Labour, under Starmer’s leadership, has become a hotbed of misogyny

Joan Smith, at UnHerd, puts the final boot in:

The problem isn’t that the party has equivocated on the conflict between women’s rights and the demands of transactivists. It’s that Labour has come down wholeheartedly on the wrong side. I’ve spent the last three years listening to frontbenchers, and Starmer himself, spout complete nonsense about biology. I’ve heard Labour MPs yell “transphobia” at women they disagree with. I’ve heard Labour councillors describe their fear of admitting that they don’t believe in gender ideology. I’ve heard grotesque smears and calls for feminists to be thrown out of the party.

The painful truth is that Labour, under Starmer’s leadership, has become a hotbed of misogyny. A current of nastiness has existed in the party since 2015; and while he has addressed one manifestation, antisemitism, he has allowed another to flourish. If women like me, lifelong Labour supporters, are to trust the party again, it will take more than a change of tone. What we need is a proper, serious apology — and an assurance that woman-hating will no longer be tolerated in a party that used to stand for equality and women’s rights.