Sunak to drop legal plans to bar transitioning in schools?

[D1nopawus]

FFS. Just as I start to think the grown ups are back in the room.

Rishi Sunak set to drop legal plans to bar transitioning in schools

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/31645f02-4ce5-11ee-98c9-759fff07db04?shareToken=c9611eafea6f3f775129767e94bdbb46

But your take is if he did put it to the vote it’d be a vote loser for you

I mean I get people don’t want to vote for them for any reason they want but if people say I really care about this issue and if you do offer it up at a GE I’m out

Seems strange

Is it more that Labour supporters know it exposes them more?

If it’s a non vote winner no worries for you it won’t impact much

I'm a long term Tory voter, innoculated by Thatcher. I have many reasons not to vote Tory, but also one big reason not to vote Labour. And it's the tension between these positions that will dictate my vote.

People have been talking about this stuff for years now

Obviously some of us care a lot

Shall we put it to a vote?

Noo! Don’t do that

Not sure if anyone bothered to read it but the Sun (of all places) has I think got this right

To summarise, no time to pass law before next GE.

They could however give guidance to schools.

And I am no fan of Sunak but PM's are not dictators. Their role is to listed to advice etc., from appointed Ministers on which ever area of society their department is running.

And with all Ministers claiming their agenda is the priority has to somehow get them to agree which will become party / government priorities.

So if the current AG is saying not legally possible because of the EA, that is the advice they have to work with.

This is why I thought it worthwhile having a separate thread on the Sex Matters analysis which they say shows that it is legally possible under the EA. And take up the opportunity to send this analysis to Tories MPs to get them to re-open the discussion. See https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4889341-schools-are-in-danger-of-breaking-the-law-on-sex-and-gender-sex-matters

The article this thread is based on is a rehash of at least two in the past couple of months, and is obviously ministers briefing against each other.

At no time has any Tory said that the issue of women's sex based rights and the erosion of these by gender identity activists is a priority.

Not sure how anyone got the idea that it was.

Are you 12?
You are completely wrong about confidentiality, the law, parental rights / responsibilities and who can remove them (hint - it's the courts, not schools) and safeguarding generally.

Throwing around "anti trans " allegations doesn't work any more. There's a major issue about schools assuming rights that the law has not given them. Along with major problems about a law intended to allow adults to "change sex" being applied to children below the age of consent with life long consequences for them. Add to that schools openly breaching their legal responsibility to be politically impartial by signing up to Stonewall and other queer theory organisations and we have a major safeguarding fail on the part of the government and society generally.
With children being the casualties,

I've just seen a tweet by Miriam Cates contradicting the Times story and saying that the source is completely inaccurate. We can breathe again tentatively.

FFS. What a weak twat he is.

@IwantToRetire - there is a big flaw with the Sex Matters approach.

That is challenging directly the Government's legal position and expecting a debate in public.

That won't happen. No lawyer for the government will give advice which is then criticized by other lawyers except in litigation.

Confidential legal advice is just that. This story obviously does not touch on the nuances of what was said.

Sex Matters are s lobby group. The government (of any kind left or right) does not take legal advice from them. It has its own panel of experts.

Sex Matters are a lobby group.

Well obviously, that's why they have written what they have written!

Many many lobby groups have changed the law.

All I am saying is use the information Sex Matters have collected to "lobby" so doubt can be raised (and proofed) that the AG is wrong.

Dont forget (although it wont happen in this case as the majority of the UK dont care) that an individual (Gina Miller) got a judicial review of a Government decision - and won. (which was why Boris wanted this right got rid of)

That's why I am saying dont waste time on articles leaked by rival ministers, use the facts as compiled by Sex Matters to ask Governmet to act on the analysis of the law.

Maybe start with the Terfs in the HoL.

You are missing the point. No law has ever been changed by an open discussion of why government lawyers are wrong except in court.

You won't get this debate in Parliament either. Quite rightly, like any client, the Government will say confidential. Any MP can put forward an interpretation - but even this government, daft as it is, is not stupid enough to respond to that.

No law has ever been changed by an open discussion of why government lawyers are wrong except in court.

exactly - so the next step is making it an issue and challenging what has been said is to do that.

If you have a better way of that happening rather than via lobbying please do say.

It doesn't have to be an open discussion (though given the Rwanda scheme obviously open discussion has made this whole project suspect ie illegal).

The GA no more than the PM can be the lone arbitrator.

