Starmer rowing back on self ID - what do we think?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

The Times is reporting in its live politics feed that KS has explicitly said Labour will not push for self ID without public backing. I know not everyone can access their content so here is a copied n pasted version: what do you think?

Sir Keir Starmer has shifted Labour’s position on transgender rights as he said the bitter rows over Scotland’s Gender Recognition Bill showed the party must consider public opinion on the issue.The leader of the Labour Party has previously insisted it was committed to updating the Gender Recognition Act to introduce self-identification for transgender people.However, in a significant shift in Labour’s policy, he said the backlash over the SNP’s gender reform bill had made him think again. The SNP passed legislation this year that would make it significantly easier for people to acquire a gender recognition certificate and reduced the minimum age for doing so to 16. The bill was blocked by the UK government.Starmer said: “I think that if we reflect on what’s happened in Scotland, the lesson I take from that is that if you’re going to make reforms, you have to carry the public with you.

“And I think that’s a very important message and I think that’s why it’s clear that in Scotland, there should be a reset of the situation.”

Because it's the only policy that women will have to pay for, rather than the taxpayer.

They can't grow a magic money tree to fund the NHS and give everyone a pay rise, but they can indulge in empty virtue signalling whilst silencing those who suffer the negative effects of their stupid policy.

Because it's the only policy that women will have to pay for, rather than the taxpayer.

This might be it. No need for separate services any more. Women withdraw from public life and spaces. That's a massive, sinister AF, cost saving initiative.

That was more or less what I thought. I suspect Nicola S thought it too.

And lo... pink leggings on the wrong body in the wrong place at the wrong time and presto.

MN female contributors, I can only imagine how you all feel atm.
As a male, anything Starmer does has zero blowback on me. Women in my spaces would be weird, but zero threat.
The very opposite applies to you.
Yet after...Cass Report, Tavistock takedown, Sturgeon self immolation, IOC decision, escalating violence at women's meets, the report yesterday into debacle of gender (re)education...after ALL this, Starmer STILL doubles down on the activist messaging.
I must truly be stupid, I assumed all this would be like manna from Heaven for a leader looking for a way out of the trans purity spiral on policy.
But no, he's doubling down.
Now I assume he's not weak or unprincipled as Boris was. Now I assume he's malicious and a bad actor in the institutional capture of society. Now I assume Starmer is a trans ally.
As I said, my heart goes out to you and females everywhere in the UK. My life as a man will continue unimpeded. But not yours.

Unfortunately, I think you're right. The big effects of 13 years of Tory shitshow (or wondrous triumph, if that's your bag) will eclipse everything else for most of the electorate.

I can therefore only speak for me in saying that, as things stand today, I will not be voting Labour. (I won't vote Tory either). It depends which other parties stand in my constituency, I'll decide then whether to vote for A.N.Other party or spoil my ballot again.

Because it's the only policy that women will have to pay for, rather than the taxpayer.
That's a very good point. My guess is that at the moment, Labour (but possibly not Starmer) still see this as low hanging fruit, a quick win costing nothing. They've got 18 months to wise up.

One of the weirdest phenomena in modern politics is how women as a whole are moving left in their voting patterns. The Republican Party in US pretty much has given up on the female vote. And poll after poll shows women will vote in droves for Labour. As they do for social democratic parties all across Europe, these very parties being the main drivers for TRA policies.

Who voted for Johnson? Is there a split by sex

Will google…

Yet after...Cass Report, Tavistock takedown, Sturgeon self immolation, IOC decision, escalating violence at women's meets, the report yesterday into debacle of gender (re)education...after ALLthis, StarmerSTILLdoubles down on the activist messaging.
I must truly be stupid, I assumed all this would be like manna from Heaven for a leader looking for a way out of the trans purity spiral on policy.
But no, he's doubling down.
Now I assume he's not weak or unprincipled as Boris was. Now I assume he's malicious and a bad actor in the institutional capture of society. Now I assume Starmer is a trans ally.

Good point.

I don't agree with this though:
Labour will finesse the trans message to say no Self ID planned, and this will assuage another group of voters.
Leaving the Mumsnet and radical GC fraternity isolated and bitter.

Some of us have been in this fight for a decade now. We didn't expect it to be quick or easy. We won't be giving up, whatever happens at the next GE and we won't be bitter: we will be angry. I know you mean well, but 'bitter' is a popular slur to throw at women - bitter is what women get called when men get called tenacious or resolute.

New data from the British Election Study shows that 47% of men voted Conservative, compared to 42% of women. 29% of men voted Labour, compared to 37% of women.

Gender ideology can disrupt though. Sturgeon had great polling (on the left so higher from women too?) and an image was more powerful.

Based on that I still think it’s up for grabs

Miss Lucy, sure, apologies if that word is inappropriate. Whatever variations on angry work...pissed off, I'm mad as hell, had it up to here, oh FFS!, give me a friggin' break, etc etc.
My next Q is...if pressure from women "works" over next 18 months, Posie doubles down, and miracle of miracle, Starmer announces that he's "listened to concerned female voices" blah blah, and Labour policy in the manifesto JUST shades to the most minimal position you could just accept, will that be enough?
Or are you looking for a wholesale 180 turnaround on policy and narrative?
Because there could be a lukewarm just acceptable hotchpotch presented to the electorate, but I believe zero chance of the type of policy Kemi Badenoch would provide, that would suit the GC voters.

This is spot on.

