It’s not just the Conservatives who are facing difficulties this election season. Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party has found itself in hot water with one rather influential women’s rights campaigner. Renowned author of the bestselling Harry Potter series, JK Rowling, has now come out against Starmer’s army, blasting Sir Keir for ‘abandoning women’ concerned with the trans debate.
Writing for the Times, Rowling slams the Labour leader for his ‘dismissive and often offensive’ approach to worries raised by gender-critical feminists, adding that despite once being a paid-up member, she would now struggle to vote for the party. Describing a book launch she recently attended – the ‘post-publication party’ for The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht – Rowling wrote of how gender critical feminists, including Labour candidate Rosie Duffield, have received ‘literally no support’ from Starmer’s party.
Rowling turns to what she terms ‘Cervixgate’, recalling Starmer’s rather baffling response to Duffield’s assertion that only women have a cervix. ‘It’s something that shouldn’t be said,’ the Labour leader told Andrew Marr during a BBC interview in 2021. ‘It’s not right.’ Then, in a U-turn just months ago, Sir Keir changed tack and admitted that ‘biologically, of course [Duffield] is right’. Yet when pressed on the issue during Thursday night’s Question Time special, Labour’s leader referenced not Duffield – who has faced numerous threats to her safety over her position – but, er, Tony Blair. Duffield was rather unimpressed with Starmer’s response, and Rowling feels the same:
The impression given by Starmer at Thursday’s debate was that there had been something unkind, something toxic, something hard line in Rosie’s words, even though almost identical words had sounded perfectly reasonable when spoken by Blair.
The Harry Potter author continued:
If you continue to insist that the most vulnerable must embrace your luxury beliefs, no matter the cost to themselves, I don’t trust your judgment and I have a poor opinion of your character.
An independent candidate is standing in my constituency who’s campaigning to clarify the Equality Act. Perhaps that’s where my X will have to go on July 4. As long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights their foremothers thought were won for all time, I’ll struggle to support them.
Ouch. Although Labour continues to fare well in the polls, Rowling’s article serves as a warning for Starmer. If his party gets into government, he will have to find a better way of addressing the debate, and fast.
Comments