Labour's self-ID plans show Keir Starmer bids for consensus

But for Keir Starmer, it almost seems like he's taking a journalistic approach to the Labour leadership - trying so hard to avoid taking a side that everyone thinks he's against them.

This week it's gender self-ID, last week it was climate change, the week before it was the two-child benefits cap.

Labour had a record week last week, trouncing a Conservative majority in the Selby and Ainsty by-election; the party achieved a 7% swing in Uxbridge and South Ruislip but what could have been spun as an achievement instead became the catalyst for a disastrous rolling back of a previously confident line on achieving net zero and creating a green economy.

Instead of making it crystal clear that there will be no wavering from the party's strong environmental commitments, despite the delay to its £28 billion green investment plan, headlines abounded on Sir Keir telling the London mayor Sadiq Khan to look again at his Ulez expansion plans.

There are those, particularly on the right, who are trying to turn the environment - even as Europe burns - into another facet of playground politics culture wars.

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The Uxbridge by-election - won by only a few hundred votes - morphed into an anti-green discussion that gave room for Conservatives voices to undermine settled targets of reaching net zero by 2050.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a foghorn of fatuousness in the face of common sense, called green policies "high cost", saying they are not popular with voters.

Climate change and the strategies needed to tackle it are sliding into this territory of "us and them" politics with the ordinary man in the street pitted against the progressive elites who can afford new low emissions cars or to scrap their fossil fuel boilers for heat pumps.

People have real financial fears and framing the climate change battle as, instead, a class war is a hellish barrier to progress.

It's an enormous challenge to both the left and right, where there are supporters of green regulation.

Starmer, where he should be positioning himself as a leader who can build cross-party consensus, is instead carrying out red-on-red hits, infuriating the left of the party by appearing to let the Tories dictate electoral policy and alienating swing voters who aren't quite sure what he stands for or how to deliver it.

And so to this week's Labour announcement on its position on self-ID.

Anneliese Dodds wrote an article in the Guardian newspaper setting out explicitly where Labour, as a party in government, would stand on what is the most contentious issue of our time.

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At the heart of the issue of trans rights, women’s rights and self-ID is – or should be – a desire to ensure dignity, respect and safety for all.

Those seem like fairly basic principles to work towards but instead the debate has been bruising, bonkers (did we ever think to see an elected official stand up and say they don’t know what sex they are?) and brutal in its sowing of division.

Just when Scotland’s politicians thought they had settled the debate, leaving swathes of people unhappy but at least having the job done, the UK government sent them to think again.

Politicians of all stripes, Labour included, have been felled by a simple inability to define what a woman is.

No one gives two flying figs what a man is but giving a definition of the word “woman” is become a ideological beartrap, torturing politicians as they flounder trapped in its metal jaws.

Labour, viewing this toxic hullaballoo, has sought, as Labour is prone to, a middle ground.

Its statement recognises the concerns of both sides – those for self-ID and those whose concerns cannot be allayed – and acknowledges them.

Ms Dodds’s statement sets out that sex and gender are separate things and that single sex spaces, which lawfully exclude trans people, are necessary.

Labour would not, it says, completely de-medicalise the process for obtaining a gender recognition certificate, as would happen under Scottish legislation, but would make the process simpler and quicker.

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It attempts to couch its plans – for one doctor, rather than a panel, to sign off on a gender recognition certificate – as being both a positive for safeguarding and supportive of trans people accessing healthcare.

As far as communications goes, the statement is clear on Labour’s position. But, while clear, it cannot help a party political pop.

Ms Dodds adds that the SNP’s gender recognition legislation was “more about picking a fight with Westminster than bringing about meaningful change.”

If you’re trying to be conciliatory about an issue of importance to more than half the population perhaps leave the constitutional jibes out of it.

Keir Starmer then consolidated the position in the Dodds opinion piece, and repeated this clarity, by saying, when asked, that a woman is an “adult female” and repeating that safe spaces are vital for women and girls.

The Labour party was instrumental in scrapping Section 28 and in introducing equal marriage. Some see this clarified stance on self-ID as a betrayal of that previous good work.

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Others might see it as evidence that Labour is not a party of bigotry but one that has scrutinised the issues and landed here on an informed position.

What Labour is attempting here is a consensus position - or, more, a sensible compromise. What they have achieved is to infuriate those who set themselves on either side of the debate.

They have also upset relations – again – with Scottish Labour, which is in support of self-ID and shows absolutely no sign of wavering from that position.

But, for the many in the middle, who aren’t sure what to think about self-ID or how it relates to them, this compromise attempt may come as a relief.

That is, a relief to see one party trying to meet in the middle on the most polarising of topics.

Starmer has said that policy matters to an election and they are “doing something wrong” if their policies end up on Tory leaflets.

Certainly the self-ID position is not going to end up on Tory leaflets and one wonders how much that has swayed Labour’s deliberations on the issue.

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There is a lot to be said for a politician who can listen to feedback and adjust nimbly to a changing landscape but there is a careful line to be trod between that and Starmer’s approach, which seems to be to dilute his principles, perform u-turns and pick battles with his Scottish counterparts.

A desperate desire to appeal to voters and scoop up wavering Tory voters is resulting in a lack of positive leadership and easy attack lines for the opposition; it leaves Labour’s belly exposed.

On self-ID, the bold position is to try to sit in the middle and draw people towards you. On climate change, it is to reject the very notion of culture wars and lead by creating cross-party consensus.

Can Keir Starmer persuade voters he knows which leadership style to choose and when? Does he know who to reject and who to appease? All of that is crucial to not cheesing off that central core of voters.