We’ve talked a lot about the changes the party has made to diversity quotas for the forthcoming presidential election this week. Presidential candidates Prue and Josh have had their say, as have Rebecca, Iain and Jack.
I have wanted to amplify other voices, but so many people have asked me for my view that I thought I’d give it to you too.
My heart is in a million pieces this weekend. To be fair, it’s been that way since the Supreme Court Judgement effectively ruined the lives of too many people I love for me to be silent on this issue. Ever.
Over the past four and a bit decades, I have seen on so many occasions the absolute joy that comes with being accepted as the person you are. When someone is recognised as the man or woman or person they have long known themselves to be, it is a real privilege to watch them become themselves rather than hide their true identity. To see them set free to live their best life as their true self, to live peaceably doing their own thing and not getting in anyone’s way.
That’s been the direction of travel for most of my adult life and I was proud that we lived in a country which was one of the best places in the world for trans people.
And then a fringe group, fuelled by £70,000 from a billionaire, were successful in winning their case at the Supreme Court in April, obtaining a judgement that in a very narrow set of circumstances, woman and man in the Equality Act had to be interpreted as this weird and according to doctors at the BMA “scientifically illiterate” definition of biological woman or man.
This judgement makes not one woman safer. In fact the amount of time we have spent talking about these issues over the past few years actively harmed woman’s safety, wellbeing, legal status and wellbeing because it has distracted from the real problems women face in every aspect of their daily lives. The judgement, does, however, make the lives of trans people extremely difficult. And not just trans people. Any woman who doesn’t satisfy narrow criteria on what a woman should look like is now likely to be challenged when doing something as basic as going to the toilet. It’s truly disgusting and demeaning and as liberals we should not stand for it.
What has rendered my heart into its broken state has been seeing the impact on those same people that I love. They are no less who they are, but they feel the weight of prejudice, they fear even the most mundane aspects of daily life. Nobody should be in that situation.
With a few notable exceptions, though, we’ve been silent. We’ve not stood up as we should have done for a marginalised group under fire. We’ve not told the human stories of those affected. We’ve not talked about how this is a dangerous distraction from the real issues facing women.
This, despite our Conference voting in massive numbers just 7 months ago, in favour of a policy paper that is fully in support of the right of trans people and all LGBT+ people to be who they are. Just six weeks ago, our Conference overwhelmingly for the second time against a constitutional amendment which would have required our trans and non binary colleagues to be counted as the sex they were assigned at birth.
I want to give you a bit of background on the quotas. I have spent most of my adult life banging my head against a brick wall trying to get this party to a place where it took women’s representation seriously. But then finally, about 10 years ago, in a windowless room in the party’s former HQ in Great George Street, we got a decent way forward, after much wrangling. I found myself in a room with constitutional wonks like Mark Pack, Jeremy Hargreaves and Jon Ball and we came up with a workable framework for ensuring better and more balanced representation for a number of under-represented groups. The gender quota has also been used on occasion to increase the number of men on a committee when more than 60% of women have been elected. I don’t love that so much because, to be honest, women have been under-represented for so long that we could literally have every place on every committee for the next 2000 years and still not redress the historical imbalance but that’s by the by. But we got these quotas in and I think that they have made a difference even when they have not needed to be used. Our federal committees are more diverse and that is a good thing.
I want these quotas to stay and be used for as long as it takes for there to be a world free of discrimination. But how would I feel about benefitting from their use when my trans and non binary siblings cannot without the indignity of being counted as who they are not.
And now this week, on the eve of ballots being issued, the party issued a statement instituting pretty much what Conference rejected. Did I say it was just 6 weeks ago?
The establishment line, from talking to many people about this in recent days, seems to be:
a) we have advice and we can’t do anything else or the anti-trans groups or individuals will sue us
b) we can’t do as the Scottish Greens have done (with great reluctance) and suspend our gender quota until the legal landscape is clearer for a justification that makes no sense to me.
