Labour have won by a landslide in Brighton and Hove’s council elections last week.
After years of quiet collusion with the Greens, Labour finally realised how deeply unpopular Green policies had become.
Sensibly, though belatedly, during the election campaign, they placed some distance between that party and their own.
The most recent Labour local manifesto was a model of commonsense, avoiding the woke-ish posturing about diversity and inclusion that has become so widespread.
It simply commits Labour to work with the people of Brighton and Hove to deliver basic services well, in an environmentally responsible way.
The Greens deserved to lose badly and I thought they probably would but did not anticipate how dramatic their fall would be.
I feared they might be saved by the student vote they have so cynically deployed in previous years. However, if they attempted it this time, it did not work – something that gives me renewed faith in democracy and students.
The Greens are ideologues whose schtick when campaigning is to present themselves as principled, hard-working environmental warriors, “different” from other political activists.
The difficulty with this is that when councillors fall short of these high ideals, for example, by trashing the environment or appearing self-serving, corrupt, discriminatory or simply lazy, voters will feel especially let down.
They may give councillors the benefit of the doubt for a while but, once voter-scepticism sets in, political collapse is likely to be rapid and dramatic.
Individual Green councillors may indeed be principled and hard-working but overall their administration has failed the city in many practical ways.
Visible failings included the closure of public toilets, their failure to get to grips with weeds and recycling, graffiti and street clutter – as well as their neglect of parks and heritage sites.
They have committed the city to costly vanity projects such as the i360 while fixating on transport decisions which often do not work – or benefit only young and able-bodied people and discriminate against or endanger pedestrians.
They have neglected the needs of elderly people and actively undermined key women’s services in the city.
In the name of diversity and inclusion they have favoured “fashionable” protected characteristics (in some cases promoting policies and practices which do not have the force of law) while undermining the legal sex-based rights of women and girls.
Above all, they have failed to respect and learn from the local community. The Greens, perhaps more than any other party, have encouraged the gentrification of our city which has forced out working class people and those on low incomes.
They have greatly expanded their voter-base by encouraging unsustainable expansion of our universities and ruthless development of student accommodation in target wards, frequently on sites which would have been more suitable for housing elderly and disabled people or essential workers.
I hope that the new Labour administration, which does not have entirely clean hands in these matters, will firmly reject the Greens’ example, listen to local people and treat them with respect, not assume that if they disagree it is because they are bigoted, lack sophistication or need “re-education”.
I hope too that Labour will be prepared to work with all people of goodwill, whether or not they support or represent other parties, listening to all sides of arguments, not just the siren voices of powerful lobby groups.
I hope they will challenge local health, care and criminal justice services to better meet the needs of all the community (including those with unfashionable characteristics), applying the actual law, rather than the made-up law and policy preferences of influential, well-funded campaigns.
Above all, I trust that the new administration will deliver effective basic services, bearing in mind, in particular, the needs of elderly and vulnerable people, those whose voices are rarely heard.
Jean Calder is a campaigner and journalist. For more of her work, click here.
I didn’t vote Green due to their lack of ability to maintain basic services. However, much of this article is exaggerated nonsense.
They were only in control of the council for a little over 2 years – how on earth can they be blamed for “gentrification” of the city? How did they force out working class people during these 2 years? What did the green led council do to “undermine the legal sex-based rights of women and girls” (the nonsense about schools removing single sex toilets was demonstratably untrue and not within the control of the council in any case).
You’ve also failed to note that the outwardly “anti woke” policies of the conservatives and so called independent parties were firmly rejected by the electorate!
Greens/Momentum Labour were in power for an eternity. They didn’t oppose each other and were an item. Momentum has been rejected by everybody and won’t be returning to British politics, as you know.
I agree with you Mark, this opinion piece is quite disingenuous at best.
The problem with the low levels of recycling is down to contract signed by a previous Labour administration, and it was Labour that cut the parks budget before they lost power in late 2020 owing to booting out three of their own councillors.
University expansion is something that all parties have pretty much agreed on. And while there are certainly some issues with it – not least the quality, value and cost to students of the education given – we have to face the fact that economically speaking, there is not a lot else going in in this town apart from tourism. And no council has the power or resources to do much about that.
Some of the other criticism of the Green administration above is fairer. The plan to close public toilets (none were actually closed, as far as I know) was a low point, But I’d still take them above a bunch of Blairite control freaks, and I fear that is what we’ve got for the next four years. Hope I am wrong, but the early signs aren’t good. To judge from her tweets, someone needs to give the new council leader a dictionary and point her towards the word ‘hubris’.
You may have Brighton and Hove mixed up with Worthing or Eastbourne. The Pavilion Gatdens toilets in Brighton are still shut. Other toilets closed and more were due to be closed. The Greens sabotaged any remaining credibility they had when they proposed so many closures. As for wokery, the Greens were the worst woke virtue-signallers. Labour were similar but, as they were then in opposition, faced less scrutiny on this front. Sir Keir starmer still struggles to say what a woman is and I find it insulting and worrying when people tell me that doesn’t matter. Life experiences mean not all of us feel safe in mixed-sex spaces.
Recycling and i360 is a contractual problem
Parks, toilets, up keep – these are financial problems
Transport projects come from ring fenced funds
None of which Labour can affect in the slightest. So no difference at all to Brightonians. Not a bit…
Agent provocateur
Recycling needs to be addressed with the contractor to ensure they do what the contract states and dealt with swiftly if it is not.
i360. Hmmm, an on going burden on this city that needs addressing quickly, like taking it over completely.
