Labour candidate suspended for 'transphobia'

[Imnobody4]

Labour’s London region has suspended the party’s candidate for a closely-contested council by-election in Hackney following allegations of “transphobia“.
Party members were told by email early this morning by Hackney’s borough organiser that “all planned campaign sessions” in the Cazenove ward had been cancelled, including those that were to have taken place today.
A Labour source has confirmed that the candidate, Laura Pascal (front right in photo), has been “administratively suspended”, which means a complaint has been made about her by another party member and a decision taken to investigate it.
The timing of the suspension means there is not enough time to nominate a different candidate in time for the by-election, which will be held next Thursday. This means that if Pascal wins, she will sit as an independent councillor. The source confirmed that Labour will do no further campaigning for her.

https://www.onlondon.co.uk/hackney-labour-cazenove-candidate-for-council-by-election-suspended/

About time KS got a grip.

She hasn't acknowledged her gender critical views themselves are wrong, just apologised very specifically the liking of "tweets that caused offence and a great deal of hurt".

https://x.com/laurapascal81/status/1747762859247878475?s=46&t=SPorwN-mokktL467rcZ57g

"Pleased to he able to update my Twitter profile this evening"

She updated it to "Feminist and unapologetic for my gender critical views" and added a dinosaur emoji

The people of Cazenove have someone to vote for! I hope she wipes the floor.

Maybe the apology was a condition imposed

Good to hear about profile update

She apologised for her social media activity which "fell well below the standard expected of someone seeking election to public office".

I hope she does genuinely mean this, as in, she thinks some of her online behaviour was below standard, as otherwise she is lying on demand.

I'm a bit disappointed; I was coming round to the thought of voting for her as an indie.
Pity she's had to apologise, but I agree she's kept it as minimal and specific as possible.

Is this the tweet that's what's been deleted?

'My embodied reality as a member of the oppressed sex class is experienced in a world where biology has a significant impact. You can believe what you want but I believe that biological sex is a real thing and neither law or some kind of new scientific concensus wld change that.”

It sounds like it was a pinned tweet before?

If it's gone I would very much like to know what parts of it are against Labour policy.

Agree, they should be given a kick up the arse.

The tweet that she liked was dated June 2023. The mayoral election which led to the vacant seat was in the Autumn - November, I think - and resulted in this January by-election.

So another possible point of view is that the apology could have been for the lack of a crystal ball, enabling her to predict that she’d be standing for election the following year, when liking tweets six months earlier.

Although fwiw, personally, I’d have regarded that tweet as one for any prudent person who’s openly involved in politics and campaigning to steer clear of.

Her apology says that “it was a mistake to like some tweets which…”

So I took that to mean the tweet she liked last June, which those campaigning against her stuck up on lamp posts.

I don’t know the situation with the pinned tweet.

Oh how I long for this. Real socialist or real green, I’d join either one.

Thanks LoobiJee.

I think I've caught up with what's happened with the liked tweet. but I'd also really like to find out whether her other (pinned?) tweet was taken down at Labour's insistence. And if it has, I'd like to know how it contravenes Labour's policy,

If you ‘unpin’ a tweet does it just float down the page to it’s chronological place?

She hasn't deleted the tweet, I don't know whether she had pinned it before

x.com/laurapascal81/status/1685212608498991104?s=46&t=SPorwN-mokktL467rcZ57g

Sorry wrong one

x.com/laurapascal81/status/1685538628498337792?s=46&t=SPorwN-mokktL467rcZ57g

Good for her - a masterful non-apology. And her updated bio is spot on.

What fell beneath standards though?

Stating biological reality?

It’s dystopian and Orwellian

I think you need to see this as a win for Laura. She has retained her core GC beliefs and if you look at her twitter, she has changed the banner to a statement about courage. Labour Party suspension investigations have taken months or years so this is quite a climbdown from them. The price was an apology about a womanface tweet. I can live with that as I can see how some might think that offensive. I've seen arguments by black feminists who are uncomfortable with that comparison.

Thanks Erishkeg,

It was the article in 'OnLondon' linked in the op that said it was a pinned post. Good to see the tweet is still there but I'm still interested in whether she was told by Labour to unpin it and, if so, why.

She means specifically the tweet about womanface and blackface, not her GC beliefs.

Oh look, the Labour disciplinary process actually worked quite well and swiftly!

And presumably the Party is quite happy for her to have "unashamedly gender critical" in her bio.

But we all have to vote Tory, right? Or else we're not properly GC.

Thanks, that makes a bit more sense. I had thought at first she was apologising for her GC beliefs being offensive.

But we all have to vote Tory, right? Or else we're not properly GC.

Who's saying that? Not wanting to vote Labour (or LD / Green) because of this issue does not equal advocating a vote for the Tories. I'm pretty bored of this conflation from people, and the persistent vote scolding going on.

Ever heard of the word 'integrity'?

You don't have to vote for anyone; that's the beauty of democracy; and certainly not if they propose measures with which you fundamentally disagree. There is also such a thing as the 'spoiled ballot'. Ever heard of that?

Enough of this embarrassingly tiresome tribalism.

This is from the media report posted upthread - the bolding is my own.

'Also, since 30 July 2023, some months before she was picked as Cazenove candidate, she wrote and then pinned at the top of her X/Twitter feed a statement of her position about sex and gender – another issue which excites high passions and sharp divisions, not least within the Labour party. She wrote:
“My embodied reality as a member of the oppressed sex class is experienced in a world where biology has a significant impact. You can believe what you want but I believe that biological sex is a real thing and neither law or some kind of new scientific concensus (sic) wld change that.”

Assuming that report is accurate, it sounds like it was a pinned tweet until the investigation started but it looks like she's now unpinned it.

My take is that Labour couldn't object to what she'd written (how could they when they too now acknowledge that sex and gender are different!) but they don't like her talking about it quite so loudly.

I realise some people will think I'm making a big fuss about a small thing and that it doesn't matter as long as the tweet's still up there. But ever since they announced their shift on self ID, (via the Guardian) Labour have been very careful to avoid further discussion, so as a potential voter, I'm going to gnaw at any clues they leave like a dog at a bone.

Reposting the link to the article:
https://www.onlondon.co.uk/hackney-dimensions-of-the-cazenove-by-election/

i would rather spoil my ballot than vote for labour next time. I have been a supporter of the greens, but no longer. Both over their attitudes towards women.

LibDems have never been A Thing for me, but for the same reasons as above I'm not voting for them either.

AFAIK (But am still checking) where i get to vote there isn't an independent candidate usually, so i need to look into that.

As it happens my MP is Miriam Cates. With whom i agree with on precisely one thing. But that doesn't mean I'm going to vote Tory.

So i am looking at having to spoil my ballot. Slow handclap for British Politics (incidentally, i vote in another country too and have similar issues)