Do Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner have a problem with trans people like me?

Jo Swinson’s dismal election campaign was unlikely to have been helped by her inability to define the word woman. But if there are any lessons from Swinson’s ability to alienate people on the subject of gender, it seems Labour is determined not to learn them.

Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner are vying to become leader and deputy leader of the Labour party. Yet like Swinson before them, both seem oblivious that the public has little time for extreme transgender ideology. As a result, Labour is lurching towards a crisis brought on by transgender campaigners whose demand for compliance is total. By creating a narrative that trans people like me are the most oppressed in society and might crumble should someone look at us the wrong way or, heaven forbid, overlook our “preferred pronouns”, they have ensnared the party. Senior Labour figures are so firmly under this spell that they have even opened up all-women shortlists to any male person who identifies as a woman.