Ashley Dalton, Labour Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities this evening...

[Abeona]

This evening Labour held an online meeting for LGBT+ History month. I called round to pick up something from a friend's and he was listening to what was going on — so I stayed to take notes and to listen to what guest speaker Anneliese Dodds had to say.

Steph Richards (TW) of Steph's Place seemed to be dominating proceedings and ranting about Labour Women's Declaration, Sex Matters, Julie Bindel, WPUK etc, who are apparently all part of an evil right-wing plot against trans people financed by the evangelical churches. Steph is very angry about this! For someone who identifies as a woman he seems very angry with women full stop. I've seen it written down before but never heard anyone actually say all the right-wing evangelical tosh without laughing. I hoped someone would disagree or laugh, but no one piped up.

Anneliese Dodds couldn't make the meeting by Ashley Dalton, Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities attended instead and said that when Labour get into power they will:
Ban all conversion therapy
There will be tougher sentences for LGBT+ hate crimes
They want more LGBT+ people in Parliament and driving policy and there's money available to support those who'll stand. She wants activists on all fora. (We all know that when they say LGBT+ they mean T+, but GC lesbians, take note and get in there. Contact Ashley Dalton for more information and about the funds available.)
She suggested that we might want to introduce the use of pronouns in CLP meetings.
She also wants to breaks silos and have all minorities coming together to discover what they have in common. I can just imagine how that will work. Steph will dominate those meetings, too.

This doesn't sound like the Labour party is planning to change its direction any time soon.

Looking at Ashley Dalton's Twitter, she's been an MP for barely a year (since Feb 2023) and yet she's already a shadow Minister?

Admittedly there seem to be loads and loads of shadow ministers these days so maybe I'm just out of touch but, even so it sounds like her star is rising impressively fast. I wonder why and how?

Yep, fully agree with PPs, fuck Labour.

Vote available right here for an actually socialist and sane party.

I talked earlier this evening to a couple of women, including one in Labour Women's Declaration and it's really clear that Stonewall is up to its oxters in all this. One of the women in the conversation had been to Cardiff before Christmas to participate in an event hosted by Elect Her and the Welsh Senedd and had seen how pro-trans and anti-GC the event was, with a speaker from Stonewall Cymru telling everyone how they had to be inclusive the Stonewall way (ie prioritise TWs over women). A Welsh minister stood up and gave a speech about women and equality and quoted the Equality Act and used 'gender' instead of sex — which is straight out of the Stonewall Law playbook. A handful of women spoke up, but the event was rammed with true believers and any 'troublemakers' were shut down.

This is how Stonewall is pushing onwards: finance and influence for women like Drayton who's so stupid she'll say whatever Stonewall tells her to say. Offering finance to get LGBT+ activists into positions of influence. What's the betting that that money comes via Stonewall and other related organisations?

Meanwhile they make life hell for Rosie Duffield and any other Labour woman brave enough to voice GC views. I'm so angry that even though I'm a Labour member and active in my local CLP I'm not going to be voting

I live in a Labour controlled council.

They are celebrating LGBT with a month long series of events, workshops, posters, life stories , exhibitions etc

They are celebrating International Womens day with a one day celebration of women which takes place from 19.00 to 21.00. Not even a day. Two measly hours.

I have posted more than once that, while I don’t like much of what the Tories have done with their time in office, they have managed to dodge the worst of imposing TRA demands on our society. I look at Canada and Australia (and apparently Spain) as examples of how things could be. It looks very much like this will be our near-future under a Labour government.

Wonder where the money’s coming from to support the new lgb T candidates?

Steph kept talking about right-wing feminists posing as LGBT+ in order to undermine the trans community.

Nice bit of DARVO there from a man posing as a woman and seeking to undermine the rights of women.

#NeverLabour

Was it Steph who organised that protest outside the FILIA conference? One of many where they displayed posters issuing threats of sexual violence against women. That Steph?

Amazing how people can pull stunts like that and then get platformed by Labour.

If it's the event I'm thinking of then a couple of the battier activists were happily drawing obscene pictures in chalk on the pavement with sexual threats near women talking about their sexual assaults.

The gaslighting is reaching new heights isn't it? Homosexual women who say no to men aren't homosexual at all, they're right wing under cover infiltrators. Any minute now, it'll be that any human who says no to men is actually an under cover martian/Klingon.

They're absolutely bloody nuts.

Yes it was FiLiA in Portsmouth. Amnesty International also provided placards for the protest ISTR.

