transphobia
The Local Election Results Flush the Conservative Party’s Culture War Strategy Down the Gender Neutral Toilet
The hours before any big election is a crucial time for any political party.
With voters about to pick their local representatives in large parts of the country, you might have expected the Conservative party to have spent all of their time this week ramming home their big election messages about council tax and Labour mismanagement.
Yet on one of the biggest broadcasting slots afforded to the party on the eve of the local elections, one of the Conservative party’s leading figures instead devoted their energies to talking about toilets.
In a typically spiky performance on LBC, the Business Secretary and current favourite to become the next Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch berated the host about her use of the term “culture wars” while repeatedly failing to substantiate her claims about the prevelance of non-gender specific toilets in schools and their impact on the number of urinary tract infections currently being experienced by girls.
Meanwhile, in local government wards across the country, Conservative councillors and activists struggled to persuade voters that there was any substantial reason for them to stick with the party after 14 years of low growth and failing public services.
The result is that, according to the early results we are now seeing, the Conservatives are on course for a truly catastrophic set of defeats, just months away from the next general election.
According to the first tranche of local election results, Rishi Sunak's losing around half the seats they are defending, with Labour regaining councils both in their former heartlands and in Conservative strongholds in the South.
According to Britain’s leading pollster John Curtice, the numbers point to Rishi Sunak’s party suffering “one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performances in local government elections in the last 40 years”, with the party doing at least as badly as the current national opinion polls suggest.
In the Blackpool South by-election, where the former MP Scott Benton was forced out over a lobbying and corruption scandal, Labour scored the fourth largest swing away from the Conservatives in history, with Keir Starmer’s party also winning back support the party lost in it’s former northern heartlands, as well as in formerly safe Conservative areas in the South.
It’s not all good news for Labour. In areas with large Muslim populations, such as in parts of Newcastle, there have been large swings to the Green Party, as voters unhappy with Keir Starmer’s weak response to the war in Gaza vote look for an alternative.
Some of the results in the upcoming mayoral elections due to be declared over the next couple of days could also prove disappointing for Starmer’s party. Those around Sadiq Khan suggest the results in London will be much closer than the large poll leads suggest, due to changes in the voting system and voter dissatisfaction over crime and the mayor’s clean air policies.
Labour could also face an upset in the North East mayoral election, where the former Labour mayor turned independent, Jamie Driscoll, looks on course for a potential victory after being blocked from standing by the party.
This could all be a sign of things to come under a potential future Labour Government, with splits on the left and voter dissatisfaction quickly souring the elation of any general election landslide.
But for a party on the cusp of going from one of the worst general election defeats in history in 2019 to one of their greatest ever victories in 2024, these are crosses they will be more than willing to bear.
And while Downing Street have been desperately trying to focus journalists’ attention on the rare expected chinks of light from these results, such as Andy Street and Ben Houchen potentially clinging on to their mayoral seats, the truth is that the only Conservative candidates likely to do well in these elections are those who have most successfully distanced themselves from the party they still nominally stand for.
Meanwhile the party’s core strategy of trying to ignite a series of “culture wars” over issues such as gender and immigration, are continuing to fail for the party.
Despite spending this week marshalling immigration officers and the civil service behind a pre-local election push on its Rwanda policy, the early results suggest that the Conservative party’s focus on such issues is only helping to serve the interests of Nigel Farage’s Reform party.
Meanwhile, the broader focus on niche culture war debating issues, appears to be merely alienating voters far more concerned with other issues, according to research by the pollster Luke Tryl, who suggests that such rhetoric about "woke" issues "significantly reduces the likelihood to vote Conservative".
In fact despite all of their best efforts, all the signs suggest that the Conservative party’s strategy of attempting to win the general election through what their former Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson describes as “a mix of culture wars and the trans debate” is going swiftly down the (gender neutral) toilet.
Fresh audio product: criminalization of protest, hidden agenda behind anti-trans panic
Just added to my radio archive (click on date for link):
May 2, 2024 Adam Federman on the criminalization of protest (article here) • Kay Gabriel on how the right is using the anti-trans panic to make war on public schools and teachers’ unions (article here)
Brianna Ghey: ‘When the World Finally Saw the Person Her Family Always Loved’
Before she was murdered, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, had to listen to politicians mock, degrade and dehumanise her.
This didn’t happen just at Prime Minister's Questions and it wasn’t only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives who did it.
Prominent journalists, columnists, think tank talking heads, self-appointed anti-trans campaigners and Labour MPs could be found doing it from first thing in the morning on the Today programme, via Woman’s Hour to Newsnight just before bed. It was terrifically popular at any hour on GB News, LBC and Talk Radio.
Brianna’s parents, and all the people who loved her, heard these words too. And we know now that they worried for her future.
Newspapers carried these dehumanising and disingenuous words and ideas. They flooded The Times, The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, the Express, The Sun, the Mirror, The Scotsman and the Herald and even the Guardian and the Observer.
Wherever you looked, there it was. Brianna’s parents rightly feared for her safety in a country where this irrational, obsessional hatred had gained such a hold.
Before Brianna Ghey was stabbed to death, the people who wrote and said these things in such abundance wanted us all to be clear that, even if experts and the science disagreed, then they themselves were at least very firm in their common sense views: anyone like Brianna had to be a fantasist, a groomer, a victim of grooming, a paedophile, a victim of paedophiles, a crank, an ideologist, a victim of ideology, a weak-minded sap, a sociopathic monster, a danger to themselves, a danger to others, and above all a threat to other women. And to lesbianism. And hospital wards. Oh and a threat to men who wouldn’t fancy them if they knew and would probably be forced to beat them up if they found out.
