Protecting single-sex spaces not top priority for most voters, says Jenrick

[IwantToRetire]

“I don’t want the Conservative Party to just be a one-issue party, or to just go down a rabbit hole of culture wars.

“I’m as concerned as the next person about what my kids are being taught [in] school or how we’re ­approaching sensitive issues like safe spaces for women and trans.

“But that is not what 90 per cent of the public are thinking about. Most of the time, people are concerned about the cost of living, housing, public services, immigration, and I wanted to be spending most of my time on those things. If we can do that, then I think we win back those Lib Dem voters.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/protecting-single-sex-spaces-not-top-priority-for-most-voters-says-jenrick/ar-AA1pQsd6

Now that the tory leadership contest has officially started, expect many more leaks that this.

Though strange that today hardly any papers bothered to report on Kemi Badenoch's launch apart from attacking "Dr Who"

Not true. Large numbers of pale skins from eastern Europe have also upset locals in rural areas.
What shade on the Dulux chart are Albanians and Romanians?

I grew up in areas massively changed by immigration in the 60s, it took decades to find equilibrium. Like climate change, it's more to do with the speed and nature of the change than the change itself.

@Zonder I kinda feel dirty too. He's not wrong.

It is an important issue but Jenrick (who is generally loathsome) isn't wrong here. It's not a priority for many people. We can avoid using public toilets and changing rooms, we can ignore demands to use pronouns, most of us don't compete in sports where men are taking women's medals, most of us can avoid men in women's spaces for now.

It's much harder to avoid eating or paying your rent when you can't cut back on anything else and costs keep rising and much harder to avoid needing health care or other public services.

Jennrick would be too insipid for the job.

Hard agree.

Poland is on a bit of a roll now.....but no too long ago there were millions of Poles and other Eastern Europeans migrating to Britain.....and i do recall prejudice against them. And for some of the same sorts of reasons........taking jobs, using the NHS for free, claiming benefits, getting priority housing etc
But Poles and most Eastern Europeans were from majority 'western' Christian/Catholic countries and so there were not so many cultural/religious clashes or dissonance.

Yes, but he misses the point that issues are not either/or......issues can be important in many different ways and on different levels.

What is needed is someone who can articulate the importance of such cultural factors, whilst also addressing bread and butter issues such as you speak of.

It's interesting though because of all the issues that voters apparently aren't all that fussed about its ones that's getting traction and discussion.

While it's not the only issue on my mind, to have a potential candidate dismiss it outright like this automatically makes me question how much of a shit they give about 50% of the electorate and their daughters.

Not true. Large numbers of pale skins from eastern Europe have also upset locals in rural areas.
What shade on the Dulux chart are Albanians and Romanians?

Not getting at anyone on the thread, just a general point. Many middle class people or people living in more culturally diverse areas like large cities don't understand how many white British working class people experience this. This also contributed to the Brexit vote.

It was quite telling when that guy stabbed that little girl in London recently, you had middle class leftists crowing on Twitter that he was a Romanian migrant and not Muslim as if the right wing had been "denied" in some way. In extremely bad taste. They don't understand it.

Kemi Badenoch gets it.......and so do quite a few other Tories.

I think Jenrick's comments reveal he is not a serious candidate; he's in it for career propsect only.

Sounds to me like he has only been talking to men.

As a women, I can multitask and I can simultaneously worry about the cost of living, housing, education, childcare and women’s rights. Ironically, a lot of those overlap.

Women's safety and well-being isn't a "culture war", sir. Single-sex spaces and services exist because feminists campaigned for them as an absolute necessity, and obtained them. We never consented to them being taken away, nor have the conditions that made them a necessity changed for the better under twelve years of your party in government.

Why frame it as the public doesn't prioritise protecting single sex spaces above all other issues? The public never prioritised DISMANTLING single sex spaces, either and yet here we are, on your party's watch. Why is the politicians' argument - across most parties, not just Cons - no one cares if we fuck over women so shut up about it because we're not going to fix it and not nobody cares if we fuck over women, so stop demanding it because we're not going to do it?

As a women, I can multitask and I can simultaneously worry about the cost of living, housing, education, childcare and women’s rights. Ironically, a lot of those overlap.

Yes, exactly.

Why frame it as the public doesn't prioritise protecting single sex spaces above all other issues? The public never prioritised DISMANTLING single sex spaces, either and yet here we are, on your party's watch.

Yes, I thought that too. They were the ones with the power to change it. Silly fucker.

https://res.org.uk/mediabriefing/on-the-causes-of-brexit-how-migration-from-eastern-europe-contributed-to-the-rise-of-uk-euroscepticism/

He's not wrong. Huge numbers of people that aren't welded to mumsnet and twitter barely give this any thought, or think it will all blow over. Worse than that, children are being indoctrinated into acceptance. It's a huge problem but he's right that the tories will never get elected on that platform alone.

It's another one of those issues (like womens' rights) where if it doesn't affect you it will not be noticed.

I don't think most people think that this alone will get the Tories re-elected - but such issues are increasingly important to people. Labour might throw around comments about 'culture wars' as if culture is not important- and it is just something the Tories are doing in order to divide people - whilst at the same time it is Labour who is pushing for radical cultural change.

Increasingly, and especially, since the General Election - and Labour being elected - I've seen Labour party people talking about being 'progressives' and how to work with other 'progressives' to keep out the far right ( In Europe and further beyond). It is all so American.

'Progressive' implies a belief that history moves in a certain direction which is inevitable and that all change is for the good. Anyone who resists/pushes back this change is just a reactionary old fart, or a Nazi at worst.

Trans people in general aren't all that visible in most people's normal lives. They're all over Twitter. But, living in a diverse and liberal town, regularly visiting places like London, I come across very few obviously trans individuals (and the ones I do almost all seem to be males under about 23).

'Progressive' implies a belief that history moves in a certain direction which is inevitable and that all change is for the good. Anyone who resists/pushes back this change is just a reactionary old fart, or a Nazi at worst.

Or an actual historian.

Yes, that would imply that the rise of the Nazis in Germany was somehow a positive step at the time. It's self evidently ridiculous.

I wonder.
In her favour - she might be seen as a change, a break from Boris Johnson and the venality and money-spaffing.

People love a straight talker, especially those who are leaning right anyway.

She has a good back story - immigrant made good - and she's well off now but not ridiculously rich. Solidly middle class.
She has a Scottish husband - posh, but not fox-hunting posh.

And there is also the desire to be seen to be fair, from people who are fed up of being called racists because they voted for Brexit.
And of course she was madly pro-Brexit.

Most important of all, she is clearly highly intelligent and knew her ministerial brief as well as being on top of the women's rights issues.

Lefties are never going to vote for her, true. But I think she could appeal massively to the right wing amongst us - and to the centre right, or right-leaning, she could seem like the most competent candidate. Brains + experience, etc.

She is way too right wing for me and I was madly anti-Brexit BUT I can see her getting elected leader and winning for the Tories.

Reform, like UKIP, only has traction because we have FPTP. If we had any form of proportional representation they would not get the votes. The UK is fundamentally conservative and doesn't go in for 'extreme' parties unless there is a good reason e.g. being totally fed-up with the neo-liberal, capitalist-fest of the EU, or the Tories without Johnson. And one must bear in mind that Labour did not win, the Conservatives lost.

Its an important issue - yes absolutely.

But for most voters its not a top priority. For many voters its not a priority at all.

Nor are "trans rights".

Good point!