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.”

Matthew Goodwin is an excellent voice on this topic.

He’s one of the few left leaning public voices who speaks frankly about why Labour have failed and why they continue failing - he conducts loads of polling polling to inform his opinions.

He’s been a really interested listen since before Brexit but he has really started emphasising the women & trans rights clash of late - because that’s what’s coming up in his polling.

No doubt it’s why Starmer is trying to schmooze Stevenage Woman now.

@RealityFan Left wing magical thinking is exactly it.

"Brexit means Brexit" and "trans women are women" both mean the same thing: "I want it to be true, therefore it is."

I suspect that the gender debate will end much the same way as Brexit will as well. The magical thinkers will win a legal victory (leaving the EU/self ID), but the reality will be unworkable and the next 15 years will be spent bringing in other measures to counteract the effects of the victory, until it may as well never have happened.

I think self ID will pass, then they'll put one too many male rapists in a women's prison and the optics will be too bad so they'll change prison policy. Then they'll end up clarifying the Equality Act to make it clear that sex means biological sex, and it'll all gradually get chipped away at until no one on either side is happy.

He still thinks that some women have penises. So are they the 'women'.whose concerns the Labour Party will listen to? Will Rosie Duffield be listened to instead of being shouted down and bullied?
I just don't believe a word Starmer says. He has never had time for women's issues. He's a bit late to the party now.

I hate to say it, but it's looking like Starmer is a shoe-in for 2024. I believe Self ID won't be in the manifesto, his words will be sufficiently luke warm on this, but a vow to ban trans conversion therapy (allied to an LGBT-wide policy) and laws to severely crack down on anti-trans hate speech.

Whatever our views on this, our passion is not widely held, and most of the electorate will not see this as controversial, and it'll get nodded thru.

What the future will mean beyond that, I have some downbeat opinions.

But I'm of the view that either Sunak won't or can't fight this corner effectively, and Starmer is right that culture issues will have negligible impact on the GE.

Exactly. He changes his view ro suit the prevailing view. At the moment, the storm in Scotland makes him fear losing votes so he changes tack again.

"Call not his broken promises a crime -
He meant them. how he meant them
At the time."

And we'll all see the truth of that when he's in power.