Mick Hartley

From the Times:

Bridget Phillipson has been accused of delaying guidance on single-sex spaces until after Labour’s deputy leadership race over concerns that she could lose support from some MPs.

The women and equalities minister received statutory guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) last month setting out how gyms, clubs and hospitals must judge single-sex spaces based on biology.

But she hasn’t done anything about it – because, apparently, she’s worried about that trans backlash. Oh dear.

However, several Labour MPs said they had been lobbied by constituents and that backing Phillipson at the same time as the guidance was released would make them “extremely unpopular” in their seats.

One MP said: “I back Bridget, but if this guidance is published before the vote closes there’s no way I can vote for her. I’ve got a big LGBT community in my constituency and I’d never get their vote again.”

I think they’re mistaking the voices of a few loud trans activists with the general view of the “LGBT community”. A large number of gay people are thoroughly sick of the Ts, and are generally supportive of people like the LGB Alliance who see no common cause between the LGB and the T. Indeed they see the Ts as cuckoos in the nest, piggy-backing on the general goodwill towards the gay community to advance their own frankly homophobic agenda. But Labour MPs, forever scared of their own shadows, and living in their little bubble, just don’t see this.

Not that Lucy Powell, Phillipson’s opponent for the deputy leadership, is any better.

Powell, Phillipson’s opponent who is increasingly seen as the frontrunner in the election, has said that the EHRC guidance goes too far.

At the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, she said: “I think we have got some of the language not right on this, and particularly around some of the guidance that’s coming forward.

“I really strongly feel like we need a robust and transparent parliamentary conversation about that because when we’re looking at applying the law as parliamentarians, we should have a say on that and that’s something I’ll be pushing for as well.”

Two women fighting to retain the support of a tiny number of aggressive men, against the half of the population that are women. What an inspiring sight.