It’s the same reason that train companies paint 🏳️‍⚧️ 🏳️‍🌈 rainbows on the side of their trains rather than invest in infrastructure that would make it easier for disabled travellers or the staff that would make things safer for lone female travellers.

The NHS will fall apart if they don’t get a handle on men not being women.

Voting for Labour risks voting for women being raped on NHS wards (again).

Voting for Labour risks voting for women refusing intimate exams and screening tests because they aren’t guaranteed a female HCP.

Voting for Labour risks the entire data set being (further) contaminated by changing the sex marker on a health record on request (no gender dysphoria diagnosis necessary!)

Voting for Labour risks moving backwards on the NHS’s understanding of how a person’s sex influences thousands and thousands of things, from settings on a ventilator to markers of disease on a blood test.

Voting for Labour risks increasing numbers of detransitioners, irreparably damaged by the affirmation only model for gender transition medicine, driven by an American profit hungry system and imported here unthinkingly.

You can’t save the NHS by pumping in more money when the money is being spent on rainbow lanyards and divisive Equity and Inclusion initiatives.

An NHS infected with GenderWoo, Mutated Intersectionality and Critical Race Theory will become increasingly useless at healing disease.

It seems laughable to suggest that in ten years time cancer patients will be offered reiki, burnt sage or witch doctory instead of chemo, but when academics are arguing that 2+2 can equal 5, that biological sex is a spectrum and that lived experience and ancient cultural customs are of equal importance to science, it’s not actually very funny at all.

Thinking more about why I believe there's still a long way to go - who remembers the Labour Sheffield rally in 1992? I bet Starmer does.

An NHS infected with GenderWoo, Mutated Intersectionality and Critical Race Theory will become increasingly useless at healing disease

Indeed. How long before calls to decolonise the NHS?

Personally no. I think KS is signalling, loud and clear, what will happen if Labour get in, and that anyone who thinks they won't introduce self-ID is in denial.

I haven't yet decided if I can actually bring myself to vote Tory, rather than just spoil my ballot, but there is nothing that Labour could do at this point to win me back in this election cycle because I do not trust KS. The only slight dilemma is that a hung parliament, with Labour forced to ally with the LibDems and/or (shudder) the Greens, would likely be even worse.

Or are you looking for a wholesale 180 turnaround on policy and narrative?

Speaking strictly for myself, RealityFan, no I'm not, not at this point because I don't believe any party is ready to do that just yet. Nor am I bothered about an apology from Labour because I don't think apologies from politicians are worth the paper they're written on. I mostly just want to be reassured that a Labour government won't introduce self ID by either the front or back door. I don't care what their motives are because I don't believe any party has women's interests at heart, but I do believe they want to win elections.

Actually I'll qualify that. I believe Starmer wants to win the election. However, I think the party is stuffed to the gills with people who actually prefer being in opposition, because then they don't have to deliver or make compromises. And this, I think, is part of his problem.

True re the last line. Imagine

It’s like threading through a narrow path jokers to the left and right of us

I would not tell anyone who to vote for - feminist to the core and a vote is all our own to place - but I’ll be voting for whoever can keep out a further march towards gender lies

The only slight dilemma is that a hung parliament, with Labour forced to ally with the LibDems and/or (shudder) the Greens, would likely be even worse.
This is a dilemma for me too. I'm inclined to think we might well be in a stronger position with a comfortable Labour majority, which sounds bizarre but I think it would make Starmer's position more secure and give him the confidence to face down the loons. If he ends up leading a centre-left alliance then I think we' could be well and truly stuffed.

Weirdly as a four decades Tory voter, fully Mumsnet GC compliant, my anger is more with "my side" than Labour.
We've been asleep at the wheel for 14 years by the time of the GE, allowing Stonewall to inveigle into our institutions, funding the Arts Council to insult us in our museums and galleries, allowing the NHS to politicise on gender, looking the other way on prisons, single sex wards etc, no direction to schools (as highlighted yesterday).
To add insult to injury, the nation has been shelled out economically, our infrastructure, NHS, schools, all obliterated.
So, not only have the Conservative Party not conserved our physical fabric, they haven't conserved our moral fabric, our communities, our free speech.
Indeed they've looked away both materially and spiritually.
Allowing the intersectional left to control the dialogue on social change.
And in 2024, that left social change via institutions then joins up with a government in power that will legislate these changes in perpetuity.
I'm frustrated by Labour, but angry as hell with my side, the Tories.

Out of interest who do you hope wins the GE?

I don’t have a side in that I have vote switched many times but this iteration of Labour isn’t for me.

A few reasons gender lies being one, but also policies

If it wasn't for Labours poor position here, I'd want Starmer to win. To begin to clear up the mess since 2010, begin to apply sensible policies on Bxt and migration. Repair our infrastructure, NHS, criminal justice etc.
Unfortunately I can't get past Starmer's inability to stabilise a cogent position on gender, despite the open goal that Cass, Tavistock book, Sturgeon, IOC, videos of violence at LWS, school gender confusion debacles has provided him.
Liz Truss is my local MP, another consideration.
Voting is bad enough when you have to hold your nose in the booth.
Now you need full body haz met to even think of voting for any of these jokers.
I vote Tory to give seal of approval to nearly 15 years of economic vandalism.
I vote Labour to give green light to trans activism in my name.
You tell me.

The NHS is not as well as it once was, it is inducing illness based on ideologies, anti science, waste of resources like a gambler and fabrications.