This may be Labour's cunning plan to get by the Equality Act. Just cancel women's meetings altogether, so they won't get the chance to exclude trans women and so cause trouble.
Read our response⬇️to a plan which we understand @UKLabour NEC will consider on Tues
The plan accepts the need to comply with the Equality Act, but proposes cancelling Women's Conference to avoid threats from those objecting to it being for women only..https://t.co/gKL1gPqCrt
— LabourWomen’sDeclaration 🦖 (@LabWomenDec) May 19, 2025
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
From Labour List:
Labour is set to indefinitely postpone its national women’s conference and limit women’s officer roles and all-women shortlists to biological women while it reviews its policies in the wake of the Supreme Court judgement, sparking attacks from trans and gender-critical activists alike.
LabourList has seen a paper circulated to members of the party’s national executive committee, which warns of a “significant risk of a legal challenge” – as well as “protests, direct action and heightened security risks” if the women’s conference goes ahead as initially planned in Liverpool this September on the basis of attendee self-identification.
The gender-critical campaign group Labour Women’s Declaration, which welcomed the Supreme Court ruling, said shelving the conference would be “wrongheaded”, shortsighted”, “exceptionally disappointing” and a “knee-jerk reaction”.
Meanwhile LGBT+ Labour’s trans officer Georgia Meadows and two Labour trans rights campaign groups said they “unreservedly condemn” the wider party changes, warning limiting trans people’s participation will exacerbate trans people’s under-representation in politics more widely.
Brilliant. Pleasing no one, while showing themselves up as cowards.
A Labour Women’s Declaration spokesperson said: “We are of course pleased that the party is finally aware that it must comply with the Equality Act. However, cancelling our conference for fear of protests against a women’s event, is not the answer.”
“We feel it would be a knee jerk reaction to cancel. We call on the NEC to consider very carefully such an incendiary action as cancelling the single major policy-making conference of the party which focuses on issues affecting women.
“We are shocked that hundreds of women in the Labour Party might be prevented from meeting at conference because the NEC would prefer to disadvantage all women rather than to exclude the very small number of trans-identified men who may wish to attend the women’s conference.
I did wonder about this. Rather than tell entitled men to eff off, and actually defend women's interests, orgs may just decide to scrap women's things entirely.
Which, if you STILL can't work out what is going on here, is patriarchal bullshit on steroids. https://t.co/osNBzJItZB
— Jenny Lindsay (@msjlindsay) May 19, 2025
Leave a comment