Sky News: Starmer will lose the election on day 1 unless he shifts his trans rights position

[SirSamVimesCityWatch]

Apologies if there's already a thread. This appeared last night on the Sky News.

It seems that some grown ups people in the Labour party are finally paying attention.

https://news.sky.com/story/keir-starmer-will-lose-election-campaign-on-day-one-over-his-trans-rights-position-labour-strategists-warn-12841099

[MissLucyEyelesbarrow]

I am sure he will be delighted if he loses some Momentum members along the way

People on record as opposing single-sex spaces include:
Angela Rayner
Lisa Nandy
Rebecca Long-Bailey
David Lammy
Stella Creasy
Emily Thornberry
Alex Sobel

People who have equivocated but have made TWAW noises include:
Jess Phillips
Yvette Cooper
Anneliese Dodds
Rachel Reeves
Ellie Reeves
Ale
Some bloke called Keir something or other

This is not a Momentum issue, or a left of the party one. TRA beliefs now run through the core of Labour.

[RoyalCorgi]

I actually agree that this isn't a massive issue for most of the electorate. But that doesn't mean it won't be a vote-loser.

So imagine you have a Labour candidate interviewed on the tv, and he has all the right policies on the NHS, social care, refugees, violence against women, tackling crime, inflation - whatever you care to name. And you nod along. Yes, you think, this sounds good. I could vote for this.

And then the interviewer asks him: what is a woman? Or: do you think the rapist Isla Bryson is a woman? Or do only women have a cervix?

And then he stumbles and fumbles and says that a woman is "someone who identifies as a woman." And that Isla Bryson shouldn't be in a women's prison because "she" is a rapist. And that it's wrong to say only women can have a cervix because some men have a cervix too.

At that point you realise the politician in front of you is a fecking eejit and you vow never to vote for him, no matter what his policies are.

[BettyFilous]

@RoyalCorgi

I actually agree that this isn't a massive issue for most of the electorate. But that doesn't mean it won't be a vote-loser.

So imagine you have a Labour candidate interviewed on the tv, and he has all the right policies on the NHS, social care, refugees, violence against women, tackling crime, inflation - whatever you care to name. And you nod along. Yes, you think, this sounds good. I could vote for this.

And then the interviewer asks him: what is a woman? Or: do you think the rapist Isla Bryson is a woman? Or do only women have a cervix?

And then he stumbles and fumbles and says that a woman is "someone who identifies as a woman." And that Isla Bryson shouldn't be in a women's prison because "she" is a rapist. And that it's wrong to say only women can have a cervix because some men have a cervix too.

At that point you realise the politician in front of you is a fecking eejit and you vow never to vote for him, no matter what his policies are.

Absolutely. Also, if they’re going to cave and spout this BS in the face of noisy activists on Twitter how robust are they likely to be in the face of persuasive lobbyists or arm-twisting by parliamentary colleagues with an agenda? It holes their credibility below the water line. I want to know my MP is competent, fair and principled so they can represent my local population and uphold our democratic norms.

[PorcelinaV]

@musicalfrog

They're saying they 'need to take the public with them'.

Why wasn't that always the case?

They represent the public after all!

Yeah but the other idea would be that you change the law and the backwards public will catch up in time.

After all, "human rights" shouldn't depend on majority consent.

Now of course, I don't think it's a real human right to be able to do things like falsify your birth certificate, but some people will insist that it is.

[MrsOvertonsWindow]

Beamur has it right:
"but it's actually very easy for a journalist to make an MP look like a complete idiot when they have to justify policies that put rapists into women's prisons and such like".

None of them have a coherent answer. The gurning, umming and erring when asked to define a woman just makes them look foolish (and liars). Asking them to explain men in women's sport or drugs and surgery for mentally vulnerable children just demonstrate how clueless they are - and how contemptuous of women and children's rights & safety.
Starmer's peevish comments about less heat make him look petty and again, unable to answer a simple question.

The press and the public are really not going to back down on this.

[Chippy1234]

The thing I dont get is why Labour thought it was a good stance to take. Yes, they can change but they will look foolish and bonkers. It will appear that they are changing their minds to try and win an election and the press will have a field day with this (not just the right wing press).

We should all be questioning why they are flip flopping around. Over the last few years the spotlight has been firmly on the Tories. Just wait until they start digging into for example Raynor's political life, what she has said and done and even the other day Rachel Reeves who I quite liked is now talking about men as women. Its almost as though they dont want to upset what is a very very small minority of people.

Those very very small minority of people will not win them the next election so why do it? Its woke at its very very worst.

Momentum are a liability to Labour. Anyone remember Alan Johnson wiping the floor with the Head of Momentum on the day of the last election defeat of Labour. Even McDonnell who was interviewed by Andrew Neil when the Exit Poll had just been announced clearly never expected to win - they just didnt want to get the trashing they got. The impression I got was that Momentum didnt want to win anything.

