by Sam Merriman and Harriet Line, Daily Mail
Ministers are STILL in muddle on protecting women-only spaces
Labour’s stance on women’s rights descended into farce last night as a minister failed to back single-sex spaces and its union paymaster said it will ignore the Supreme Court judgment.
A health minister refused four times to say which changing room transgender women should use – despite the unanimous ruling that they are not legally women.
And the president of one of Britain’s largest unions – which gives Labour millions of pounds a year – said the historic decision ‘does not change’ its pro-trans policy.
It came as Left-wing Labour MPs and the party’s LGBT+ groups criticised the findings of the country’s highest court, and Chancellor Rachel Reeves squirmed when asked if Keir Starmer should apologise to an MP for criticising her assertion that only women have a cervix.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Labour’s failure to back single-sex spaces and its union paymaster’s ‘open hostility’ to the ruling show that claims it was pro-women’s rights were ‘completely false’.
She told the Mail: ‘Women and girls will be failed by Labour again and again, as they always have been.’
Health minister Karin Smyth failed four times to clarify which changing room trans women should use in light of the Supreme Court judgment.
Ms Smyth said it was ‘important that a trans woman or a trans man also has dignity in their use of public spaces’.
Asked again, she told Times Radio: ‘This varies [depending] upon what the provision of those service providers are – large organisations, small organisations.’
Her comments contrasted sharply with those from the head of the equalities watchdog, who said in no uncertain terms that trans women now cannot use single-sex female facilities or compete in women’s sports.
Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) chairman Baroness Falkner said the ruling ‘does bring clarity’ for organisations on their single-sex policies and vowed to pursue those that do not enforce women-only spaces.
She added: ‘Single-sex services like changing rooms must be based on biological sex. If a male person is allowed to use a women-only service or facility, it isn’t any longer single-sex, then it becomes a mixed-sex space.’
And asked if it was now straightforward that trans women cannot take part in women’s sport, she told BBC Radio 4: ‘Yes, it is.’
But Steve North, president of the Unison union which gave Labour more than £4 million last year said on X: ‘I want to restate my solidarity with our trans members. This judgment does not change Unison policy in support of trans rights.’