better in time for the next GE.

😂

I'm getting really frustrated. There are only two parties stand a chance to govern. One has a messed up mind which can't tell what's right v.s. wrong, whilst the other knows full well but has little to care but for themselves having no shame.

It's a hopeless future!

Such a good post - especially this:
I can’t think of any other rights area which is so focussed on individuals, or so dismissive of genuine community values (eg safeguarding for children and other vulnerable members of our society). #nodebate is hardly the hallmark of great socialist or liberal politics.

@BloodyHellKen I think a hung parliament is a real possibility, unless the SNP vote collapses to Labour in Scotland. Voting ID is designed to reduce the non-Tory vote, then you have some red scare the press and media are saving, no doubt.

The Tories are certainly using this as an election issue and many are jumping on the bandwagon.

As if Labour have got us into this current mess! ALL of what we all see in the destruction of womens rights is happening under a Tory Govt, my own experience is of womens DV refuge's, 50% of women seeking help are turned away, DV murder rate increasing, funding slashed Con tactic "Divert to TWAW"

oh and please don't mention rape stats and 3 years to go to trial (if it ever does)

BUT instead of laying the blame on the Tories, much like the GFC, Brexit or the 3 day week its "Labours fault..."

I didn't realise we are all so stupid.

It boggles my mind that you think this is going to be a defining issue of the next election. Get out of your echo chambers!

That's what Nicola Sturgeon thought. And Penny Mordaunt in the Tory leadership election.

I'm afraid I think a hung parliament could be even worse for women. Whatever I might think of their motives, Labour do at least seem to be starting to wake up to what they've done. I see no such signs from any other centre left parties and the thought of what deals might be brokered to win power makes my blood run cold.

And yet the SNP are falling apart atm. And Penny M thought the same.

It doesn’t bother me as I’m glad but I can’t see much good for those who shout about echo chambers as a form of an argument.

I’m a swing voter. You know, the sort that the mainstream parties usually chase after in the run up to an election.

If an election were called tomorrow, this would be the defining issue for my vote.

I always find it odd how posters criticising FWR in FWR think it is an echo chamber.

That isn't what we are saying, it is what senior Labour figures are saying (according to the article)

I guess they have noted the situation in Scotland.

The reason it's going to be a deciding factor is not because people care about the issue but because KS looks like an utter twerp whenever he is asked to define a woman. The media love to make prospective leaders look foolish. If you remember a man actually lost an election because he looked like an idiot when he ate a bacon sandwich.
KS looks shifty and foolish every time he is asked to define a woman. He will be asked to define a woman in every election interview in order to make him look shifty and foolish.
Even Boris looked funny but foolish. KS just looks nervous and foolish. Not a good look for voters

@LlynTegid I can't see the SNP vote collapsing to Labour because Labour have nothing to offer SNP voters. Scottish Labour are unionists and they fervently back TWAW (and we all know how that has gone for the SNP and their dwindling membership).

As for 'Voting ID is designed to reduce the non-Tory vote' - I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Wasn't it Labour that tried to bring in ID cards that would have amounted to the same and more?

The press don't need a 'red scare' story they have the gift that is TWAW, erosion of child safe guarding, Isla Fisher, Barbie Kardashian, the Scottish butcher abduction story, children being taught in school there are 78 genders, drag queen story time etc etc and I'm sure there will be many, many more quotable gems from David Lammy et al on the subject as well.

I don't particularly think Labour has the wherewithal to make any material difference should they win the next election which they just might because of the current shit show of a government but people who are prepared to vote for the tories because they 'know what a woman is' is rather quite bemusing. Just say you're going to vote tory and relieve yourself of the mental gymnastics.

Anyone who wants to persuade me back to voting Labour - and I suggest you try because my vote could matter more than you like to think - is welcome to make their case. But I must warn you that insults and guilt tripping are not going to work. You have 18 months.

The people on here all have a vote if they are UK citizens so who the fuck are you to tell us that things we feel are important to vote for or against, are not important enough to be a defining issue?

That’s the thing those on the left quite like telling women how to think like this.

It’s not convincing. More of the same old from Labour lot.

We are all getting very very stupid when political leaders cannot make up their minds what a woman is. I could not vote for any political party whose leader could not tell me what a woman is. I mean, if they don’t know what a woman - 50% of the electorate - is how can they possibly lead the country?

This issue has already felled Nicola Sturgeon, who had led the SNP through electoral success after success for nearly nine years and seemed invincible. So I wouldn't be too sure that it won't do the same for Starmer.