September 7, 2023 - 10:30am
Is anyone prepared to stand up against the spread of trans ideology in schools? Rishi Sunak said as much, but now he appears to be backing away from it.
Long-delayed guidance on how to deal with pupils who claim to have changed sex still hasn’t been published, and now it looks as though the Prime Minister is having second thoughts about bringing in a law to enforce strict new rules.
If reports from “Whitehall sources” are accurate, it would represent another climbdown by politicians who have repeatedly buckled rather than face the wrath of trans activists. Sunak was told in July by the Attorney General, Victoria Prentis, that legislation is needed to prevent “social transitioning”, where pupils who claim to be trans demand to use new names, pronouns and the uniform of the opposite sex.
But it’s far from clear whether a change to the 2010 Equality Act is needed to issue robust guidance. Some lawyers believe the Attorney General’s advice is an overly strict interpretation, based on the questionable proposition that the protected characteristic of “gender reassignment” requires teachers to accede to every demand made by children who claim to be trans. They say it is hard to believe that schools have to ignore their safeguarding obligations and allow 14-year-old boys to use girls’ toilets. Or that they should be expected to lie about a pupil’s sex — and compel other children to lie.
All of this raises the question of whether Sunak is convinced of the need for legislation — or whether he is hiding behind the Attorney General’s advice. He may think he has enough on his plate at the moment, without walking into the media storm that would follow publication of the kind of tough guidance we’ve been led to expect. But that is how trans activists operate, using bullying tactics to frighten critics of gender ideology into backing down. And while the Prime Minister would be attacked by a handful of Conservative MPs who are signed up to this nonsense, most are firmly on the side of reality.
If Sunak publishes watered-down guidance that avoids the issue of “social transitioning”, it will be an act of rank cowardice. He knows that time is short, that the Conservatives are likely to be in opposition in less than eighteen months, and the Labour Party has an alarming number of trans activist MPs and parliamentary candidates within its ranks.
Many people who are not natural Conservatives have put their hopes in Tory politicians like the Women and Equalities Minister, Kemi Badenoch, who has been outspoken about what is happening in schools. If the Prime Minister caves in, the consequences will be dire. Teachers and children will be left in fear of being disciplined simply for asserting a belief in reality.
Teaching children to lie has no place in the curriculum, even when it’s done to avoid hurting another child’s feelings. The opposite is true, in fact. One of the things pupils need to learn is how to think critically, equipping them for a world in which they will be bombarded with false claims and conspiracy theories.
Crumbling concrete is not the only threat to children’s health. Bad ideas are just as dangerous, and few are more insidious than telling kids they can change sex. Sunak needs to get trans activism out of the country’s schools, and he needs to do it quickly.
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.
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SubscribeThese delusional predictions are down to a simple fact: journalists are – for the most part – now active campaigners and not reporters. Their mission is to define a “narrative” and attempt to make that normal so it gradually becomes reality. Reporting things as they are died in the late 1980s.
Back to the core of the article. It would be interesting to know if there is some research about the proportion of people who are actively voting for a party (or set of beliefs) versus those who are voting against a party (or set of beliefs). My suspicion is that we have drifted into a world where the voting against approach has become increasingly important. Indeed, I would suggest that Boris Johnson in 2019 was a huge beneficiary from this. Also, that the recent increase in current Labour polls is down to the same reason. And how else to explain the Liberal Democrat by-election win in Chesham where their candidate campaigned against HS2 (which the Lib Dems as a party support and is now irreversible in the Chilterns (the tunnel is largely built) ?
Given that voting against behaviour is probably inherently more volatile than voting for, it is no suprise that politics is so fluid in Europe.
To be really successful, I suspect you need to be able to appeal to both voting for and voting against groups. It’s arguable that both Thatcher and Blair were able to do this. Boris Johnson seems to have lost connection with much of his voting for support. Keir Starmer looks like he has a weak appeal to both groups.
