Mick Hartley

The other day we had Janice Turner pointing out the absurdity of Keir Starmer's position. The wretched man is desperate to win back the so-called "red wall" of disaffected Labour supporters, yet has shown himself unwilling to confront the most obvious issue that currently defines the gap between the "progressive" metropolitan few and the overwhelming red wall majority: the question of gender identity and supposed "trans rights". At the moment the debate centres round gender-critical Labour MP Rosie Duffield, who's declared herself unwilling to risk the abuse she'll inevitably receive from trans activists at the forthcoming Labour Party Conference. Starmer, given the chance to offer support to Duffield, and make his own position clear, is keeping quiet.

Brendan O'Neill in the Spectator – Starmer’s shameful silence on the Rosie Duffield trans row:

There is unquestionably a misogynistic streak to the rage against women who question the idea that it’s possible to change sex. These women — Duffield, Rowling, Kathleen Stock, Helen Joyce, Julie Bindel, Posie Parker, Venice Allan, Lucy Masoud, and many others — have made clear, sensible criticisms of the trans lobby and have brilliantly articulated the case for protecting women’s sex-based rights. And for doing so they are constantly, sometimes disgustingly maligned. They’re branded hags and phobes; they’re written off as TERFs (which, strictly speaking, means ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist’, but is now basically used as a stand-in for ‘witch’); they’re threatened, No Platformed. All that the woke set needs now is a ducking stool and they can really get to work.

And now we end up in a situation where a Labour MP feels she cannot attend her party conference because she once said only women have cervixes. It’s madness. And it’s a very serious problem for Starmer. So far he has said nothing about the persecution of Rosie Duffield. What moral cowardice. A party leader who fails to stand up for one of his own MPs against the barbs and threats of intolerant mobs really should ask himself why he’s in the job.

The loudest thing in British politics right now is the deafening silence of Keir Starmer in relation to the Rosie Duffield controversy. If Starmer and his team are serious about repairing Labour, and about winning back the support of decent working-class voters, then they should start by unconditionally backing Duffield and denouncing her sexist, censorious haters. That would send a clear message to the cranks that they aren’t welcome in Labour, and it would let the fair, reasoned working class know that, finally, Labour might be recovering its sanity.

I wouldn't bet on it.