Mick Hartley

Tony Blair enters the debate:

Labour will lose the “culture war” with the right if it makes transgender rights “our big thing”, Tony Blair has said.

The former prime minister said that Labour needed “complete renewal” if it is to stand any chance of winning power again and warned that the party must not become an “NGO or a pressure group”.

Transgender rights have become central in the Labour leadership contest. Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy signed a pledge card calling for the party to expel “transphobic” members. However, Sir Keir Starmer, the frontrunner, has refused to sign it.

The 12-point pledge card produced by the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights describes some organisations, including Women’s Place UK — a group that campaigns for “safe spaces” for women — as “trans-exclusionist hate groups”.

In a speech at Kings College London, Mr Blair said: “You have got to distinguish between the advocacy of things that are right — gay rights, transgender rights, whatever it is — and launching yourself politically into a culture war with the right….

Asked if he would sign the pledge card, Mr Blair said: “No, I wouldn’t. There are all sorts of difficult things that have to be resolved. There’s a proper consultation going on, we should do it in that way.

But of course, being Tony Blair, and being everything that Labour now hates – after all, he won three elections, which shows how much he knows about the exciting world of Labour politics nowadays – his advice has not been well received:

Several candidates running to be the party's leader and deputy leader have signed a pledge to expel those who "express bigoted, transphobic views".

Among them was Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, who took on Mr Blair's comments at an LGBT+ hustings in Manchester on Thursday night.

"I'm pretty upset about what Tony Blair said today," she said.

"There were a number of things that were wrong with it.

"First of all for me it was like 'leadership shouldn't talk about this' – you don't choose your battles, transgender woman haven't chosen to be in the middle of a battle…."

Um…yes they have. That's precisely what they've done. Not all transgender women, of course, but the ones behind the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights, and their 12-point pledge card, which they've demanded that all candidates sign up to – including self-ID and all the rest. They're the ones who've chosen to make a battle of this. Not Tony Blair.