My feelings on the points above:
a) Try harder. There is more than one legal view on this and we are very likely to get sued from the other perspective to. Our approach seems to be inconsistent with several other laws, including the Human Rights Act and GDPR as far as I can see. Of course I don’t want to see one penny of our members’ money going to anti-trans litigants but I feel like we could be doing a lot more to build a successful challenge.
b) But Conference emphatically rejected the changes announced last week so surely there is no authority to impose them. And any pushback on how the Scottish Greens can do this and we can’t just gets meaningless word salad in return.
c) The communications around this would make an omnishambles look competent and have been woefully inadequate. The initial announcement was slipped out on our internal elections website without candidates being alerted. Not only that, but we should have had a clear statement that this was horrific and that we wanted to see clear changes in the law to ensure that everyone’s rights were respected.
While I am sure that the email sent to candidates late on Friday was well-meaning, it spectacularly failed to show any understanding of how people are actually feeling. It was described to me by one frustrated person thus:
As you’ll notice, we’ve been forced to stand on your fingers as you dangle from the edge of a cliff. We hope you’re not affected by this, but if you are, here’s a helpline where you can access our leaflet, “Dealing with Gravity”. We hope this will be comforting as you plummet hundreds of feet. Have a great weekend!
d) Acquiescing to this is not an isolated incident. We have been consistently throwing the people our preamble requires us to speak for under the bus in this ill-thought through exclusive pursuit of soft Tory voters.
Which is doubly stupid as soft Tory voters are likely to be socially liberal and horrified at what is happening on many levels.
Since the General Election in 2024 we have failed:
Disabled people over benefits
Immigrants and asylum seekers – the British jobs for British workers response to Starmer’s speech was disgraceful
Trans people in many and varied ways since April
This latest episode is the icing on a particularly unpleasant cake. Which marginalised group that the right wing tabloid press don’t like are we going to throw under the bus next?
We are trying to raise loads of money on being the antidote to Reform and that seems like a ruse because we need to actually oppose Reform and fight the slide into the horrible, divided society they want to inflict on us. The more we acquiesce without fuss the more likely that is to happen. We made much of voting down Farage’s toxic anti human rights bill this week while at the same time inflicting a blow on the human rights of our own members.
The less we challenge then on the specifics, the more we enable them to manipulate public opinion. Our local champions at whatever level of government should be speaking up against the dangerous rhetoric we hear from so many places.
Our party establishment is betting the farm on soft Tories and forgetting that to grow in the future we need the votes of progressives. This “we are the party of middle England” stuff is not what liberals and liberal voters outside the middle and England need to here. The much vaunted Thornhill Review into the 2019 election specifically warned against putting all our eggs in one electoral basket yet this is exactly what we are doing. If we continue to pursue our current course the long term implications for us are not good.
We are a liberal Party and we should behave like one all the time and not just when our most cautious strategists consider it electorally expedient. We are uniquely well placed to make the arguments in a way that are persuasive not only to those who voted for us in 2024 but to disgruntled Labour, SNP and Green voters across the country. What we say and what we do need to be consistent. We know from 2015 that a disconnect does not end well.
What is a liberal party for if it does not stand up against divisive action and rhetoric with loud and proud voices? If it does not advocate for the fair, free and open society that we crave.
Party members must demand better.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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34 Comments
Hallelujah Caron!
You’ve said this far better than I could, and really articulated the disappointment, despair and disgust that so many members (and would-be members) are feeling. If we can’t stand up for what is important to us we have no right to expect anyone to vote for us, let alone join and join in.
Very well said, Caron.
A senior party figure (not Ed), who really should know better, has been heard to say they only think it’s about 100 people who care about this, so it’s a niche issue.
We need to show them how horribly wrong they are.
First they came for the niche issue…
I love you Caron.
And to the senior party figure John mentions: there are not enough swearwords in the world for your attitude. When it comes to fundamental human rights, ONE person being put through this hell is a scandal liberals should rail against. Liberalism exists to fight injustice. This is injustice. You, senior party figure, need to hang your head in shame.
@john Strange that the Conference ball has been full on every occasion that the anti-trans lot have tried to pull something like this off and has handed them their backsides every time f only a few care about it.
Thank you for writing this, Caron.
