But “misogyny” is also a slippery beast, and not just thanks to many Labour politicians’ well-documented inability to give a coherent definition of “woman”. What counts specifically as hatred towards women is at least somewhat subjective, a fact that led LBC’s Ben Kentish to suggest that the policy might unduly chill speech. But Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, told Kentish that the new provisions would simply be subject to the same test as Islamist or far-Right ideology.

So that’s all fine then, isn’t it? Well, perhaps — at least if this is rigorously followed. But the difficulty with “misogyny” as a metric is that it’s both very emotive, and also very broad. At the risk of stating the obvious, half the planet’s human population is female, and this in turn means you could attract accusations of misogyny for criticising almost any large-scale group or institution. Given this, it would surely be difficult for any politician to resist wielding such a useful designation on Schmittian principles.

Accordingly, several groups outside the political mainstream have already expressed concern about being targeted unfairly by Cooper’s initiative. The far-Left Morning Star, for example, treated the whole extremism review with deep suspicion, viewing it as marching in lockdown with Tory clampdowns on the freedom to protest. Some women’s rights campaigners, too, expressed a concern that the next move would be including trans-identified men in the “women” category, in order to reclassify any accurate description of such individuals’ biological sex as “extreme misogyny” and therefore a matter for counterterrorism.

Others again responded cynically to the announcement with photos of women in burqas, sex-segregated Labour Party rallies, or videos of Islamist men talking about how praiseworthy it is to be jealously controlling of your wife’s behaviour. The aggregate insinuation was that the “extreme misogyny” which ought to be the focus of Labour’s counter-extremism was not the one Cooper has chosen to highlight — and that, in fact, Cooper is content to ignore misogyny from Muslims, or even to protect it in law, preferring instead to persecute Right-wing anons and forum nerds.

Such cynicism is perhaps somewhat understandable, given Sir William Shawcross’s recent independent review of Prevent. Shawcross described the service as good overall, but unevenly distributed in its foci: specifically, “too narrow” in its definition of Islamism, and “too broad” in its definition of the “far-Right”. This was misguided, he argued, given that the most severe and large-scale material threat to British security still came from Islamists.

When even an independent review of British counterterrorism identified some institutional bias in favour of Islamists and against Right-wingers, it is not wholly unreasonable for the latter to feel some concern about new measures that might be used to target them. And yet, taken on its own terms, the Home Secretary’s proposal is not unreasonable either. The subculture to which she is referring really does exist, and can be nasty. Cooper’s statements make clear that the addition of “extreme misogyny” to a list that already comprises Islamist, far-Right, animal rights, environmental, and Northern Ireland related extremist aims to address “gaps in the current system”. And as she makes clear, the specific gap she has in mind is the subculture associated with “incel” or “involuntary celibate” young men.

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Is this really extremism? Surely just being disparaging about “foids” on the internet doesn’t make someone an extremist? In most cases, no it doesn’t; but this culture does sometimes appear to influence or help to inspire real-world atrocities. The first such documented instance occurred in 2014, when 22-year-old Elliot Rodger went on a murder spree in California, killing several of his housemates before shooting three women outside a sorority house, then committing suicide. He left behind a lengthy manifesto that described his lonely youth, resentment of women, and envy of everyone who managed to have sex.

Nor was Rodger unique. He inspired three copycat killing sprees in 2018, and a US shopping centre shooting and Canadian massage parlour machete attack in 2020; there have been other murders reportedly associated with “incel” ideology, including the Plymouth shooting in 2021 in the UK, where 22-year-old Jake Davison murdered five people and injured two others before killing himself. Clearly, then, sometimes adherents to this ideology do more than just post mean words on the internet. It is sensible for the government to keep an eye on an ideology demonstrably associated with real-world violence, much as they might Islamists who are a bit too interested in explosives, or the kind of animal rights fanatics who call for scientists to be assassinated.

