Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Labour’s real women issue

The Labour Party claims to be learning lessons from its crushing defeat in December’s general election. But are they the right ones?

While some have been moving through the stages of grief more slowly than others, the party has generally woken up to the reality that something’s gotta give. But it’s not yet obvious that the right lessons have been learned in the upper echelons of Labour – not even by some of the MPs putting themselves forward to be the next leader.

Yes, the party faithful are shifting their focus back to northern and rural communities, whose decision to vote blue this time around turned decades’ worth of electoral voting patterns on their head. The first Labour hustings revealed some agreement that the election manifesto was flawed. MP for Wigan Lisa Nandy has gained notable traction by putting the spotlight on less affluent regions and their genuine plights (bus routes, diminishing jobs); even in an uphill battle for support from a party membership still characterised by Corbynista frenzy, her talking points are having some cut-through.

But when the contest kicked off, it wasn’t these not-so-glamorous but oh-so important areas of public policy that dominated the news agenda. For all the talk of reflection and change, Labour has already fallen into old patterns, retreating into their comfort zone by putting identity politics at the heart of the race.

What dominated the first round of the leadership race wasn’t a debate between the virtues of the centre-ground versus a far left approach, but rather why the male candidate appeared to be garnering more support than the women. Rather than weighing up and critiquing the particular economic policies put forward by hopeful leaders, the focus has instead been on the gender of the person pushing the policy.

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