And with regards to the thought that it’s a niche issue – even if it were a niche issue, even were it something that made the lives of only a hundred people more difficult, would that justify it? The quote from the preamble to the constitution is “no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity”. No-one. Not “groups of less than a hundred can be enslaved, because it’s a niche issue and it doesn’t really matter. ” They’re fine words, but increasingly, I wonder whether they mean anything.
Agree 100%. We need to stand tall and proud with our Trans members, not cower cravenly in the face of a tiny few in the Party who would cast them out
Absolutely this. If our party refuses to stand up when things get hard, why do we exist at all? There are so many of us that dont want to join the greens but still want a party that stands for our values.
I do not understand why we, as a party, are so afraid at being LIBERALS
I agree with almost everything Caron says except when it comes to taking risks with Money which mostly comes from small donations.
“Give us your money & we will give it to Lawyers & Transphobes”.
We have just seen several Senior Politicians getting in trouble by not taking enough care with Legal Advice, this seems a risk too far to me.
The point about following the route that The Scottish Greens have taken seems reasonable but Scottish Law is different, I don’t feel qualified to say if that makes a real difference.
Well said Caron.
This is a mess. Changing the rules of an election once it is underway is a massive no-no. And the resulting fix is in my view discriminatory. And we must always remember this is not some academic exercise.
This is aimed at real people, who are hurt and in despair. This is a cruel attack on the very existence of our trans, intersex and non-binary members and their involvement in the Liberal Democrats. This decision is unkind and it is in my view totally unjustified. I hope all camdidates in the elections will join with the overwhelming number who have already called for this divisive and discriminatory quick fix to be dropped at once.
Then these elections should go ahead without using a quota. Hopefully the legal position will clarified further in the courts over the next few months. Then we can decide whether or not to use a quota in future.
Thank you for articulating so clearly what so many in the party feel. If we don’t stand up for our principles, we will not be worth voting for.
Thank you Caron.
The harm caused by party’s current attitudes and trajectory may not be totally apparent yet – grass roots volunteers are propping us up despite feeling increasingly dejected.
I have been a candidate, exec. member, and a former chair – and if not for colleagues like yourself reminding me why the hell I’m still here – I’d have resigned my membership.
We can be so much more than the party of bland inoffensiveness and regretful hostility.
THANK YOU CARON! 🧡🧡🧡
Well said, Caron, but I think there are two distinct strands here. One is the fact that, whatever one’s views on this, the party has made a complete mess of the elections. This was flagged up several months ago, and the Supreme Court judgement was in April, so to change the quota rules a day before voting opens is mismanagement, even if there is no malice afoot. The other is the fact that Patrick Hodge, the main judge in the Supreme Court ruling, made it clear that trans people still had ‘the protected characteristic of gender reassignment’ and also protection ‘against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance’, yet this aspect of the judgement appears to have got lost. It appears to offer ample legal scope for this to be used to protect trans people, and if it clashes with the court’s ruling, this needs to be called out.
The most uplifting part of your article was the third-last paragraph. Politics requires a judicious mixture of electoral tactics and standing by what you believe in. After erring for many years on the side of what we believe in, we have gone too far towards electoral tactics, and this needs correcting in the new political landscape created by Reform. We are indeed a Liberal party and we should behave like one all the time.
As a Trans woman I came very close to cutting up my membership card last week. Voices like yours that have stayed my hand. The leadership now have a short time to both reverse this disgusting position and come out strongly for my very basic human rights or I will find a party with the courage to stand up against this relentless shift in our politics to the far right.
If “about 100 people” in the party care about trans rights, that’s possibly because so many of us have left the party in disgust over precisely this issue. I know many, many trans people who have given up on the party as a lost cause, and I quit myself over the constant concessions to transphobes — and especially the way certain people in the leadership are willing to repeatedly overturn the expressed will of conference to appease transphobes (see for example changing the transphobia definition to explicitly say the party welcomes “gender critical” people).
If anyone with any power in the party showed the slightest willingness to fight for trans people’s rights rather than cave to every single threat of litigation, they might be surprised how many people would actually be enthusiastic — and support the party.
This is brilliant Caron, and regrettably very necessary. With some honourable exceptions, the parliamentary party needs to start throwing its considerable weight around much more. You can be acraducal party and still appeal to soft Tory voters.