[MissLucyEyelesbarrow]

@RoyalCorgi

I actually agree that this isn't a massive issue for most of the electorate. But that doesn't mean it won't be a vote-loser.

So imagine you have a Labour candidate interviewed on the tv, and he has all the right policies on the NHS, social care, refugees, violence against women, tackling crime, inflation - whatever you care to name. And you nod along. Yes, you think, this sounds good. I could vote for this.

And then the interviewer asks him: what is a woman? Or: do you think the rapist Isla Bryson is a woman? Or do only women have a cervix?

And then he stumbles and fumbles and says that a woman is "someone who identifies as a woman." And that Isla Bryson shouldn't be in a women's prison because "she" is a rapist. And that it's wrong to say only women can have a cervix because some men have a cervix too.

At that point you realise the politician in front of you is a fecking eejit and you vow never to vote for him, no matter what his policies are.

Exactly - it's an 'Is the Earth flat?" question for anyone who isn't immersed in gender woo. The minute you even hesitate to answer, you are outing yourself as a complete fool. That's why the Tories are already warming it up as the perfect gotcha for the next GE. Keir can reverse-ferret as much as he likes, but he and most of his Shadow Cabinet are on record as not knowing the difference between a man and a woman. Imagine how that will play in the Red Wall.

[SquidwardBound]

It calls on him to "commit to reforming" the GRA, "to stand by his previous commitments to LGBTQ+ people and to stand on the right side of history".

sigh.

Thing is that, if MNers are in a bubble about this, the TRAs shouting at starmer about the right side of history are even more so.

Labour need to stop pandering to a niche, minority issue (where the issue is not lack of basic rights but wanting access to additional, special rights) and focus on the stuff that matters.

Being clear that he knows what a woman is (for all policy-making purposes) and that reforming the GRA is not on the cards and that a labour government would actually focus on things that matter to most people would be helpful for everyone. Starmer needs to stop identity politics nonsense taking over and preventing sensible discussion of things that really matter beyond twitter.

[HockeyJock]

@GrimDamnFanjo

I agree with the comments above.
The reason it's not high on voters minds is because to "normal" people the idea that twaw is so batshit it doesn't compute.
If Starmer doesn't get this sorted now, the Westminster media will hound him throughout the campaign and he'll appear to be either crackers or have misplaced priorities.
And if KJK stands against him, it will turn into an even bigger bin fire.

This.

So many people I know would not pick it from a big list of things they're considering when voting UNTIL you draw their attention to it via Lia Thomas or Isla Bryson or they overhear an interview with Hannah Barnes for eg. Or Stonewall share something like their stupid Tweet this morning...

When these conversations happen openly and publicly, nearly everyone sees it for the batshit bonkers nonsense that it is. So all a canny candidate needs to do to disrupt support for someone they're opposing is get them to discuss their position on women's sports or children being subject to experimental surgery or male sex offenders in women's jails. Everyone cares when they have to consider ticking the box for someone who openly states they support the above.

[Chippy1234]

MissLucy is correct - the Labour MP's opposing single sex spaces are the Shadow Cabinet!!! Are they all going to come out and change their stance? The media will bring out clips of them stating the complete opposite of what they are now saying (should they change their stance). They will look like fools.

No one is immune from having a trashed policital career. Look at the lastest victim - Sturgeon. She was a one woman crusade on one issue and look how well that worked out for her. I dont think now that Scotland will get a new vote. I didnt like Sturgeon. She ignored all the other far more important issues in Scotland for ONE issue. I couldnt stand her and I think she was a legend in her own lunchtime. I have to give it to her that she was a good oretor though but when she came on TV I turned off.

[Datun]

@RoyalCorgi

I actually agree that this isn't a massive issue for most of the electorate. But that doesn't mean it won't be a vote-loser.

So imagine you have a Labour candidate interviewed on the tv, and he has all the right policies on the NHS, social care, refugees, violence against women, tackling crime, inflation - whatever you care to name. And you nod along. Yes, you think, this sounds good. I could vote for this.

And then the interviewer asks him: what is a woman? Or: do you think the rapist Isla Bryson is a woman? Or do only women have a cervix?

And then he stumbles and fumbles and says that a woman is "someone who identifies as a woman." And that Isla Bryson shouldn't be in a women's prison because "she" is a rapist. And that it's wrong to say only women can have a cervix because some men have a cervix too.

At that point you realise the politician in front of you is a fecking eejit and you vow never to vote for him, no matter what his policies are.

Exactly. The issue won't be women's spaces, it will be the complete failure of politicians to discuss it without looking like incoherent, bumbling fools. What interviewer wouldn't go after that??

Simultaneously, their very incompetence will allow women to talk about rapists in women's prisons, and children being given drugs to stop them going through puberty. The issues will come up.

