Labour Manifesto

[AstonUniRank]

FWR relevant bits:

'Tackling violence against women and girls

For too long, violence against women and girls has been ignored. Our landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade will require a national effort. We will use every government tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence.
That starts with tougher enforcement and protection. With Labour, there will be specialist rape and sexual offences teams in every police force. The most prolific and harmful perpetrators will be relentlessly targeted, using tactics normally reserved for terrorists and organised crime.
Prosecution rates for rape are shamefully low with many victims dropping out of the justice system when faced with years of delays. Labour will fast-track rape cases, with specialist courts at every Crown Court location in England and Wales.
Victims deserve better support. Building on the success of the approach adopted by Labour Police and Crime Commissioners, we will introduce domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms so that victims can talk directly to a specialist, and ensure there is a legal advocate in every police force area to advise victims from the moment of report to trial.
Violence and abuse against women and girls does not come from nowhere. Misogyny is one root cause, and therefore Labour will ensure schools address misogyny and teach young people about healthy relationships and consent. We will ensure police forces have the powers they need to track and tackle the problem.
Stalking has not been treated with the seriousness it deserves. Labour will strengthen the use of Stalking Protection Orders and give women the right to know the identity of online stalkers. Spiking is a devastating crime for victims, leaving many women feeling vulnerable when they go out. Labour will introduce a new criminal offence for spiking to help police better respond to this crime.
We will strengthen the rights and protections available to women in co-habiting couples, as well as for whistleblowers in the workplace, including on sexual harassment.'

If Labour wants to push through a conversion therapy ban while respecting the Cass report they have a huge problem as they contradict each other. There will be a difficult bill to get through unless it is watered down. Expert testimony will undermine it.

Remember that parliament managed to push through the contradictions in the GRA and the EqAct that still need clearifying in courts.

I have the utmost confidence that parliament can do similar with cass and conversion therapy bans.

I do too. I can't actually believe the choices we have at the minute and I'm desperately sad that my daughter will not have the same safeguarding and social rules that were adhered to when I was growing up. I don't know where we go from here...they are not prepared to listen or take us seriously. Maybe, in reality, men never really believed women had any rights (or believed those rights weren't important or didn't have legitimacy), and it took this moment in time to test and expose this. The fever and joy that some blokes take in discussing this, like a thesis, like it's inconsequential, chills me.

The flip flopping

x.com/guidofawkes/status/1801286727304384884?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Is that saracasm? Difficult to say but I hope so. But as an ex-teacher I am baffled. Have you any idea how many and how often this age group change their courses, swap A levels, move to a teachincal/practical path, move back to A levels, go back a year, drop out, give up, work hard (yes, often) but not always in a sensible direction. They are supposed to be like this - they're mid teens. They are confused and change their minds by the hour and many will only do or say what all their mates or social sub-group do or say. Their brains are still forming. Whilst leaving them out of voting until they're 25 (when our human brains settle down a bit) is not reasonable, neither is lowering the age of voting any further. It was probably right at 21.

The mess of the teenage brain is ok for picking their own career path but not for voting. They are no more fit to vote than 14 and 15 year olds.

This, frankly, is a ridiculous leap. Labour lowering the voting age to pave the way to child marriage. Get a grip.

As a recently ex-teacher (I still do supply) I disagree. Most 16-18 year olds are more than capable of voting. It hasn’t caused apocalypse in other places where it’s allowed…

Yet it's happened in California, that 'liberal' bastion.

Not as far-fetched as being expected to refer to male rapists as she and her penis but look where we are.

Absolutely!

I'm not 100% convinced on that.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/11/opinions/scary-results-from-16-year-olds-voting-first-time-germany-hockenos/index.html

16 and 17 year olds are children - in law - in the UK. If they are allowed to vote, of course they should be allowed to marry too. It's ludicrous and nonsensical otherwise.

If 16 and 17 year olds are mature enough to vote they must also be mature enough to drive, marry, and decide whether or not they wish to stay in education. Also drink, get tattoos etc. You can't have it both ways.

