LGBT Labour is a highly visible and notable wing of the Labour Party, with dozens of official patrons in Parliament, and a string of campaigning successes under the last Labour government.
Yet today GB News can reveal that the official Labour group are considering withdrawing from marching from all LGBT pride events this year due to safety concerns for their members, fearing backlash from the community.
A senior source within the group told us that the Labour Party has become viewed with increasing hostility within parts of the LGBT community in recent months, following a series of U-turns from the leadership of the Party.
The hostility has grown to the point that many members now do not feel comfortable marching under the Labour Party banner.
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These concerns revolve around recent controversies regarding transgender rights, which LGBT Labour has campaigned fervently in favour of.
Yet Sir Keir Starmer has been seen to flip-flop on these issues, raising concern and hostility from what many would consider Labour’s most natural allies.
Not only have Labour’s recent positions put Labour out of joint within the so-called ‘gender critical’ movement, but U-turning on many of these positions has made Labour, and particularly Keir Starmer, seem like an untrustworthy ally to many within LGBT Labour.
In 2020, the Labour leader said the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) was “in desperate need of reform to introduce self-declaration for transgender people”, and as recently as October said that “we will also modernise the Gender Recognition Act”.
Yet by March, he has said he does not support such a change, and that “if you’re going to make reforms, you have to carry the public with you... in Scotland, there should be a reset of the situation”.
A secret row is blazing within the upper echelons of the Labour Party over policy on GRA reform. I'm told that Keir Starmer was meant to tweet a commitment to GRA ‘modernisation’ on Transgender Day of Visibility, and yet a person in his office vetoed the move at the last minute. While the party account tweeted the promise, Starmer himself sent no tweet at all about Labour's trans policies on Transgender Day of Visibility last month. A decision that has raised eyebrows.
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What’s more, Labour Party Chair Anneliese Dodds tweeted the same lines that the party account did, with one subtle edit. She cut out the commitment to 'modernise the outdated GRA' that the party had published.
Today GB News has been leaked the latest Labour Party Policy Handbook - which reveals the party is no longer committed to reforming the GRA to introduce self-ID, but instead to only 'build a consensus' on the issue.
The Labour Party leadership’s murky U-turns on transgender issues have led to what I am exclusively told are genuine safety concerns for members at pride events. In an extraordinary development, unthinkable just a few years ago, the Labour Party brand is becoming toxic within the LGBT community. So toxic that the official LGBT wing of the Labour Party is questioning the extent to which it can represent the party.
Sir Keir’s fence-sitting and U-turns are losing him friends and allies on both sides of the argument.