And lastly, trans ideology has spread so much, that very many more people - parents, schools, sportswomen, are being directly affected by it.

The actual number of people who will care about it is increasing. It's not just a policy on a piece of paper.

Nicola Sturgeon lost her credibility in two seconds, by inventing rapist gender.

It happens.

[HockeyJock]

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

I am sure he will be delighted if he loses some Momentum members along the way

People on record as opposing single-sex spaces include:
Angela Rayner
Lisa Nandy
Rebecca Long-Bailey
David Lammy
Stella Creasy
Emily Thornberry
Alex Sobel

People who have equivocated but have made TWAW noises include:
Jess Phillips
Yvette Cooper
Anneliese Dodds
Rachel Reeves
Ellie Reeves
Ale
Some bloke called Keir something or other

This is not a Momentum issue, or a left of the party one. TRA beliefs now run through the core of Labour.

And don't forget the behaviour of those who attended the rally with the convicted criminal.

And the behaviour towards women speaking about the need for SSS in the HoC like Ben Bradshaw and LRM.

Labour is absolutely the party of TRAs in a really relentless way

[TodayInahurry]

More women are against this than just the activists. Starmer is also like a wooden statue and his record at the DPP is not quite as clever as he believes, Saville, lack of action over thousands of young girls being attacked by rape gangs for starters. Also a huge number of Labour MPs stopped Jamaican criminals being deported, many are now out committing the same crimes and I believe at least one murdered again. All this will be out there constantly come the election campaign

[HockeyJock]

Interesting that Ben Bradshaw is currently tweeting the same article .... predictably furious for the "most vulnerable"

https://twitter.com/BenPBradshaw/status/1639218816101281794?t=QvPYovJAVIRxU0cXhDIj4Q&s=19

[chilling19]

I think KJK standing against him should be causing him some distress. Can you imagine them going head to head on TV? KJK will wipe the floor with him.

[SquidwardBound]

@HockeyJock

And don't forget the behaviour of those who attended the rally with the convicted criminal.

And the behaviour towards women speaking about the need for SSS in the HoC like Ben Bradshaw and LRM.

Labour is absolutely the party of TRAs in a really relentless way

do you know… I think that we should be wary of attributing genuine belief to labour politicians on this.

It’s much more likely that they aren’t dyed in the blood TRAs at all, but opportunist politicians who thought that this was going to be a down with the yoof ‘right side of history’ wave that the could ride up electoral success. I don’t think they actually gave the substance of it much thought at all.

I’m also not convinced that they do genuinely believe TWAW. But they nailed their colours to the mast they thought would be a winner (having glanced at the shiny ‘progressive’ surface) and it’s now quite hard for them to say: erm… we might not have thought this through.

Keir needs to take a stance that gives them a ladder to climb out of the hole they stupidly jumped into.

[MidsomerMurmurs]

Yes, that YouGov poll from last year does not reflect how far the Overton Window has shifted since the debacle in Scotland.

People didn’t mention it last year because nobody actually believed that anyone remotely sane would say that male rapists were women. It just wouldn’t cross your mind if you hadn’t read about it online. Now everyone knows that that is what self ID leads to.

The Tories have little else to fight Labour with, so I expect they’ll ramp up their discussion of it as the election gets nearer (how Caroline Nokes et al will cope with that remains to be seen).

[RoyalCorgi]

It’s much more likely that they aren’t dyed in the blood TRAs at all, but opportunist politicians who thought that this was going to be a down with the yoof ‘right side of history’ wave that the could ride up electoral success. I don’t think they actually gave the substance of it much thought at all.

I agree. People like Russell-Moyle seem to genuinely believe it, to the extent that any opposition to their beliefs turns them incandescent with rage.

But when you look at people like Rachel Reeves, or Annaleise Dodds, or Ellie Reeves (interviewed yesterday by Julia Hartley-Brewer) or the great Starmer himself, it's quite obvious that they know they are trying to defend an indefensible position. If you really deeply believe in something, you can mount a coherent defence of it. Suppose you asked Rachel Reeves, for example, why it was important to fund the NHS properly, or to come up with a strategy for tackling homelessness, I'm sure she could come up with a well-thought-out answer. Ask whether she believes a trans woman is really a woman and she's all over the place. She can't defend the TWAW position rationally, but she's too scared to say what she really believes.

[HockeyJock]

I wonder if any of these politicians are watching carefully enough and realising that the public all agreed with (or already thought it was the case) the World Athletics decision yesterday for example. There is very little public opposition to their policy announcement, just howls of hyperbole from the predicted places.

If I was one of these politicians who'd backed myself into the corner, I'd be strengthened in my reverse ferret by realising that the public almost unanimously understand that biological sex is a line in the sand in some cases
.

