Debbie Hayton Debbie Hayton

Labour’s transgender civil war has hit a new low

(Getty images)

August is the traditional silly season, but the Labour party risks descending into a farce from which it might struggle to recover when real politics resumes in September. In the absence of any direction from the party leadership, the transgender thought police have led the party down a rabbit hole. Last week, Spectator readers may recall the appalling attack on Rosie Duffield MP for claiming – quite rightly – that ‘only women have a cervix’. Now, the madness has continued.

This week’s episode involves LGBT+ Labour. Not to be confused with the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights (LCTR) that appeared in February, LGBT+ Labour has a long history of campaigning inside the Labour party and alongside the Labour party for gay rights. 

Do bear with me: the distinction between the groups is important. When the LCTR published its list of pledges that called for expulsions from the party, Keir Starmer was careful not to add his signature to those of Rebecca Long-Bailey, Lisa Nandy and Angela Rayner. Perhaps as a QC and former director of public prosecutions, Starmer sensed the need to distance himself from what looked like the work of a bunch of juvenile students.

But the transgender movement has grown so strong in his party that it could not go unappeased, and Starmer signed an alternative statement composed by the apparently more grown up LGBT+ Labour. As he explained on Facebook: ‘These pledges and LGBT+ Labour have my full support’.

He may have been reassured by the faces of his colleagues smiling back at him from the LGBT+ Labour website. The group enjoys the patronage of no fewer than 20 Labour MPs and eight peers. These are not the new intake who marked their support for trans rights with the ‘jiggle on the stairs‘ in Parliament back in February; this group includes party grandees – and privy councillors – including Lords Mandelson and Adonis.

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