Mediaboss Marketing

It was difficult watching Lisa Nandys difficulties earlier this month when she was caught facing in two opposite directions over a pamphlet produced by Labour Party members that called for a gender-balanced human security force to replace the British Army in overseas manoeuvres. In December, at the time of the launch, she welcomed the publication as inspirational and based on the beliefs I also share. But when challenged on this by Andrew Marr last week, the shadow foreign secretary chose to deny she had ever welcomed the pamphlet.

A video also emerged this week of Nandy being drawn into the Winston Churchill controversy. Following vandalism on the late prime ministers statue in Parliament Square during a Black Lives Matter demonstration, she declined to offer her opinion as to whether our wartime leader was a national hero or not.

I have two reasons for not enjoying this spectacle. The first is that Nandy is a formidable and talented politician. Had I been allowed a vote in last years leadership election, I would certainly have voted for her. She has a genuine connection with her own working class background and, unlike many of her Labour colleagues in the Commons, understands why so many people in the north voted to leave the European Union. She merits the ultimate accolade among Labour politicians of being sound.

The other reason I was sad to see this strange little story play out is that it is so utterly unnecessary. Clearly Nandy is trying to conform to her leaders orders not to inflame the culture wars; Keir Starmer has taken to heart advice he has received from those close to President Joe Biden not to get drawn into arguments about trans rights, critical race theory or free speech on campuses. And you can see why. There is nothing to be gained for Labour in fanning these particular flames, and potentially a great deal to lose.

The problem with refusing to be drawn into these debates, however, is that they continue anyway, with or without you. And that means that whenever journalists want a helpful quote from a parliamentarian about the latest expression of post-logic, anti-scientific wokeness, they know they will get nothing from a Labour MP. So inevitably, the voice of reason condemning a decision by a local council to name a street Equality Road or a university expunging the name of a great philosopher because he wasnt suitably anti-racist in the 1700s, comes from the political right. Eventually, voters are going to reach the conclusion that the only people making a stand for freedom of speech and against being entirely unhinged are Conservatives.

And yet I happen to know dozens well, okay, four or five, maybe Labour MPs who hold sensible, mainstream views on these issues but who fear expressing them. And no wonder. When Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield dared to express the heretical view that only women have a cervix, it brought down upon her the wrath of trans campaigners who view science and biological facts as hate speech. Instead of making a robust defence of Duffields right to express an opinion God forbid that politicians express an opinion! her party leadership chose to keep its head down, neither acceding to hysterical demands for her to be suspended from the Labour whip nor offering her solidarity.

Labour needs to take a step back and view this issue more dispassionately than it has up until now. What would happen if just a handful of Labour MPs were to break cover and say that trans rights and their impact on womens rights should be openly and freely debated? What would be the public reaction if one or two Labour MPs were quoted in the media as praising Churchill for what he was a national hero who deserves every honour he has received and who should be respected by every generation and every race? What would happen if a Labour MP scoffed at the very notion that a local council can fight racism by emulating the sitcom character David Brent?

Such views would not even have to represent the views of the entire party (which is a pity); but at last ordinary voters concerned about the woke-driven, mostly public funded campaigns against common sense would be able to identify allies in the main opposition party. Naturally, there would be the usual outrage, demands that they be deselected, de-whipped, defenestrated, humiliated and generally cast into the wilderness. Some party members would post videos of them resigning their membership, expressed as performative art.

But so what? I mean, seriously, so what?

There are too few such individuals to make a difference to the partys national support, Starmer would not have to change policy by as much as a comma, and the public might start to restore its confidence in Labour as a party that has not, after all, become a mere tool of minority interest, self-interested lobby groups.

And talented politicians like Lisa Nandy would no longer have to tie themselves in knots for fear of offending those who will in any case always find new ways to be offended anyway.

Continued here:
In the culture wars, Labour MPs must not be muzzled - Telegraph.co.uk