[Dimpsey]

My constituency has one of the most ineffectual, dim Conservative MPs you could ever hope to meet so I was keen to look at the new Labour candidate. He is a scientist who works at the local Russell Group University so on paper looked a possibility.

I had sadly decided that I must spoil my ballot because predictably he had he/him pronouns on his twitter bio when he was first appointed as the prospective MP. The good news is that he has recently dropped the pronouns so I hope this is a sign that Labour has worked out that that gender ID policy is not a vote winner and will quietly drop it.

[PotteringPondering]

@Clymene

Exactly. Anyone who saw or heard Rachel Reeves on JHB referring to Adam Graham, the double rapist who calls himself Isla Bryson, as she, will think she's off her rocker.

And while people might hate the tories, Labour aren't offering a credible Algerians.

'Labour aren't offering a credible Algerians'. Is this Cockney rhyming slang?

[Floisme]

I agree this might not be a massive issue for many people already committed to voting Labour, but their problem is that those votes are unlikely to be enough. Labour has also got to win back voters who deserted them in 2019, and also win over voters who never supported them. Opinion polls might suggest these voters are currently inclined to switch to Labour, but their support remains precarious because they've either already broken the habit once or they never felt any loyalty to the party in the first place. Any sign of incompetence and stupidity and I suspect many of those voters won't show up when they're needed.

I think Starmer knows this, but he's going to need all his skills to take his party with him.

[dimorphism]

Imagine Keir against Kellie Jay.

Interviewer: 'What's a woman?'
Keir: 'anyone who identifies as one'
Interviewer: 'So male rapists who say they're women can go in women's prisons?'
Keir: 'erm, argh' something about inner essence or something
KJK: Women don't have penises
KJK: I don't want 6ft 5 men like Dolatowski with their penis out in my daughter's spaces.

Entire audience 'eh, what? Of course women don't have penises - what's this about men getting their todger out around young girls' - goes away to google Dolatwoski- 'fuck Labour, the fucking liars'.

Compare to the conservatives e.g. Sunak who just quite clearly says a woman is an adult female human and then is free to move on to talk about something else.

[Somanycats]

@GoChasingWaterfalls

I appreciate that this is a massive issue on Mumsnet but I really think we're in a bubble on this one.

Most voters won't have this issue in their top ten.

A YouGov surgery from last year showed that 24% of people paid it no attention at all and 42 % paid little attention:

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/articles-reports/2022/07/20/where-does-british-public-stand-transgender-rights

What's more, other polls consistently have voters primarily focused on other issues and it will be these that win or lose the election:

"In the latest period, we asked adults what they feel are important issues facing the UK today. The most commonly reported issues were:

the cost of living (93%)

the NHS (84%)

the economy (74%)

climate change and the environment (61%)"

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/bulletins/publicopinionsandsocialtrendsgreatbritain/22februaryto5march2023#important-issues-facing-the-uk

My guess is that Starmer may lose a few % points over this issue, but overall the bigger problems facing the country, coupled with the mess that is the Tory party, will swing it for him. Polls have had Labour consistently in the high 40s low 50s for months now. It's just a question of how big their majority is going to be.

None of this is relevant. If he is asked the simple question in every interview, and he will be, he will look like a twerp and shady too and people won't vote for that.

[BreadInCaptivity]

I think many people place an over emphasis on policy when it comes to voting intention.

I'd argue a far more important driver is that of credibility.

A party can nail their policies and still not gain traction if there is a lack of belief in their ability to govern effectively because they do not present as a credible force.

The Lib Dem's lost their credibility as a result of joining the coalition in spite of their policies remaining broadly static between the height of their success and current nadir.

Labours performance at the last GE wasn't solely the result of pie in the sky promises, a significant factor was Corbyn failing to make the case for himself as being a credible future prime minister.

Sturgeon lost huge swathes of support despite the hugely motivating and binding force of Scottish nationalism because tied herself to a policy that undermined her gravitas, reputation and questioned her intellectual integrity.

Regardless of whether this is a major issue for most voters, it's important because irrespective of labours policies going into the GE, this issue more than any other has the potential to undermine the credibility of every single Labour MP (so a large majority) whose gone on record denying basic biology.

How to you put Lammy for example on Question Time when you know damn well he's going to get asked if he thinks women are rights hoarding dinosaurs because they don't want a male rapist in a female prison?

As the recent JHB interview demonstrated, all the policy positives are utterly lost in face of the fractured, halting and stumbling responses to the question of what is a woman - and that becomes the story every single time.

In addition as has already been posted people misunderstand what Labour need to achieve here.

It's not just about increasing the national votes. It's about winning in some very specific constituencies and the margins for doing so can be very tight indeed.

To do that you need to have a very good grasp on the swing voters within those specific seats that you need to win over and generally speaking this demographic isn't the younger/woke population.