Women’s rights are still not safe. Too many organisations on the Left, including trade unions, are still committed to destroying single-sex spaces. Activists from these groups have the 2010 Equality Act in their sights, and much will depend on Andy Burnham, a politician who has only recently dropped his wholehearted support for men who claim to be women.

Pressure on Government ministers to rewrite the Act is growing this week, as the Trade Union Congress (TUC) meets in Brighton. A motion which passed earlier this week by the TUC’s LGBT+ conference “unequivocally condemns” the guidance published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). An unnamed trade union boss said the “only way to get out of” observing the guidance is to change the act.

This idea was echoed by one of the most hardline trans activists in the House of Commons, Labour MP Nadia Whittome. At a fringe meeting in Brighton, she called for a change in the law to protect “the rights, privacy, and inclusion of trans people”.

Trans activism hasn’t gone away, in other words. Four unions, including Aslef and the country’s largest, Unison, are boycotting Labour’s women’s conference later this month because it won’t admit trans-identified men. Thus far, junior ministers are resisting calls to rewrite the Equality Act, but the final decision will rest with Burnham. And his track record suggests he is a far-from-reliable ally of women.

Back in 2019, Burnham joined three other Labour mayors in calling for a change in the law to introduce self-ID. The call, detailed in a letter, described reform of the 2004 Gender Recognition Act as “a key step in addressing the marginalisation of trans and non-binary communities”. Three years later, Burnham supported the idea that trans women should be able to use women’s toilets, wrongly suggesting that only a minority of people want them to remain single-sex.

Until very recently, Burnham was not even a fan of the EHRC guidance. He didn’t change his mind until the Makerfield by-election campaign, when a history of unwise statements about feminists and single-sex spaces threatened to become a liability. Even then, he didn’t exactly come up with an unequivocal endorsement, admitting it was time to implement the guidance, but adding a caveat about the importance of not marginalising “already marginalised communities”.

It was a typical Burnham performance, trying to distance himself from a position that was no longer tenable while throwing a bone to trans activists. On the evidence so far, this is not a brave or principled premiership. Since his return to the Commons, Burnham has ducked two votes on significant moral issues. He was absent in June when the Conservatives proposed a motion to stop the puberty blockers trial. He also announced that he would abstain last week, when MPs narrowly voted against a contentious bill to allow assisted suicide in this country.

This assault on women’s rights needs to be stopped in its tracks, before backbench MPs start demanding a commitment to reform the Equality Act in Labour’s next manifesto. The Prime Minister should instead make it clear that the Supreme Court judgment has settled the matter: and it won’t be reopened while he is in Downing Street.

However, there are few indications that this is what will happen in the near future. If Andy Burnham turns out to be all that stands between us and a concerted attempt by Labour MPs and the unions to water down the Equality Act, we may be in serious trouble.

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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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