Before Brianne Ghey’s organs shut down, she was, according to the media, a threat to other children who might see her and put on a dress and demand hormones and surgery for themselves, and a threat to parents who didn’t like to talk about that sort of thing. She was a threat to education in the classroom, to changing rooms, to toilets, to teachers in a tizz about God and pronouns, and to academics who couldn’t say anything anymore without some bloody students telling them they were a fascist.
Before there were 28 stab wounds in her precious, beautiful, funny, loving and kind body, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, struggled to find the real words and ideas and experiences of people like her represented anywhere. But nonetheless her parents and the people who loved her listened to her, loved her and made it possible for her to be herself.
All of this happened before Brianna Ghey was murdered.
After her murder, after the trial, after the verdict and the sentencing during which the judge made clear that transphobia was a motivation in the attack, after the words of her parents – only then could Brianna become something different to the hatred and misrepresentation in the words of the politicians and media.
She became to the public the person that her family always saw. A child, a teen, a gentle person who deserved a happy and safe life.
That is why Rishi Sunak’s transphobic gag crashed so badly across the House of Commons floor this week and the country beyond. What is a woman? Brianna’s mum and her lost daughter.
Before she was murdered, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, had to listen to politicians mock, degrade and dehumanise her.
This didn’t happen just at Prime Minister's Questions and it wasn’t only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives who did it.
Prominent journalists, columnists, think tank talking heads, self-appointed anti-trans campaigners and Labour MPs could be found doing it from first thing in the morning on the Today programme, via Woman’s Hour to Newsnight just before bed. It was terrifically popular at any hour on GB News, LBC and Talk Radio.
Brianna’s parents, and all the people who loved her, heard these words too. And we know now that they worried for her future.
Newspapers carried these dehumanising and disingenuous words and ideas. They flooded The Times, The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph, the Express, The Sun, the Mirror, The Scotsman and the Herald and even the Guardian and the Observer.
Wherever you looked, there it was. Brianna’s parents rightly feared for her safety in a country where this irrational, obsessional hatred had gained such a hold.
Before Brianna Ghey was stabbed to death, the people who wrote and said these things in such abundance wanted us all to be clear that, even if experts and the science disagreed, then they themselves were at least very firm in their common sense views: anyone like Brianna had to be a fantasist, a groomer, a victim of grooming, a paedophile, a victim of paedophiles, a crank, an ideologist, a victim of ideology, a weak-minded sap, a sociopathic monster, a danger to themselves, a danger to others, and above all a threat to other women. And to lesbianism. And hospital wards. Oh and a threat to men who wouldn’t fancy them if they knew and would probably be forced to beat them up if they found out.
ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE
Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.
We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.
Before Brianne Ghey’s organs shut down, she was, according to the media, a threat to other children who might see her and put on a dress and demand hormones and surgery for themselves, and a threat to parents who didn’t like to talk about that sort of thing. She was a threat to education in the classroom, to changing rooms, to toilets, to teachers in a tizz about God and pronouns, and to academics who couldn’t say anything anymore without some bloody students telling them they were a fascist.
Before there were 28 stab wounds in her precious, beautiful, funny, loving and kind body, Brianna Ghey, like all trans people in the UK, struggled to find the real words and ideas and experiences of people like her represented anywhere. But nonetheless her parents and the people who loved her listened to her, loved her and made it possible for her to be herself.
All of this happened before Brianna Ghey was murdered.
After her murder, after the trial, after the verdict and the sentencing during which the judge made clear that transphobia was a motivation in the attack, after the words of her parents – only then could Brianna become something different to the hatred and misrepresentation in the words of the politicians and media.
She became to the public the person that her family always saw. A child, a teen, a gentle person who deserved a happy and safe life.
That is why Rishi Sunak’s transphobic gag crashed so badly across the House of Commons floor this week and the country beyond. What is a woman? Brianna’s mum and her lost daughter.
Katherine O'Donnell is a LGBTI rights campaigner, a board member of the Equality Network, and former Night Editor of The Times, Scotland
Labour loses London seat of mostly Jewish and Muslim voters
Seat Corbyn won from LibDems in 2018 rejects Starmer
Keir Starmer’s Labour has thrown away a seat in the London borough of Hackney that Labour won overwhelmingly under Corbyn. The Cazenove by-election was won by the Tories, who managed only single digits in the last election:
Cazenove’s population is around 40% Charedi Jewish and 40% Muslim. Locals say that the Labour vote collapsed among Muslims and some Charedis – who, unlike the prevailing right-wing narrative that Israel is central to Jewish identity, generally do not support the modern state of Israel – because of Starmer’s complicity in the Gaza genocide.
But the catastrophic loss is also a microcosm of Labour’s anti-democratic, visionless and frankly incompetent approach to politics, as former Labour speechwriter Alex Nunns pointed out:
The Prole Star page added a screenshot from a local London site:
Labour is also said to have blocked a union-backed prospective candidate from standing in the seat.
The result again exposes the nonsense of Starmer’s claim to have ‘professionalised’ the party and to have made it appealing to ‘Jewish voters’ – apparently Charedis are considered ‘the wrong type of Jew’ for the Labour right. It also highlights – again – the cynical and anti-democratic manoeuvrings that have characterised Labour’s selections and campaigns since the Starmer regime began.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.