And yet if Islamism keeps recurring in objections to the proposal, this is because it serves as shorthand for a crossover between the emotive issue of women’s safety, and Britain’s broader politics of migration, cultural difference, integration, and policing. Arguably, it was broadly this same crossover that helped spark the recent public order disturbances that prompted Cooper’s review. And one implication of this is that unless our new Home Secretary is unusually scrupulous about impartiality, focusing an “extreme misogyny” clampdown just on “incels” runs the risk not just of unevenly distributing counter-extremism measures, or doling out justice on more than one tier, but — by omission — of actively endangering British women and girls of every culture and ethnicity.

For the reality is that “incel” type “extreme misogyny” really only reads as “extreme” relative to Western egalitarian norms. It’s not difficult, for example, to find progressive articles lamenting the misogynistic attitudes to women endemic in Afghanistan. These are, indeed, the attitudes the West’s failed regime change efforts spent trillions trying to alter, to little avail: hundreds of cases of femicide have been documented since the Taliban takeover, with this believed to be merely the tip of the iceberg. Surely no Westerner would seriously try and argue that normative Afghan attitudes to women are no different to those in Britain — let alone claim moral equivalence between the two cultures where women’s safety, freedom and rights are concerned.

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Similarly there are many extant UN reports and Guardian articles on “gender-based violence” in locations such as India and Pakistan, where extremely misogynistic practices such as child marriage, gang rape, “honour” killings, or deliberate disfiguration of women through acid attacks are distressingly common and often trigger large and furious protests. At the time of writing, for example, India’s doctors are on strike following the horrific gang rape and murder of Dr Moumita Debnath while on duty in a Kolkata hospital.

Of course, there is no need to direct British counter-extremism resources at such offences. Firstly, they are already illegal in the UK; secondly, the incidents I’ve just described occurred overseas. Yvette Cooper might add to this that, by contrast, extreme misogyny is clearly present in Britain, and not yet covered by existing counter-extremism provisions. But while these things are all true, it’s also true that as well as being unenthusiastic about misogyny, Labour politicians tend also to be keen on diversity, and broadly in favour of a generous immigration and refugee policy.

And migrants bring their cultures with them. Indeed, progressive supporters of migration argue that it is beneficial because the resulting diversity enriches the host country. And perhaps it really is true that migrants bring only the nice bits of their original cultures, such as tasty food. But if they bring everything else, as well, what happens when that includes being habituated to the kind of extreme misogyny the West spent futile trillions trying to expunge from Afghanistan? Then it must surely follow that the kind of misogyny normalised in places such as Afghanistan will no longer be irrelevant to British policy, and British women, but will find expression here as well.

On the kind of websites already being monitored by Prevent for “far Right” ideology, and perhaps soon for “extreme misogyny” as well, you will find plenty of voices arguing, from selected news headlines, that such diverse forms of extreme misogyny already are finding expression here. But of course the whole point is that “misogyny” is such an expansive concept that you can cherry-pick cases to support any argument you choose — including against migration.

And this fact, again, highlights its potential to be weaponised in partisan ways: something that should concern anyone who attracts the ire of Yvette Cooper’s Home Office. We can only hope Cooper and Phillips have superhuman powers of impartiality, and will be able to resist the overwhelming temptation to be Schmittian in their imputations of “extreme misogyny”. And we must hope that, even if they won’t embolden the “far Right” by saying so in public, in private our new Home Secretary and Minister for Safeguarding are clear-sighted about the full extent of global cultural diversity, including those aspects with implications for British women and girls, and willing to use Home Office powers accordingly.

Should we discover the new and pliant weapon of “extreme misogyny” is being less evenly deployed, though, this politicisation of woman-hating will come with a bitter layer of irony. For in this case Cooper and Phillips will be exhibiting so casual an indifference to the real-world safety of British women and girls we might even call it misogynistic.

It actually isn’t, but let’s leave that fact aside for the moment. Is this man stupid? A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have said so. A couple of years ago, I voted for him in the Labour leadership contest, not because I thought he would be brilliant, but because I imagined he would at least be adequate. My expectations weren’t high, but they’ve still been disappointed. Last week he showed himself to be either stupid, or so committed to an extreme ideology that he has lost sight of its disastrous impact on women.