For what its worth, my take is that some concept of the following is non-negotiable for a liberal
– social liberalism
– human rights (human, not British)
– civil libertarianism
– internationalism
– environmentalist
We can debate how we pursue these things. Competing economic ideas are healthy, different localities having different approaches is grand, and Lisa Smart’s question about whether we could get comfortable with digital ID was perfectly legit, as was our not inconsiderable response, but our debates should be about how to liberate people, not whether to bother.
I won’t repeat remarks about the failure of the party to foresee this problem and the absurdity and unfairness of changing the rules for quotas on the eve of the election.
The question is, is there a work-round that can protect quotas (which have been partly repsonsible for the increase in women’s representation in party posts) without violating trans-rights.
I believe there may be.
The Supreme Court ruling clarifies the meaning of sex in existing law. Our quota system faced probable legal challenge as a result, precisely because they are sex-based quotas.
We need to move to an explicitly GENDER-based system.
There would be two gender quotas: one for people identifying as women, one for people identifying as men. Trans-women would obviously participate in the quota for people identifying as women. Trans-men in the other quota.
This would be fair to all women and all men.
And is more inclusive than setting up separate quotas for trans-people.
I tend to take a ‘gender-critical’ position on some of these issues and that was one reason I left the party. When I joined the party and started to think about what I thought on these issues, I always felt I couldn’t rock the boat too hard on these issues as the party had a pre-existing democratically valid consensus on the issue. So that was another reason for leaving as I felt that I should have known what I was getting into.
So would the party moving its position make me want to return? No, it wouldn’t, if the process was top-down and undemocratic and the party leadership was simply trying to negotiate around the consensus among its activists, in this messy, abysmal way.
I don’t agree with you, Caron on the issue of substance, but as a democratic consensualist I totally agree with you that I wouldn’t want to be part of a party that screws around with due process like this halfway through an election, whether I thought trans women were women and trans men were men or not.
I personally think there’s a wider question about whether the consensus among activists represents the consenses on the issue among members and voters, but there isn’t a democratic political party in the country where this problem doesn’t apply, and abrogating democracy isn’t the way to resolve it, and there’s a lot of ‘Shrodinger’s Cat’ to that.
The correct answer to the anti trans groups is “See you in court”. I am confident that our party contains lawyers and barristers who will take such a case pro bono. If we back down on trans issues when threatened how will we ever make radical changes if we get into government?
Our leadership must come out fighting on this issue not knuckle under to them.
On Friday, Mark Pack wrote on Facebook, “An exciting weekend coming up for many Lib Dems: filling in lots of STV ballot papers for party elections!”.
I replied: “Sorry, but no. The ballot needs to be restarted, with the Party’s gender balance rules temporarily suspended. The decision by the returning officer, announced after the election process had started, to require candidates to stand with their birth gender is contrary to our constitution and policies.
It is totally unacceptable to require trans candidates to stand under their dead genders. Especially those who have a gender reassignment certificate, for which they have promised to live the rest of their lives entirely in their new gender.
If the law seems to say that our current gender balance rules are not legal, let us suspend them and debate the law in Parliament and / or the courts. We must not adopt transphobic rules.
[FWIW I’m an old straight white cis man. But I am also a Liberal.]
Well said Caron.
I spent half a day canvassing on Saturday. And many half days before that. I am frequently told – by people who I find it very difficult to classify as bigots (and some bigots (happily the minority) as well) – that the way the party talks about trans rights means they will not vote for us. “Student politics” was the phrase used to me on Saturday; and it seems that people (like Matt of Bristol) are leaving the party as well because of it.
We absolutely must MUST find a better way of talking about this issue. (And I think what Carin says about showing that trans people are no threat to anyone as they go about their lives on the one hand and Jack’s emphasis on Jenkinsite politics on the other is really helpful). Toleration and no bullying is a way forward.
Our priority – our duty – is to defeat Farage and his like and push them back to the margins. Far more damage to the country will be done if we fail, and trans people would suffer more than most.
Not changing election rules in the middle of an election would really help too.
Mick, the longstanding answer to your questions is that not all your voters want you to make radical changes and think you’re a centrist party, and many of your voters and activists and MPs disagree wildly about what radical changes they want you to make and what the order of priority is.
