Recognition

From replacing Shotley Bridge Hospital, to restoring the rail link between Consett and Tyneside, to cutting the tax on motorhomes, to abolishing business rates on public conveniences, to bringing a Gigafactory to County Durham, to securing justice for the victims of Medomsley Detention Centre, to fighting against gambling addiction, I strongly support the work of my MP, Richard Holden. 

Therefore, I am profoundly disappointed that he has put his name to this. Although its logic is entirely sound. If you subscribe to Thatcherism and neoliberalism, then you do have to support gender self-identification, since that was where the concept came from. It is a different question whether Richard really does subscribe to Thatcherism and neoliberalism, but here we are.

"Recent data indicated that fewer than 5000 people had obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate, which represents approximately 0.1 per cent of the estimated trans population in the UK"? So there are five million of them? One in 14 people? A population equal to that of Scotland or of the West Midlands ceremonial county? Do you believe that? No, neither do I.

This raises a very interesting question here at North West Durham. With her deep roots in the Old Left's strong material realism, Laura Pidcock was entirely sound on the matter, so to speak, of who was a woman and who was not. But will any such candidate contest North West Durham in 2024?