What did his hosts make of it, I wonder? Earlier in the day, Starmer had a meeting with the Estonian defence minister in Tallinn, around 230 miles from St Petersburg, the hometown of Vladimir Putin. I’m just guessing here, but I suspect Estonia’s top brass have more pressing worries on their minds than the hurdles faced by trans-identified males in North London who want a gender recognition certificate. How they must have applauded when Sir Keir’s trip created headlines about wanting greater “respect and dignity” for transgender people. And in the week of International Women’s Day, too. All this reveals quite starkly where the Labour leader’s priorities lie.

What is really terrible about Starmer’s “intervention” is that it feels deliberate. Two members of his shadow Cabinet had stumbled over the “what is a woman?” question earlier in the week, so it was entirely predictable that journalists would confront him with it. He could have said that it wasn’t the time or the place to talk about domestic politics. He could have responded “adult human female” and left it there. But he didn’t. He had his answer ready — and it could not have been more confrontational.

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There can be little doubt that this is Starmer throwing down the gauntlet. In the past he has appeared shifty and uncomfortable when asked questions about biology, spouting nonsense about women’s bodies while looking like someone taking part in a hostage video. No, he told Andrew Marr, it isn’t right to say only women have a cervix. (I once had to have treatment for a pre-cancer of the cervix. I can assure you, and the leader of the Labour party, that all the patients at the clinic were women.)

But last week, Labour couldn’t hide any longer. On Tuesday, the shadow women and equalities minister, Anneliese Dodds, tied herself in knots on Woman’s Hour when asked to give Labour’s definition of a woman. She began by suggesting “there are different definitions legally around what a woman actually is”, as though she was a hapless barrister, trying to pacify a prickly judge. Then she said it “depend[s] what the context is”, without explaining the context in which a woman might not be a woman.

Next she tried a blatant appeal to emotion: “You know, there are people who have decided they have to make that transition. You know, I’ve spoken with many of them. It’s been a very difficult process for many of those people. And you know, understandably because they live as a woman, you know, they want to be defined as a woman.” Yes, but that doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same as someone born a woman, does it?

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The next day, the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, dodged the question by declaring she wasn’t going to go down that rabbit hole, prompting mocking cries of “what is a rabbit?” (Does that depend on context, too?)

Then it was the turn of Harriet Harman, veteran Labour MP and former acting leader of the party, who faced the question in a wide-ranging interview with Sky’s Sophy Ridge. My spirits rose when I saw the headline: “Labour has a woman problem”. But it turned out Harman was talking about the fact that the party has never had a woman leader.

Later in the interview, using the awkward language Labour MPs habitually adopt when talking about this issue, she came out with this belter: “So far as I’m concerned, women are women who are born women, but women are also women who are trans women.” By Harman’s logic, the party’s first woman leader could be a man.

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To be cruelly frank, women are being gaslighted. Labour’s leaders say they believe in single-sex spaces, but what does that mean when they also insist that trans women are no different from natal women? Starmer’s own position is a statement of the law as he would like it to be, rather than as it actually is, as the barrister Naomi Cunningham pointed out at the weekend. Cunningham’s area of expertise is the interaction between the 2004 Gender Recognition Act and the 2010 Equality Act, both of which were cited by Starmer during his interview in Estonia. Asked whether the law says that trans women are women, her admirably concise answer was: “No.”

It is true that the GRA can change some people’s legal sex, but it obviously doesn’t change biological sex; it can say they should be treated as women for most legal purposes, but allows that a trans woman can be refused access to a female-only space if there’s a good reason.

This goes to the heart of the mess Labour has got itself into. Starmer and his colleagues have confused a polite fiction — “trans women are women” — with reality. A piece of legislation that was passed almost two decades ago to make the lives of transgender people easier is now being used in a way that was never intended, making safeguarding of vulnerable women and girls difficult if not impossible.

You might think someone who used to be Director of Public Prosecutions would know that. You might think Starmer has first-hand experience of how predatory men operate, and be aware that they pretend to be all sorts of things — from harmless taxi drivers to trans women, on some well-documented occasions — to get access to potential victims. His staggeringly ill-judged interview in Estonia suggests otherwise. Back in the UK, women feel utterly betrayed — and many of us are wondering if we will ever be able to vote Labour again.