Scottish Labour Conference this weekend - pro woman motions up for vote

[fromorbit]

With Labour Women's Declaration stall now in the main hall this weekend the Scottish Labour Conference in Glasgow 16-18 Feb shows no debate is truly over in Scottish Labour. Four policy motions are up for voting in conference lodged from recent Scottish Labour Women's Conference will be on the floor. Women chose these motions as a priority:

Education Funding;
Women's Rights [motion 10 - key one for gender crits being voted on Sat afternoon];
Protecting Neonatal Services;
a Real National Care Service

See below for text. This is the background to getting the motion passed at Scottish Labour Women's Conference in December:
https://labourwomensdeclaration.org.uk/successful-motion-at-scottish-labour-womens-conference/

This doesn't mean the battle for women's rights is won in Scottish Labour. Far from it - just moving to a new stage of the fight which would not be possible without the work of many thousands who refused to be silenced across Scotland, inside political parties and on the streets.

Women in Scottish Labour will now have a chance to fight against sexist ideas openly, and when the genderists have to fight in open debate sooner or later they always lose. Biological realists are taking back the political parties - ALL of them. It will take years, but it will happen.

Going to be interesting to see who will actually vote against motion 10 it is carefully worded, but it is a clear defence of women's sex based rights. I suspect we are going to see a huge swarm of ferrets reversing wildly. This could increase pressure on Starmer to stop fence sitting.

Also obviously if Scottish Labour are more openly pro-women could be a huge weapon against the SNP in the upcoming general election.

Keep an eye on the amazing Ann Henderson who is a figure in winning back Scottish Labour for women.
https://twitter.com/AnnDHenderson

Oh, this makes me happy

That's great work, well done Scottish Labour women and those supporting them!

Incredible job! Not in Scotland but will be willing you on.

The conference will probably be under siege from Palestine protesters so I wouldn't bet on there being anything decided either way.

There's been shenanigans

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/16/scottish-labour-accused-silencing-women-adult-human-females/

https://archive.ph/lPpek link without paywall

Well the conference went fine today apparently with plenty of people coming to the stand. In picture the amazing Anne Henderson, Foysol Choudhury MBE MSP, Shadow Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development, Katrina Faccenda, Labour Councillor for Leith.

Meanwhile a row over the motion 10 to be voted on tomorrow is breaking out because the composite motion [seen above] heavily amended the text from the original women's conference motion. It will still be positive if it is passed, it does protect single sex spaces, but the original motion 5 read below was way stronger. It is exactly this kind of sneaky rearguard action which is going to be a problem going forward.

Details on the row from the Telegraph:
https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/world/scottish-labour-accused-of-silencing-women-members-in-adult-human-females-row/ar-BB1iowsF

More drama -

Motion 10 on women's rights was too close to call on show of hands. A card vote took place. Results tomorrow.

You can see the two women proposing the motion at 54.08 in powerful speeches.

This was the only motion that went to a card vote and it was the watered down version which should be fairly straightforward. Labour still has a huge sexism problem it seems.

Do you know what was changed from the Rutherglen one, if anything?

I posted the earlier motion 5 earlier in the thread with discussion of differences in a Telegraph article.

Did you post the unmerged wording of the Rutherglen motion? I wondered if that was why the eventual motion was watered down.

I get you. No I don't have the text for that. The composite motion obviously was a combination so I suspect the Rutherglen motion was mainly against VAWG judging by the speech from Rutherglen.

Anne Henderson reports:

"There were no other speeches. No time. The biggest trade unions ( GMB, UNITE, UNISON) voted against. Most CLPs and some unions for. Waiting for final vote result."

Interesting.

I feared this after yesterday - betrayed by the Sexist trade unions AGAIN! Women don't exist as a separate sex class according to Scottish Labour Conference. LWD statement in jpg below:

In an unprecedented move, @ScottishLabour conference has VOTED against Motion 10 which women's conference had supported & prioritised for presentation at #ScotLab24.
The majority of CLPs voted in favour, but some trade unions, inc GMB, Unison & Unite, voted against.

"The sight of a sea of men’s hands voting against the motion from women’s conference was chilling. Scottish Labour & the trade unions involved need to take a long hard look at themselves"
Watch Laura Bird's speech here as she proposes the women's rights motion.
LIke & share if you agree with her, especially if you are a trade union member.
if you're at #ScotLab24 today come to our stall & discuss.
%27sDeclaration

Though this is awful we have to remember most members and CLP delegates inside Scottish Labour voted FOR the motion. This was defeated by the sexist block votes of the Trade Union movement - not the first time unions have turned on female members historically.

Like every other time this has happened the solution is to fight back HARDER. Call out LAbour, SNP, Tories anyone who peddles this claptrap.

More details coming out in Labour List. This scandal will be a gift to the Tories.

A card vote was held on the floor of the Scottish Labour party conference in Glasgow over the motion this weekend. LabourList can reveal 69.3% of CLP delegates’ votes were for the motion, but votes are weighted equally between CLP delegates and party affiliates.
The motion fell because 77% of affiliate votes were against it, making it the first motion to have been rejected by the conference so far. The party’s affiliate groups include trade unions, socialist societies and equality groups. One source told LabourList several trade unions voted against the motion.

https://labourlist.org/2024/02/scottish-labour-rejects-womens-conference-and-clp-backed-motion-backing-sex-based-rights/

Ok, now I’m angry. Labour, sort this sh@t out or no vote from me. Count binface can have it.