This sounds like something my council would do. They passed a motion that TWAW and TMAM the other year.

I can't let a thread about the fragrant Steph go by without a reminder that he wrote a whole blog post on his website about how much he hates me.

Was it Steph who organised that protest outside the FILIA conference? One of many where they displayed posters issuing threats of sexual violence against women. That Steph?

Yes. He minced around outside handing out leaflets with pictures of himself on.

Yeah Steph does that in L P meetings too. Ex LP member here of many years. Steph goes door knocking with our local MP every weekend . Best of buddies. I hate all the political parties and despise Labour for this . I feel if I don't vote for them our NHS will be gone etc
They all hate women.

Yeah and Steph read a poem about domestic violence for IWD in the Guildhall Square , Portsmouth for Labour as the Women's Officer . That really upset me . Steph later posted himself reading it online and I felt the contempt for women. As a survivor , it felt like he was mocking women.

I've been thinking about the expected influx of new Labour MPs after the election and where they might stand on this. I'm guessing that to get selected they'll have had to toe their CLP line.

I suppose there might possibly be some who are GC but have kept quiet and are hoping they can be more outspoken once elected, but if so, I think they'll be in for a rude awakening.

As for the NHS, I agree with the sentiment but I also think it stopped being ours a long time ago.

Someone has contacted me to remind me that the event in Cardiff before Christmas was run by an organisation called Equal Power Equal Voice. It describes itself as a public life mentoring programme. It says it's designed to get LGBT+, disabled and black and minority ethnic people into public life.

That event was funded by the Welsh government, Stonewall Cymru and Disability Wales and there was an expectation that gender ideology was accepted and welcomed by everyone. A woman of colour who had asked a GC question in one of the sessions was picked on by a disabled woman in the lunch queue who said she felt unsafe around her and her views and asked to be escorted around by security. The feedback form has a long gender section: sex not on the menu.

One can't help wondering if disability is soon going to appear in the alphabet soup and the disability lobby will be force teamed just like the LGB. Stonewall and the gender-crazed Welsh government will weed out any applicants who don't play the gender game and a new army of gender activists will be mentored to go into politics. Stonewall is a charity, remember.

A quick look at a government factsheet elicits this information:
Charity law defines political activity as any activity that aims to promote or oppose a change in the law or Government policy. Charities can undertake political activity in support of their charitable aims, but it's not acceptable for a charity to pursue its aims solely through political activities.

Stonewall is set on deeply embedding a new ideology based on faith. It's used its network set up to equalise the rights of LGB people, which most people understand was a fair and good thing to do, to move onto to something much more dangerous. Its relationship with Stonewall in Wales, in particular, is really disturbing. Scottish posters, is Stonewall quite as embedded in the Scottish government as it is in Wales? It seems to be an extension of the Welsh government.

It's amazing it's still classified as a charity when it is now very clearly attempting to game the political system.

@Floisme I think Ashley Dalton is an example. Joined up as a lesbian, now queer and sporting pronouns. Straight into the Shadow Cabinet not long after being elected for the first time. Who promoted her and who gave her the nod it would be good to know.

Labour and the unions working against women's rights. It grieves me more than I can say.

Definitely makes it clear that Kier’s fence-sitting is only because he’s (very mildly) concerned about losing votes if the actual Labour position becomes widely understood

And goodness knows women are about to make sure that it is. Very clearly and widely understood indeed.

Starmer will do anything to avoid an issue

Including likely losing the speaker his job

Labour has no actual plan for the NHS, so it may be six of one, half a dozen of the other, so far as that goes.

I actually helped with Ashley Dalton's failed attempt to be elected in the 2019 election. She is definitely moderate and no fan of Corbyn. Gender never came up then. Fun fact you will appreciate, I attended a fundraising dinner where the guest speakers included Rosie Duffield (and Wes Streeting). Rosie said she'd met Ashley when they were both attending some kind of weekend event to boost women's electoral chances in the Labour Party. This must have been before Rosie was elected. Rosie said that they got on like a house on fire and had been good friends ever since. It goes without saying I'm deeply disappointed with AD and I wonder how much she's just suckered into the group think on this. She was sitting next to Annaliese Dodds when Kemi Badenoch was delivering her speech on schools guidance and she looked like a rabbit in the headlights. I wonder if she's still Rosie's BFF.

That's an interesting contrast: Ashley Dalton promoted to shadow minister within 12 months of being elected, and meanwhile I gather Starmer hasn't spoken to Rosie Duffield for 2 years.

Look forward to seeing Lily Madigan in the mix then