Labour Women's Declaration - Labour Conference video - "How can Labour champion freedom for women and girls?".

[fromorbit]

Packed out of the second LWD meeting at the conference Fringe with 3 Labour MPs, a Labour Baroness. Pretty amazing considering 4 years ago LWD was under siege. This followed up on news that LWD

Whole thing can be heard here:

"Women and girls are subject to discrimination and oppression on the basis of their sex"
The 180 people in the room at this sold-out meeting at a secret venue heard from Labour MPs Jess Phillips, Diana Johnson, Tonia Antoniazzi, and also Rosie Duffield during the Q and A.
Speakers included Baroness Dianne Hayter, co founder of the Femicide Census Dr Karen Ingala-Smith, teacher and trade union activist Kiri Tunks, Lexi Ellingsworth of Stop Surrogacy Now and Z, a human rights activist from Afghanistan.
The recording of last speaker, sadly, cannot be included in this video, for her safety.

You can see shorter extracts from the meeting on the you tube page of you are interested in particular speakers.
https://www.youtube.com/@labourwomensdeclaration6769

The conference discussions have to be considered in light of

Results of the National Women’s Committee election on Saturday

Thirteen candidates voted for by delegates to the conference competing for 6 places. The Labour To Win 6 candidate slate, the faction combining the Labour right/centre/pragmatists focusing on supporting Starmer, dominated by a huge margin with their slate gaining all the top places and thus gained 6 places on the committee with votes from delegates representing 141,000 to 123,000 votes.

However LWD slate did incredibly well for the first time standing taking 8th and 11th place.

8 Dr Juemin Xu 56,876
11 Dr Louise Irvine 49,295

This is about 10-15% of the Constituency Labour Parties telling their delegates to vote for LWD I think. Difficult to be sure of percentage but it is a LOT of votes.

The bigger fact is LWD reps beat a lot of the official left slate candidates. That is the faction which was RUNNING the party four years ago. Yes a lot of left people have abandoned Labour, but for LWD to be doing better than them only 4 years after starting when it was previously despised is an incredible achievement.

This shows LWD has a powerful base in the party which is only going to grow. It also will strike fear into TRAs within Labour. Because in the upcoming battles over women's rights in the party there are a lot of people and local parties ready to put women's rights first even if it means defying Starmer and the left equally.

This was LWD comments before the results in the nomination stage.
https://labourwomensdeclaration.org.uk/lwd-national-womens-committee-slate-impressive-results-at-nomination-stage/

'Secret venue' is deeply depressing, but a lot of the rest sounds like progress.

Probably the wrong place to pop this, but this is what has popped up on my TwiitwrX timeline:

"Stonewall has appointed trustee Catherine Dixon as its new chair, as Iain Anderson has taken up a post working for the Labour Party. Stonewall trustee Andrew Pakes has also stood down and will be a parliamentary candidate for Labour at the next election"

Thankyou ripx4nutmeg whose post I have nicked, but I worry about tagging.
^
(Please feel free to admonish/excuse me by PM).^

Well, if Jess Phillips has decided to join in, you know that the tide might just be turning.
But I'm afraid that the fact that LWD were a fringe meeting, when Stonewall were IN the meeting, says everything.
I won't be voting Labour on such a slim premise. Not while the big players in the Party are full-on TWAW.

It's so difficult. I desperately want to support the feminist women who've remained in Labour.

But appointing the Stonewall guy is a huge message. And the fact they can, without fear, when appointing someone previously from LGB Alliance or a feminist charity would likely provoke outrage and all that predictably follows when the "be kind" brigade don't get their own way.

Thanks, OP.

But I'm afraid that the fact that LWD were a fringe meeting, when Stonewall were IN the meeting, says everything.

That.

I am very sad for these women. They've tried so hard.

Iain Anderson was a Tory donor, wasn't he? But obv it makes more sense to concentrate on Labour now, as they look likely to form the next government.

Clearly there are good women in Labour working hard, but I can't see their voices swaying much.