Thanks @fromorbit for all your efforts there in writing this up for us all to see, and to the women who spoke up. I'm ashamed to have been a union activist for decades, it's chilling to read.

Yes thanks for all the info op. That's a deeply damning indictment of Labour and frankly I don't care much right now which section of the party those votes came from - the impact on women is the same and they're not going to change that structure so the whole party is complicit as far as I'm concerned.

The quote from the Labour Women's Declaration (in the JPEG image) about 'seeking an urgent meeting' with the leadership had me laughing in despair. Has the leadership ever once met with them?

I spoke to my local Labour candidate and she said things were changing and to watch to Scottish Labour Party Conference. She was hopeful and it would give me confidence to trust Labour on women's issues. I can see how hard those Labour women are working to influence from within but those unions are misogynist to the core. I'm politically homeless. Couldn't trust this lot with my vote.

i wish I could say I’m surprised but sadly im not

I've left all unions because in my industry (where the workers are overwhelmingly women), the unions are uninterested/uninformed about our concerns.

The mental image of a sea of men's hands uplifted to vote down something which protects women doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Everyone should be angry. However there is a POSITIVE to this.

Before this sexist stuff was going on behind closed doors. Because women have won a lot of victories in this fight, they can't do that now, LWD were at the conference, had a stall in the hall, a motion was platformed, NOW they have to oppose basic human equality in the open. Openly vote to say women's rights are worthless. It is all they have left.

In Labour, in the Greens, the SNP, the TRAs are exposed. More and more people are peaking. The General Election will see even more as long as women get out there causing trouble.

Great comments on twitter on this:

Rosie Duffield MP

And just what is there to disagree with in Laura's calm and measured speech at #ScotLab24? What is she saying that is in any way controversial @GMB_union @unisontheunion? Women in sport, women in prison, women's medical needs. Please explain clearly to your many women members...

The majority of Unison members are women, public sector workers on not a lot of pay. I left after years of membership over their inability to clearly support women's sex-based rights. We will continue to demand our rights whether these organisations like it or not.

Sonia Sodha
Observer columnist & chief leader writer,

This is really shameful from Scottish Labour conference. Here’s the motion on women’s rights some of the unions opposed, which meant it was voted down despite CLP support. It’s a statement of support of existing law that protects women.
More here. Are we living in the 1950s? These "left wing" men can do one.
“The sight of a sea of men’s hands voting against the motion from women’s conference was chilling. Scottish Labour & the trade unions involved need a long hard look at themselves.”

Honestly, if a bloke at Scot Labour conference doesn't pause and think "am I maybe the bad guy here?" when he finds himself voting against a motion supported by its women's conference in favour of Equality Act rights he's got no place in the Labour/ trade union movement.

This thread also important. We union members pay our dues in hope we can draw on support in the event of workplace discrimination. That some unions can’t bring themselves to affirm their support for Equality Act protections for women inc single sex spaces is really disappointing.

Audrey Ludwig
Discrimination Solicitor
Trade unions voting against women’s existing Equality Act rights is one of the biggest concerns in equality and diversity today. I shouldn’t be surprised because Trade Unions often have to be dragged to supporting women’s rights

Why is this important? They advise members on the law..Trade Unions are also probably largest funder for claimants’ legal costs in employment claims. So what they don’t recognise as unlawful discrimination or harassment , they don’t fund. It’s an access to justice risk writ large

Every trade union member need to get organisational commitment to current EA as a minimum standard

Lots more battles to come, but in the end sex realists can win this. Because in the end our opponents are deluded. Obviously that helps, but also a key thing is OUR LAWYERS are better. You can garden knowing we are going to get huge crops. If the unions continue to do sexist stuff they will be next in court.

Have added discussion of this to the agenda for my Labour Women's Branch meeting next week. There are a couple of staunch trade unionists among us but I think even they will find it difficult to explain and support.

The unions are a hotbed of sexism and misogyny, despite all the attempts over many years of women (and decent men) to change them. There comes a point when the only action left to us is to vote with our feet. It's a shameful situation and one the left should be speaking out against. There are lots of us in the Labour party who won't be voting Labour in the next election because of the way we it treats women.

I'm getting a bit of a vibe of 'it's not Labour, it's the trade unions' but I'm not buying it. This is how the party makes decisions.

Agree, @Floisme

A bunch of ordinary members and delegates voted for the motion.

The delegates from biggest unions GMB, Unite, Unison did not they had thousands of votes.

See the breakdown below.

Note Community union voted FOR the motion. It is the smallest of the big general unions.

Labour and the left do need to be held responsible for institutional sexism. Yet at the same time sexism 2.0 is EVERYWHERE. We need to fight it in every part of society, unions, business, NGOs, civil service and it is going to need women and men working together to do that, and everyone in our different parties right, left and centre. That is how we win.

*A bunch of ordinary members and delegates voted for the motion.

The delegates from biggest unions GMB, Unite, Unison did not they had thousands of votes.*

But that's my point - that these unions wield tremendous power in the party and so they're always going to have a huge influence on decisions. I don't understand the argument that 'it's not Labour it's the big unions' when these same big unions are a major part of the party.