And your leadership is profoundly unbothered and has been for years, about clarifying the mess, as the mess and ambiguity is something that gives you strategic and tactical room to operate in.
@Mick Taylor
“The correct answer to the anti trans groups is “See you in court”.
It is one answer. We are confidently told by some that the Supreme Court’s decision was wrong and is contrary to the ECHR. I have no view on that (it is outside my area of legal expertise and their Lordships are certainly better lawyers than I am) but I am not aware of anyone taking the case to the European Court on Human Rights though there has been some talk of it. Is there any such claim in progress, and if not why not? It may be the Supreme Court got it right after all, in which case the solution is further legislation.
@Matt (of Bristol)
And your leadership is profoundly unbothered and has been for years, about clarifying the mess, as the mess and ambiguity is something that gives you strategic and tactical room to operate in.
You have hit the nail on the head.
The answer is that in the face of the reactionary and destructive right (as exemplified by Farage and Trump) like all “progressive” parties we are actually conservative right now in the sense that that we are attempting to preserve and defend existing (liberal democratic) structures against radical forces.
I am not saying existing structures are not to be improved (enabling trans people to go about their lives more freely is part of that) but I think there are bigger fish to fry in creating a stable environment on the one had and defeating the right on the other.
@Matt (Bristol). We have long established policies to democratise the House of Lords, change the electoral system, decentralise power, join the customs union and the single market, encourage new forms of enterprise and create genuine equality for all, just for starters . These are hardly ‘centrist’ views. They were all in our manifesto, so it should come as no surprise to voters that we would wish to implement them if in power.
So, with respect, I think your take is wholly wrong.
Very well said Caron – as someone above mentioned, as an ex cllr, PPC, chair etc it is voices like yours that keep me a member.
@Tristan Good Law Project continue to fight against the supreme court decision and on other fronts too for trans rights. See their website for details.
Is there any sign of the party hierarchy heeding any of the calls for the suspension of the quotas or any other solution to what can only be described as the worst internal election mess I can recall, and is anyone going to take responsibility for it and resign?
@Nigel Quinton: suspending the quota’s for women would be a backwards step.
We need to move away from sex-based quotas to gender-based quotas.
@Tristan Ward
In answer, there are a number of cases (5 I believe) going to or in the European Court on Human Rights. One I am more closely connected to is brought about by Victoria McCloud which has already been made. I am working with TransLucent and will post updates…
3 of our candidates in this year’s County Council elections happen to be trans. 2 were elected; the third stood to fly the Lib Dem flag in a non-target division where we were not actively campaigning.
Think about how they feel now that they’re told the Party does not recognise their gender in internal elections.
@Sarah Marsh.
Thank you Sarah. We will all watch with interest.
Mick Taylor, most of those policies I personally support. But most of those wouldn’t be radical anywhere but in the UK. But the presence of a policy in the manifesto is not evidence of its presence in the head of your voters, nor the airtime your leadership intends to give it when it comes to Ed Davey’s stunts etc.
And none of those policies — particularly not the constitutional ones — are incompatible with social policies consensualism, moderatism or conservativism. I recognise many Lib Dems believe constitutional radicalism goes hand in hand with social liberation of various kinds and feel profoundly upset and undermined by recent governmental and party-leadership actions around trans rights.
But you can’t impose the views of your activists on your voters or assume that your 2+2 adds up to what theirs does. Obviously I haven’t polled Lib Dem voters nationally on this — or in key marginals. I could well be wrong.
I logged on for my regular Lib Dem Voice fix to find no less than four articles devoted to the recent quota changes and its effect on personal identity. The vast number of contributions were overwhelmingly in support of the stance taken by the initiators of the various posts. However I think there is a complete lack of perspective in all this. As an old fashioned Liberal,I have every sympathy for all those persons who feel discriminated against in innumerable ways. However,as a party member since the 70’s, I feel that we now allow far too many identity tails to wag the party dog.The purpose of the Liberal Democrat party is surely to develop policies to solve the real problems facing the country and then persuade the electorate to support us. Matters of identity are of very little importance to the very vast majority of the population