EHRC guidance might be delayed for over a year

[OhBuggerandArse]

Ministers really can't cope with acknowledging the law, can they?

https://www.thetimes.com/article/d7cd9e2f-2635-409d-a624-a833611a09fc?shareToken=f3f89ea86fb5c264c18866395c93194d

I hope this is just a flag they're sending up to evaluate how much pushback there might be - let's make sure that the pushback is noisy, articulate and effective.

I guess I could try another email to my Labour MP, unfortunately he's a party drone, so I'd be wasting my time, just like the government is wasting everybody's time.

The letter was only signed by 50 MP's out of 650, why do they get to railroad the guidance?

What sort of government ignores the law of the land, given how Two Tier spends so much time currying favour on the world stage, surely he should be worried about the optic's, he'll look like a complete loser if his government is so weak it can't even except the ruling of the Supreme Court, and him a lawyer too. 🤬

The headline is enough to piss me off. It makes it sound like people don't have to comply with the law without the EHRC guidance. This is not true, they need to comply with the law regardless.

I’m going to copy a couple of paragraphs of that

A spokesman for the EHRC said: “We do not think it necessary for the EHRC to assess the cost to businesses of complying with the law, ahead of our updated services code of practice being laid in parliament. The code is not regulation, nor is it legislation. It is practical guidance to help duty bearers understand what the law requires of them and how they can comply with it.
“These obligations are imposed by the Equality Act 2010, not by the guidance we provide on it. The law is in place and duty bearers should be ensuring that they comply with it now. An assessment of costs would therefore support neither the minister’s consideration of the updated code nor parliament’s scrutiny of it because the impacts such an analysis would identify will be experienced whether or not the code is in place.

Quite so.
And organisations which haven’t been breaking the law won’t have any costs, will they?

Is there any way to find out which 50 MPs signed this letter?

I'd be interested to know that too. We have a new Labour MP in my area and she seems to have disappeared. There's no engagement locally. I'd like to know if she's one of the 50.

How can a Government with such a majority be so weak? It's not just this, it's everything. Ffs Starmer get a fucking grip!

Thank goodness for the heroes who are willing to invest into getting cases to court, the courts have no choice but to apply the law but what a waste of everyone's time and resources.

Shame on government. I'm so fed up of consultations and delays. It's their actual job to bring clarity so that businesses and organisations can get on with their business confident that they're not breaking the law. And if they can't do that in current law they need to have courage of their convictions and try to change the law.

Agreed. If we can't get compliance because organisations are wilfully holding out changing their internal policies until the updated CoP is published, then they can expect to be taken to court by employees, customers or service users. And they will be left embarrassed and poorer.

I hope HR/EDI Directors/Managers read the news reports on the Darlington Nurses Employment Tribunal. Their equivalents at the NHS Trust are being revealed as scarlet-faced responsibility-dodging numpties.

This came up on the existing thread about the delay.

This is clearly TRAs getting the Labour MP lackeys to raise a concern that isn't really there and Starmer is only to happy to have a "legitimate" excuse for the delay.

He can hide behind it being an economic issue, and not have to deal with the reality of trans activists desperate to undermine women's rights.

Worth remembering that the TRAs have always been and continue to be one of the most effective networks that use entryism into a range of organisation to constantly push the trans agenda.

And as women we have relied on or trusted people (including men) "to do the right" thing.

As if.

Write to your MP: the government must stand up for women’s rights - Sex Matters campaign
https://sex-matters.org/take-action/write-to-your-mp-the-government-must-stand-up-for-womens-rights/

Ffs the government are being utterly pathetic on tjis. The law remains exactly the same as it was in 2010, the guidance is just that - guidance to give orgs some additional info on implementation. They still haveto implement it even without guidance

why is Starmer so bad at politics? He knows the vast vast majority of the population are very clear what a woman is, he knows that the vast majority of people don't want men in women's toilets, changing rooms, sports, prisons, refuges etc the peggie case and now the Darlington case are peaking the nation - and his plan is to sort of hope it goes away....well it won't because we won't .

I'm confused by the article as one of the early paragraphs said it was necessary to consider the impact on organisations but then it concludes by saying the Government are acting at pace to consider the guidance. I'm not sure if this is a done deal.

The law is a done deal. Unless Labour are seriously going to decide to amend the Equality Act. Now, my now-MP was quite unequivocal that the EA did not need amending pre-GE. That was the Labour Party line. I know they love a u-turn, but it'll be a difficult argument to have if they say that they want to amend it to allow men with lady-feelz into women's single sex spaces.

Labour wrote the fucking law. If they're unwilling or unable to implement their own law they look weaker for every day they delay.

Yes, some men who really want to use womens spaces will be let down.

Labour have to choose whether they open women's spaces to all men, or protect women's spaces. There is no middle ground.

A government based on absolute respect for the Rule of Law, except when it is inconvenient.

Backing Eddie Izzard and Munroe Bergdorf is also backing Isla Bryson and Rose Henderson.

Another day on the Labour merry go round.

Clowns

I suppose they can always make a decision and change their minds a few weeks later.

The level of exasperation in the comments is quiet something.

My favourite comment in the Times:
It was very easy for businesses etc to allow males to use female spaces but suddenly it’s difficult to revert back to single sex?

Now they face further months of uncertainty after the government insisted on a regulatory impact assessment into the burden the guidance would place on businesses.

What a slap in the face for women that the impact on businesses is worth months of scrutiny and consideration, but the impact on women of allowing men into women’s spaces was worth absolutely no consideration.

Now you know where you are in the hierarchy.

Every article, all the press, every word from an MP, it's all 'respect' and panic about men . You'd be forgiven for thinking this guidance is all and only about men with trans identity choices.

Mention of women's issues and needs with single sex spaces? Respect for women? Their dignity? The women assaulted and hurt and excluded by men in this mad misogynistic experiment? The equality of women? No, nowhere to be seen. Nothing. Nada.

Women have rights on paper and in theory, and a government absolutely fucking desperate that they should not have them in practice. As my MP has frequently told me (a Labour chocolate teapot) the most important thing about women's rights is that they are 'respectful' (and not inconvenient) to men.

Thereby demonstrating exactly what actual oppression looks like as opposed to the porn and fetish version, and exactly why women need cast iron law protections from those with major issues who are apparently incapable of seeing women as anything but props in male lives.

Edited to add: this does however require MPs with actual respect for the law of this country. Or morals of any kind.

I could not be more disgusted at this point, not just with this weak and appalling government but with every party and every tax payer funded establishment.

Amplifying this. I wrote to my MP using this template, it's very easy, it's makes more impact if you put it in your own words, but, yoh don't have to.
if we don't push back they'll think we agree