I’ve always regarded elections as merely an opportunity to vote for the least worst option. After all, no one gets the government they want, not even party leaders since manifestos are inevitably compromises.
“It would be interesting to know if there is some research about the proportion of people who are actively voting for a party”
That’s a really good point. I’ve tried to do some research on the collapse of the Lib Dem vote after the coalition government. Lord Ashcroft’s polling found that many Lib Dems central identity wasn’t that they were Lib Dems but that they weren’t Labour or Tories. They derived a certain satisfaction from been able to say “don’t blame me , I voted Lib Dem” once in power, they abandoned the party in disgust when forced to implicate themselves in hard choices of government. I suspect we will see the Green Party increasingly playing this role going forward. Which will actually probably play into the Tories hands, as left of centre voters who don’t want see the consequences of a Labour-SNP-Lib Dem government, chose it as an opt out.
Eisenhower set the trend for post war politics, with his offer a chicken in the fridge and 2 cars on the drive for every American (or something like that). The point is, it was a ‘social contract’ that made sense: vote for us and things’ll get better for you. And until about the Reagan-Thatcher era, that was a credible proposition. But now, whether its because of their own ideas or incompetence or market forces, political ‘elites’ simply don’t deliver for ordinary people. Most have experienced 25 years of stagnant wages, the benefits of mass immigration, collapsing public services, and a handful of people getting rich in a way unimaginable 40 odd years ago. So yes, they are going to give the ‘populists’ a try. Why not, when all the ‘elite’ can offer is rubbish that no-one wants and seems not to benefit the plain man.
Its amusing to see the left scratching their heads or reacting with hysterical anger and/or despair at the ground being gained across the western world by right leaning populists.
What they don’t seem to realise (or simply cant bring themselves to accept) is the simple fact that if one makes strenuous, continous efforts to shift the overton window, the people who politically speaking stay still become opponents.
Canada, Australia and NZ seem to buck the trend, and the US in part, if the ability to rig an election counts.
The Australian Labor party had a poor result in the recent election, that they managed to form a government is down to the rise of independents under their preferential voting system. In New Zealand Labour support has collapsed despite the continuing (and thoroughly undeserved) popularity of their leader.
Things are pretty bad here (NZ) with every social and economic metric getting worse and an ongoing divisive, and deeply unpopular, racial separatist agenda being forced on the people. Labour are toast, unfortunately the next election is over a year away.
I can’t comment on Canada.
I’m willing to wager that Labour will win the next election in NZ. While Arderns popularity was never going to stay at the high levels she enjoyed at the start of her tenure, especially during a worldwide recession, the opposition are absolutely clueless.
Tax cuts for top earners (who already pay a much lower rate of income tax than most first world countries) as well as tax cuts for landlords and property speculators during a housing crisis aren’t likely to win them the working class votes they need to attract to win the next election. An austerity drive and wage freezes when more people are experiencing a cost of living crisis will be an electoral disaster
I attended the Harvard University Law School graduation ceremonies last month. Ardern was the guest keynote speaker, and her speech was articulate and intelligent, which may or may not match her governing style.
I suspect Canada may just be behind the curve a little. There seems to be increasing unrest in terms of the Liberals approach. We’ve not been lucky in our Conservative Party leaders of late which also has an impact.
I don’t think Biden would have won had Trump been a little more careful. I know a few people who voted for Biden, without really wanting to, their main worry with Trump was that he was unstable.
Wokeness isn’t popular in Canada — just as everywhere else — but centre/centre-left policies remain popular with a majority of Canadians.
Britain’s conservative government is not centre left, it is draconian woke extreme left
Absolutely agreed, but for whom do we now vote
“draconian woke extreme left”???
What a bunch of hooey.
Only this week the Washington Post ran an article on the resurgence of the left after various elections in South America leaving the USA on the sidelines. It seems a bit desperate given the tumultuous nature of South American politics to be looking there for leadership of the left.