The love affair is over. Whatever its other failings, Labour could long count on the loyalty of LGBTQ+ voters. This was, after all, the party that abolished section 28. Although it is now hopelessly out of date, Labour’s 2004 Gender Recognition Act provided a pathway for trans people to be accepted for who they are. And yet now, in 2023, if Keir Starmer and his frontbenchers were to turn up to a Pride event, they would probably be booed and heckled by some.
That’s not to say Labour’s relationship with LGBTQ+ people was always easy. When Peter Tatchell stood as the party’s candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey byelection, he was subjected to a viciously homophobic campaign – the Liberal party described its candidate as the “straight choice” – and the Labour establishment did little to defend him. When challenged about this alleged witch-hunt, soon-to-be Labour leader Neil Kinnock allegedly declared, “I’m not in favour of witch-hunts, but I do not mistake bloody witches for fairies,” which he later denied, despite having used “woofters” in another newspaper profile piece.
When the Tories and their media allies were waging war on the gay community in 1987, Kinnock’s then press secretary, Patricia Hewitt, wrote: “The ‘loony Labour left’ is taking its toll; the gay and lesbians issue is costing us dear among the pensioners.”
But New Labour showed real courage: when it equalised the age of consent and scrapped section 28, it did so in defiance of hostile public opinion. Yet even though Blairites run the show again, Labour is becoming a toxic brand in the LGBTQ+ world. When Starmer made a campaign video with a church accused of carrying out “exorcisms” on gay people, it could be accepted as a mistake, not least when the leadership apologised. Yet when a Labour MP who has voted against equal marriage publicly came to the church’s defence, no action was taken. And when, two years later, the leadership did yet another campaign video featuring an evangelical Christian belonging to an anti-gay rights organisation, no apology was forthcoming. As one Labour MP put it anonymously: “They have completely lost their way. I don’t know who it is in Keir’s office, but someone clearly is of the view that the LGBTQ community should be thrown under a bus.”
During the 2021 Hartlepool byelection, the party’s chosen candidate had been on all-expenses’ paid trip to Saudi Arabia – a totalitarian regime that decapitates gay people – and cooed that, “I’ve seen a modern, progressive Saudi Arabia that has totally changed my view of this country.” And when frontbencher Lisa Nandy says that “social conservatism” has “never been more important” and is “something that we have to rediscover”, LGBTQ+ people understandably read that as supporting attitudes which, at best, are hardly accepting and inclusive.
But it’s on trans rights that Labour has descended into the mire. With transphobic hate crimes soaring and the Tories targeting the trans community as they did gay people in the 1980s, Labour could offer courageous leadership. It has done the opposite. Last year, Scottish Labour joined the overwhelming majority of the Scottish parliament in voting to bring gender recognition laws in line with countries such as Ireland, Norway and Switzerland. But when the Tories voted to overturn Scottish democracy, Starmer criticised the legislation and ordered his MPs to abstain. He then declared that updating trans rights was “not a priority for the Labour party”.
Then there’s Labour MP Rosie Duffield, who has publicly asked for a pause on banning conversion therapy in a joint letter to the Times and criticised queer men who are married to women – insulting bisexuals. This week, when a trans woman appeared in an ITV report on the cost of living crisis, Duffield tweeted that she wasn’t a “mother”. When Duffield’s public intervention resulted in an online firestorm against this trans mother, her employer – the Trades Union Congress – took the unprecedented step of issuing a statement, declaring that its staff member “is being subjected to anti-trans abuse online, because she is a mother. This is unacceptable. Everyone should be safe and respected at work”. And yet Labour has so far not taken action. When approached, Starmer’s office said that it was not responding at this stage.
How far the party has fallen. Polling has long shown that LGBTQ+ people overwhelmingly reject the Tories, and many will still vote Labour to eject the government from office. But even many LGBTQ+ people who would otherwise support the political direction of the Labour leadership have lost patience. Labour can no longer call itself a champion of the LGBTQ+ community. And if the party’s leadership turns up to Pride events for cynical political reasons, every boo and heckle will be richly deserved.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
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