As poster above said there's a query about the article

https://twitter.com/miriam_cates/status/1699802275294675206?t=1j8xBOna6u8UwusHAK2Htw&s=09

The PM’s spokesperson has confirmed that the source for this story is incorrect. No decisions have been taken. I continue to push for guidance that will make clear that schools do not have the authority to ‘socially transition’ children. /1

I agree with @SexMattersOrg - we should not need to change the law to produce such guidance. In fact, schools are legally obliged to recognise & record biological sex, which is essential for safeguarding. There’s no current legal provision for schools to treat girls as boys /2

This is not about parental consent or ‘being kind’; it’s about whether the State, through schools, should be able to promote a contested ideology that harms and lies to kids. Protecting children from indoctrination is surely an important foundation of democratic society. /3

I wouldn't put it past Keegan to leak. Good to see Miriam Cates is still fighting.

Well, lobbying is for a policy change is fine. Sex Matters should carry on with that as a policy. And of course it can suggest legal changes but it doesn't mean they are right. It means they are technically possible but a government has a much higher standard than that to make a change. And that change must be signed off by the AG.

Saying Prentis is wrong is a dead end. The best lobbyists I ever met who made legislative changes knew this. Instead, they drafted the changes they wanted to see.

Then, they applied for a private members bill with a friendly MP. Put the bill in and force the issue. The government is forced often to take the bill and rewrite it until it does work and then the AG signs off on it.

That's what needs to happen, for any case whether you have a Labour or Conservative government. Pressure.

Did you ?

Did you really ?

Fancy a Tory saying one thing and doing another ? It's outrageous I say. Outrageous.

There goes my fig leaf reason for voting Tory.

This.

I wonder if she will be able to track down the source of the lie and give them a time out or a well smacked arse?

This reads well, thanks

All of you should read what Cates has written very carefully. You construe it far too positively.

The PM’s spokesperson has confirmed that the source for this story is incorrect. No decisions have been taken. I continue to push for guidance that will make clear that schools do not have the authority to ‘socially transition’ children.

The PM's spokesperson would say that, though, wouldn't he/she?

It all depends on who the Times's source is - is it someone from inside number 10 who actually knows what's going on? Or is it someone who pretends to know what's going on? Or is it someone testing the waters to see what the response is?

I'm quite prepared to believe that Sunak's spokesperson is willing to lie to Miriam Cates to keep her quiet.

The government are in a real mess with this. The DfE funded and promoted all kinds of dodgy groups and adults to schools - openly encouraging schools to abandon political impartiality and to work with groups for whom safeguarding children is a meaningless phrase.
Just as Ofsted were Diversity champions until the intimidation used against them was made public and they dumped Stonewall, the government are hopelessly compromised. Whatever they say, they'll want to ensure that the blame for encouraging adults involved in a niche sexual ideology that should never have been near children and schools ,won't be laid at their door.

Everyone is in a real mess with this

There’s a thread running where a female rape survivor can’t meet in a support group with other women due to male death threats

You’ve got politicians said to be ‘pulling a blinder’ if they don’t talk about it

Plus a general unwillingness to see it voted on by some for whatever reasons

It’s a ludicrous mess.

I actually think that Sex Matters should lobby, that's their goal, and the rest of us should discuss safeguarding law and how it's being broken as widely as possible but ALSO I hope there is some way to ensure that parents can take the Dfe / schools to court.

Not individual parents because that is too harmful to those families and the children within them (the risk of press intrusion and TRA threats, the stress, the financial cost) but groups of parents. Because not only are quite a fair number of schools breaking the law (e.g. on single sex toilets over age 8) RIGHT NOW but also the approach between schools is like night and day so children in UK schools are having wildly different experiences. You have some schools where girls have single sex toilets and others where they don't, or not adequate numbers which are accessible for the girls who want to use them. You have some schools which are compelling the use of wrong sex pronouns with no consideration of the impact of this on other children and other protected characteristics, others which are not.

I bet, if anyone bothered to look at it, that attendance rates for girls would be much better in schools with single sex toilets. Who wants to deal with their periods at age 12 in mixed sex toilets?

Given DfE is seemingly obsessed with attendance, this data should be easy to obtain and yet no-one's analysed it yet.

Have we not? I'm in NI, so have no horse in Tory vs Labour.

I have been reading at least the Tories know what a woman is for years. I have read posts from Mnetters who gritted their teeth/cried voting Tory, but did it for their daughters and granddaughters.

Instead of doing the bare minimum for our children, this Tory government are inflicting 5 more years of genderwoo in schools.

At the 2019 election?

It wasn’t a major talking point. Can you recall what they were?

I think you've misunderstood me. Right now the govt have one policy to get right to pull me back to voting for them. That's to apply the Badenoch-Cates approach to gender issues in schools. I have so many reasons now to never vote Tory again, and despite many reasons to vote Labour, I can't trust them either on this.

This Times piece may be so much fluff, or may really have it's finger on the pulse of what's (not) happening.

Sunak has one opportunity to get my vote. But that won't be if he simply promises to get this sorted if he's voted in again. If so, I won't be helping that.