I have been utterly dismayed by the Labour Party leadership’s descent into transphobic rhetoric over the past 18 months. Just during the election campaign, I have heard Keir Starmer and members of his shadow cabinet make blatantly transphobic statements (although I suspect Starmer at least, doesn’t realise how transphobic he sounds, I believe he thinks he is making a nice,centrist, compromise position that should be acceptable to both transphobes and trans people.)
It began longer ago than just 18 months, of course, but it was less blatant, and policy hadn’t changed yet. I still believed, 18 months ago, that the majority of the membership were more pro-trans rights, and that through Conference and policy consultations, we could influence the Party and its direction. I don’t think the membership have shifted, but my faith in the Party process has been crushed.
The constant drip of dog-whistle rhetoric (and sometimes outright hate speech) from senior members of the Shadow Cabinet, and our leader Keir Starmer, since then, has steadily and consistently undermined every argument I could find to try to persuade LGBTQ+ folks that Labour were worth voting for.
A year ago, I was still able to find enough in Labour’s official policy proposals language to argue that Labour had not yet abandoned trans rights as an issue, and campaign for Labour in good faith at my local Pride in 2023. This year, I could not, and refused to represent the Party there.
Following the National Policy Forum’s finalised policy documents last year, with their wholly inadequate amendments to gender recognition processes, and following the Labour Together report “Red Shift” endorsed by (among others) Wes Streeting and Rachel Reeves, which advocates appealing to transphobes in order to win in 2024, I could no longer argue that Labour will be genuinely supportive of trans rights.
So, why do I still feel like Labour is my best vote?
I’m Not Just Trans
I’m not enthused by any of the Labour Party manifesto, if I’m honest. It lacks ambition on the economy, on the welfare state, on anything, really.
At the same time, there are some genuinely positive things in there, that I think will actually help in various ways. Ending zero-hour contracts is a good move, for example. And whatever the case, they will certainly be an improvement over the Tories’ plans.
But at this point, policy is not the key factor here. I’m more interested in looking ahead, and planning for when and how we might get our agenda on the table seriously.
Thinking Strategically
At this point, it seems inevitable that the Labour Party, led by Sir Keir Starmer, will form the next government. It also seems likely they will have an unprecedented majority.
So, I’m looking ahead to 2029. In fact, I have been for most of the past year or so. I don’t expect to vote Labour in 5 years’ time.
Starmer, and his Labour Together/Labour First allies, think they have the Activist Left vote stitched up, at least in part because our First-Past-The-Post system favours two-party politics and therefore if Labour don’t win, it’s likely to be a Tory government, and no one on the Left wants to see that. In 2010, people forget that the Parliamentary left wing of the Labour Party said they would refuse to sit in government with the LibDems, and some even argued that a period on the sidelines would do the Party good, to push it to the left. That left the LibDems with a choice of sitting in opposition to a minority Conservative government, or forming a coalition with them. And we all know how that worked out. The genuine threat that the Tories might take power again is enough to keep the hard left from being too punitive in choosing someone other than labour to vote for.
But in 2024, we see the genuine possibility of the Tories being demolished as a credible threat. Once that happens (and only after that happens) we can pivot to attack Labour and try to create a genuine and credible threat from the Left instead. It’s the only realistic chance I can see of creating an atmosphere where trans rights might actually be properly on the agenda. 2029 is where we have to fight back.
So, thinking strategically, in 2024 vote Labour in most places, vote LibDem where it’s a genuine two-horse race between them and the Tories, and if you’re in a constituency where the Greens stand a genuine chance, then vote Green (I think it would do Labour a world of good to have more Green MPs in Parliament). I don’t fully trust the Greens, but a lot of their manifesto is what I feel Labour’s should have been.
And as soon as the election is over, we need to start organising to build the campaigning ability to shift the debate back to the left. We’ll have five years to get our agenda out there.
Still Better Than The Tories
Labour’s manifesto isn’t great, as I said, but compared to what the Tories are proposing it is still an improvement. If Labour actually do ban all forms of conversion therapy (it’s in their manifesto to do so) then this is a step in the right direction. Labour has a history of small steps that pave the way for larger and more significant things later: I very much doubt David Cameron’s Tories would have legalised gay marriage if Labour hadn’t introduced Civil Unions as a compromise halfway house measure the decade before. That measure shifted the debate and got us there eventually. It’s not impossible that the fast-track but still medicalised approach to gender recognition could play a similar role in getting us eventually to full legal self-ID.
It might not, and Lord knows, it’s not good enough, but it is at least a tiny step away from banning trans people altogether. It is way better than the Tories’ policy.
My Local Candidate
After speaking with my local Labour Party candidate about LGBTQ+ issues, and trans rights specifically, I believe we would have another trans ally in parliament if she were to be elected. There is a pro-trans rights group within the Parliamentary Labour Party, and if in the following five years we are to have any kind of voice or weight in Parliament to protect our rights and dignity, then we will need Labour MPs who are at least inclined to stand up for us and speak for us.
Not every candidate is going to be as positive for trans folks,and campaigning against them and voting against them, is perhaps a better strategy for trans rights. But if you have the opportunity to speak with your local Labour candidate, and they turn out to be receptive to supporting trans rights, then that is a great reason to vote Labour.
Conclusions
My parents always spoke about in the 1970s they were part of the International Socialists, whose advice at every election was “Vote Labour with no illusions”. That same slogan applies today,in bucketloads.
A weak Labour win leaves the threat of Tory resurgence as a cosh with which to browbeat left-leaning voters into giving Labour their vote in 2029. (I do wonder if some of Starmer’s more questionable pronouncements have been a belated attempt to maintain that threat.)
The Tories are implacably anti-trans, from top to bottom. At least in Labour there is a voice for trans rights, even if it is currently sidelined and lacking force. And some of the actual policies in the Labour manifesto, while nowhere near good enough, are at least a small step in the right direction from where we’ve been under the Tories.
I’m not trying to persuade anyone else to change their minds about not voting Labour, because as I said above, every argument I tried over the last 18 months was subsequently undermined and negated by the Labour leadership. And you may very well think that all of this is just a desperate rationalisation to convince myself it’s okay to vote Labour (but if you do, please keep it to yourself and avoid wasting your time and mine by sharing).
But, I’ll see you on 5th July and we can start to plan for 2029 then.
Valery North - Writer 