House Of Communions, Early Day Motion tabled - Draft Code of Practice on Services, public functions and associations

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/65938

This is not a prayer motion, the only thing that could reject the draft guidance.

See here for more info https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/business/edms/

I do not think there is much chance of a prayer motion being voted on, given the timetables, who controls the timetable etc etc. But the chances are not zero.

I emailed my MP a week ago and apart from an auto reply I’ve had nothing in response.

I have one of those, one of the early ones to sign and I have never yet had even an acknowledgment from him, let alone a reply.

@NotAtMyAge The auto reply was just to remind constituents to include their name, address, email, phone number and date of birth.

@SabrinaThwaite My MP doesn't appear to have one of those. 🙄 He seems very disorganised, with no details I can find online of constituency surgeries across our very widespread rural constituency. His base is a 110 mile round trip from where I live.

Well, it seems he now does have an auto-acknowledgement, though he specifies only that he MAY need extra details if he is to help with my case. No mention of DOB, though.

@NotAtMyAge I don’t know why they asked for my DOB - they only actually need to check that I’m a constituent and will have access to the Electoral Register.

I haven't even had that from mine, and I've been to see her at least twice. So probably just a massive eyeroll from her.

@SabrinaThwaite At the moment all I can hope for is that he might actually read my email where I pointed out that there are nine protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 (not just gender reassignment) and service providers need guidance on all of them, which they will lose if the Code of Practice is disapproved.

Apparently up to 130-odd signatures. Getting a little concerned that Starmer won't hold his nerve, but slightly cheered that Angela Rayner apparently refused to sign.

Reading the Parliament website's information on EDMs I found this:

In an average session only six or seven EDMs reach over two hundred signatures. Around seventy or eighty get over one hundred signatures. The majority will attract only one or two signatures.

There is no rule whereby the number of signatures affects the likelihood of an EDM being debated.

So it looks like 130 signatures (so far) really is nothing out of the ordinary, however many MPs are virtue-signalling on X that they've signed.

https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/business/edms/

130 out of 650 - that's not even a quarter.

Their backers, or rather masters, the TRAs have been really good at getting headlines about 100 signing etc.. ie creating fake news.

But the reality is that less that a quarter have signed.

New headline - a quarter of MPs are against women's rights.

Funny that papers dont ever put that forward as the reality.

Sex Matters are now asking us to email our MPs, whether or not they've signed - see
https://sex-matters.org/take-action/ehrc-code-write-to-your-mp/
I've done mine (preens).

Have emailed my MP (she signed; I knew she would) but she never replies to me anyway so I'm not expecting one this time
How can they support this? Madness

My MP hasn't signed, probably because he doesn't even know about it, because he has zero interest in the concerns of women, as I found out when I've emailed him in the past.

My MP is a Starmer lackey, I'd bet money if Starmer told him to sign he would, so the fact that he hasn't might mean that Starmer has told him not to.

I'm grasping at straws I know. 😣

My MP is a sexist twat of a TRA but I think he's got political ambitions. Hasn't signed yet.

Don't hold back @teawamutu 😄

My MP is a Conservative and I know from other correspondence that he is supportive of GC policies. From what I have seen so far I don't think any Conservative MPs have signed and I don't think they will, given Kemi Badenoch's views on the subject, but I will write anyway to thank him for resisting the call from other parties to erode women's rights.

Believe me, I did.

Alex Sobel has posted this on Facebook:

"I was invited to attend the Women and Equalities Committee this week, in my role as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, to question the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) about the recently tabled Code of Practice. The session did not alleviate any of my concerns about the Code, and I am deeply concerned that the Code does not protect trans people from exclusion for which there is no proportionate basis.

I remain particularly worried about whether the rights trans people have long held under the Human Rights Act, the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act will be upheld. My questions to the EHRC centred on the vital need that trans people’s Article 8 rights, including the right to privacy and family life, are not undermined by this guidance

During the session, the Chair repeatedly struggled to provide clear answers to questions posed about the guidance's contradictions . Colleagues and I asked how the guidance would be applied by the police, in healthcare settings and in single-sex spaces such as toilets. The responses did not provide reassurance, and I left with even greater uncertainty about how the guidance will work in practice.

The EHRC exists to protect equality and human rights, yet many trans people are telling me they feel increasingly unsafe as a result of the guidance. Some of my trans constituents have told me they are now too anxious to use everyday community spaces due to increased levels of harassment towards them.

I cannot stand by and willingly allow this harmful guidance to be adopted. This is why I have signed Nadia Whittome’s Early Day Motion 240 to disapprove this guidance. In my view, the Code creates confusion rather than clarity, and does not strengthen protections for trans people.

As always, I will continue to advocate for the human rights of trans people in anyway that I can.

#EHRC #transrightsarehumanrights #transrights"

It's astonishing. MAS answered him clearly - women have article 8 rights too. Article 8 rights are qualified and there is a wide margin of appreciation where other people's rights will be affected. How is it that not a clear answer? The sheer dishonesty of these MPs is really pissing me off. He was always going to sign the EDM, as was Sarah Owen etc. But now they are trying to spin things to suggest they are signing the EDM because MAS didn't answer their questions? And that's putting aside the fact that the law is clear, regardless of whether the code is published or not.

How long more do we have to put up with this disingenuous, performative nonsense?

For women, it's "cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, cannon in front of them".

As Dworkin said, the only difference between men on the left and men on the right is where they put their boots on our necks.

Alex Sobel is a petulant, prissy little man who is unable to see any world in which women have rights without wanting to tear it down.

The answer is only 'clear' if they (and TIMs) like it. Anything other is confusing and unworkable because the starting premise is that women can't say No.

I find it bizarre that none of the signatories are being publicly held to accout for it by people who understand the law.

"Can you explain why it's beneficial to anyone to not have guidance that accurately explains the existing law?" "Why are you campaigning against this guidance rather than trying to change the underlying law that the guidance is merely explaining the impact of?" "Given that the Supreme Court has ruled that women's rights simply cannot exist unless the word 'woman' has an objectively verifiable meaning, ie not something that any man can choose to claim, how would you justify obliterating all women's rights which would be a necessary consequence of changing this law?"

I found it bizarre that several MPs in the WESC meeting were berating Mary-Ann Stephenson about the code being 'unworkable', when all the EHRC had done was produce guidance in accordance with the law. It didn't seem to cross their tiny little minds that it's parliament (i.e. them) which makes the law, so if the code is unworkable, then that means there's something wrong with the underlying laws, and it's up to them to change them, not the EHRC which can only produce guidance which follows the law.

They seemed to be blaming her for something that they viewed as a problem, when the problem was of their own making. MPs have made stupid, unworkable laws (like the GRA and the PC of gender reassignment in the EA), then they're blaming the EHRC for writing (in their eyes) unworkable guidance to follow their stupid, unworkable laws.

MAS said several times that the code doesn't change the law, just explains it. Some of the MPs seemed to be too stupid to understand this simple and obvious point.

My neighbour was distributing LibDem leaflets the other day. He is a retired consultant surgeon. I said I can never vote LD because they don't know what a woman is and also quoted a few choice examples from the Sandie Peggie case of gender madness in the NHS. He look a bit taken aback. As a long term LD supporter, I don't think it had ever occurred to him to consider where their policies now are. I know that his personal views are actually firmly GC.