Sir Keir Starmer faces revolt amongst voters who agree with JK Rowling
Keir Starmer faces a growing revolt among women voters who agree with JK Rowling that he has abandoned them, it was claimed last night.
There were suggestions that large numbers of women who have supported Labour in the past are planning to spoil their ballot papers or vote for candidates from other parties in protest at Sir Keir’s failure to back women’s rights.
The fury is over the transgender issue, and the Labour’s leader previous comments, including criticism of his MP Rosie Duffield, who has faced death threats over her campaigning for women and girls.
Sir Keir has said comments made by Ms Duffield that only women have a cervix ‘were something that shouldn’t be said and were not right’, and that ‘99.9 per cent of women’ do not have a penis.
In an excoriating article yesterday, Ms Rowling slammed him for a ‘dismissive and often offensive’ approach to women’s rights.
The Harry Potter author, who donated £1 million to Labour under Gordon Brown, said she would struggle to vote for the party and lambasted its ’embrace of gender identity ideology’.
Keir Starmer (pictured, on Friday) faces a growing revolt among women voters who agree with JK Rowling that he has abandoned them
The Harry Potter author (pictured), who donated £1 million to Labour under Gordon Brown, said she would struggle to vote for the party and lambasted its ’embrace of gender identity ideology’
She suggested she does not trust Sir Keir’s judgment and had a ‘poor opinion’ of his character.
The 58-year-old wrote in The Times: ‘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.’
Her comments sparked an outpouring of support.
Stephanie Davies-Arai, founder of the Transgender Trend campaign group, said: ‘There are a lot of women who will spoil the ballot or vote for their local candidate who does know what a woman is.
‘I hope that they [Labour] will take notice of the huge, mass support that JK Rowling has from ordinary women and see that they have been misguided on not taking really legitimate concerns of women seriously.’
Women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen, who ended her Labour membership in 2016, said: ‘If our future Prime Minister is a coward when it comes to saying what he knows to be true – which is that a woman is an adult human female – and he’s persuaded by far-Left activists to not say it, then I don’t know if we can trust him on anything.
‘I think that’s how loads of women feel. When I go to the ballot, I’ll be spoiling my paper.’
Dr Nicola Williams, founder of Fair Play For Women, said: ‘As someone who has previously voted Labour, I will not be voting for the party this time round and probably never will again.’
Rachel Cashman, a former Labour head of equalities policy, said her phone has ‘blown red hot’ during the election campaign from women who feel ‘rage and despair’ at the party’s stance.
‘On WhatsApp chats and various networks I’ve heard ‘ballot spoiling’, I’ve heard ‘staying at home’,’ she added.
‘Think how women fought for the right to vote. Women now thinking it is safer for us to stay at home than cast a vote is an absolute scandal for democracy.’
Ms Cashman stressed she will always vote Labour but urged the party to reflect on why Ms Rowling ‘speaks for so many women sick of being dismissed as toxic’.
Pressed last week on his previous remarks, Sir Keir said he now agreed with Sir Tony Blair, the former Labour leader, that ‘biologically, a woman is with a vagina and a man is with a penis’.
Women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen (pictured) said: ‘If our future Prime Minister is a coward when it comes to saying what he knows to be true and he’s persuaded by far-Left activists to not say it, then I don’t know if we can trust him on anything’
The fury is over the transgender issue, and the Labour’s leader previous comments, including criticism of his MP Rosie Duffield (pictured), who has faced death threats over her campaigning for women and girls
Stephanie Davies-Arai (pictured), founder of the Transgender Trend campaign group, said: ‘There are a lot of women who will spoil the ballot or vote for their local candidate who does know what a woman is’
But Ms Rowling said his answer left ‘the impression that until Tony Blair sat him down for a chat, he’d never understood how he and his wife had come to produce children’.
He had also given the impression ‘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 Tony Blair’, she added. The author said that her campaign is not about denying trans women’s rights but ensuring they do not come at the expense of women.
Asked about Ms Rowling’s comments, Sir Keir said yesterday: ‘I do respect her and I would point out the long track record Labour has in government of passing really important legislation that has enhanced the rights of women.’