Lowering the voting age is a clear signal that these children (currently children in law) should be removed from the category of 'child'. It's very much the direction of travel queer theory wants.

Being a child places restrictions but also offers protections. Those protections will be removed.

I work with young people and a lot of them simply fall off the radar once they move from CAMHS into adult services. To say this is universally going to benefit children is somewhat shortsighted IMO. Everything will follow. I personally think it's better and safer for children to have a childhood that lasts a bit longer.

I am aware others disagree, but I think it is a debate that should be had with discussion of all the ramifications.

This isn't their first tango at the old 'lowering the age' shenanigans.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/02/how-paedophiles-infiltrated-the-left-harriet-harman-patricia-hewitt

Thank you. Always useful to revisit quite recent historical evidence when people attempt to dismiss the pro-safeguarding position as a 'ridiculous leap'.

And in the original Scottish Assembly and Labour Party in Scotland.

It is NO surprise that the Unions and the Scottish Government and the Labour Party are all wrapped up in the current 'Culture Wars'...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Dunn_(activist)

Of all the comments about why lowering the age for voting could be detrimental - this is the one that has swayed me.

I’m aware of this history. This also isn’t evidence that lowering the voting age is a ploy to bring in child marriage for 12 year olds as the pp suggested.

Oh yes. Just boundaries being nibbled away at, all the time.

frankly anyone who votes Labour on July 4th is against women and against progress

I wonder if, when 16 and 17 year olds can't vote, it's only the idealistic, bleeding heart types who express political opinions. So we all get the feeling that they'll be voting for equity and peace.
But, when they actually have clout, something nastier is drawn out of those kids.

The most prolific and harmful perpetrators will be relentlessly targeted, using tactics normally reserved for terrorists and organised crime.

Confiscation of assets without even a conviction, secret trials with the accused not being able to know the evidence against them, poorly defined offences including mere possession of literature and other media, extended detention etc.

Only a party hell bent on totalitarian rule would want to see these measures extended further into the law.

Some teenagers will do stuff for shits and giggles. And some will just be easily taken in.

It's not just age, but what that entails - at 16 most are still at home, haven't worked or supported themselves, are still in school, for goodness sake!

Some 16/17 year old may well be perfectly capable of using a vote sensibly and thoughtfully, but I'd suggest the majority are just not familiar enough with the world and themselves in it to use it well.

Besides, I think restricting it to 18 reflects that voting is serious and has consequences.

Is there any precedent for raising the age once it's been lowered?

...the Right want men to be able to control individual women (fathers their daughters, husbands their wives etc) and the Left want to control and own all women....

I'm not sure that this is a Left-Right thing or even a control thing: it's more like a form of victim-blaming.

Patriarchy (whether embodied by Harold Macmillan or Arthur Scargill) acknowledges biology and uses it to both oppress and protect women in varying proportions.

Modern left-liberal thought says women are equal now, so don't need protection at all. It's like a capitalist decrying labour laws on the basis that workers should all be able to stand on their own two feet.

I suspect certain people of getting a bit of a thrill from seeing those rights hoarding dinosaurs uppity women getting their comeuppance. But they don't want to control us so much as to throw us to the wolves.

Or, you know, maybe the oppression of women, being the size of a planet, is therefore, paradoxically, mostly invisible to the naked eye?

Yes. And so many women enthusiastically screwing over women too. The left seems to have an understanding of women’s economic rights, but to be frankly deeply ignorant about male. violence against women. I think this loss of knowledge about this is the problem. The issues around self-ID are so obvious and yet they seem to have no knowledge or analysis to enable them to see it.

McMillan was PM in the early 60s and is long dead, having been born at the end of the 1800s. I don't think he embodies conservative patriarchy anymore!

In my experience conservative men who I have worked with all my life don't merit that sweeping generalisation any more, conservative social attitudes have changed.

The conservative media I read overall lands on the side of sex segregated services simply being a normal part of a civilised culture, rather than a "protection" issue. A privacy and dignity issue which is equally as important.