Parks, toilets, up keep – these are financial problems, no they are not.
Transport projects come from ring fenced funds. But transport projects include Bus services and there’s been no improvement in those, plenty of movement for cycling themes however.
Labour now have the ability to address the basic services that it is legally expected to carry out. Just addressing the rubbish and cleaning the town up will have a huge impact on the whole city.
Yes, seem to remember Labour wanted to get rid of most of our park rangers, which is the one group of people doing any real good in our, [what could be] wonderful city. Hope they have learned some lessons and will listen to every opinion. And yes, i do worry about their National Leader being unable to define the word ‘woman’. Don’t think they’re ready to govern yet.
Pretty sure Keir Starmer can define the word ‘woman.’ “A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that trans women are women, and that is not just my view, that is actually the law. It has been the law through the combined effects of the 2004 [Gender Recognition] Act and the 2010 [Equality] Act.”
See here https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/mar/13/jk-rowling-keir-starmer-misrepresents-law-woman-definition-labour
Cosmetic/plastic surgery and medication does not turn a male with XY chromosomes into a female with XX chromosomes.
You can’t change your sex.
The GRA is a legal fiction and must be repealed as it doesn’t reflect biological and material reality.
I’m assuming you surreptitiously test everyone’s DNA to know exactly what chromosomes they have? Otherwise your whole premise falls apart on the slightest of scrutiny. Perhaps you have XY chromosomes yourself, perhaps I do too. Unless everyone earth is tested we have no idea so just saying words means absolutely nothing. Are you advocating for testing everyone? I would assume there were considerable ethics based concerns about doing that.
Aside from that, I’ve got no idea why this Calder character is brought back on here time and time again to write things that appear to have either come from the 1950s, or to be an The Onion style joke piece. She speaks on many subjects and they’re always hilariously outdated or embarrassingly misinformed. She seems to be like that elderly relative we all have who has been informally banned from all family gatherings because they never fail to use some kind of slur or display some kind of attitude that borders on a hate crime in 2023.
Okay to be ageist then?
In reply to Jane:
Sex is observed and registered at birth in the UK.
We are able to correctly sex each other via sight and instinct and have been doing so successfully for a very long time, perhaps even since the beginning of humankind itself.
The continuation of our species has relied on our ability to correctly sex males from females in order to reproduce.
We’ve obviously been doing something right, as to date, there are something like 8 billion people on earth.
Of course you really wouldn’t want the embarrassingly badly informed, ageist woke millennial at your family gathering either displaying their obnoxious ‘cancel’ culture attitude towards anymore who dares disagree with their dogmatic narrow-minded view of the world..
So it’s just the usual garden-variety transphobia, then.
Human sexual reproduction is biological and material reality or none of us would be alive.
Are your parents transphobic for engaging in sexual reproduction?
It’s not transphobic to want safe girl or women-only spaces, with prisons, school toilets, shop changing rooms and refuges among them. These can be provided without detriment to those who were born male but choose to identify as female. Name calling, as you so often seem to do Some Guy, adds fuel to the fire and heat rather than light.
@Jess, it’s important to call out prejudice where you see it. Refusing to acknowledge the existence or validity of trans people is definitely prejudice. All this pontificating about genetics is just attempting to add weight to the opinion that transwomen are not women.
That’s why you’re being called out – for prejudice. No one is saying trans women dont exist. No one is saying they’re not valid. There are, however, times and places where the rights of different people compete, as outlined in my previous comment. By all means say you favour exposing women to fear (probably unjustified in most circumstances). Say you’re in favour of making women feel uncomfortable in intimate places, like changing rooms. You can even say you think it’s ok to expose them to aggressive behaviour, sexual assault or rape. Of course, the vast majority of trans women don’t behave in this way, but I carry my rape alarm because a small minority of men are sexual criminals while acknowledging the vast majority aren’t. I have no dislike or disrespect for someone who transitions, but society functions best with proper risk assessments and sensible precautions, preferably handled with sensitivity. Still, you keep pretending those you disagree with are prejudiced. It saves you removing your blinkers.
Jess, your argument hinges on entirely unfair and unfounded ideas about trans people. Would you be so ready to bar other kinds of people from public life, saying they had an inherent bent toward criminality? I suspect not.
I find it quite ironic that you would prefer “handling with sensitivity” an outright position of discrimination. It echoes the kind of person who would like their segregated neighbourhood enforced by nicely painted signage rather than a lynch mob. In point of fact, it doesn’t really matter how “sensitively” you handle such behaviour. It’s still wrong.
@Some Guy
Firstly, ‘transpeople’ are either biologically male or biologically female. There isn’t a person alive who is able to change their biological sex. This isn’t unkind nor is it discriminatory, it is just a universal truth and applies as much to me as it does to everyone else.
Secondly, the ‘criminality’ aspect to your point is incorrect. Transwomen have the same offending rate as men. This is backed by MoJ stats.
Thirdly, women and girls are not a subcategory of their own sex class. If some men are considered women then equally all men are capable of being women. And what of women then, if all men can claim to be them? Female erasure. Women and girls cease to exist.
It is only misogynists who revel in the dehumanisation and erasure of women and girls.
Are you a misogynist Some Guy?
No one is suggesting barring trans people from public life or saying they had an inherent bent toward criminality except you, Some Guy. These are your assumptions. We do, however, take all kinds of preventive measures to keep safe those who are vulnerable, including women and children.
Like every other section of society, some trans people have committed sex offences such as Karen White, ex Stephen Wood, and Lexi-Rose Crawford, ex Dominic Risden.
You may be happy to throw caution to the wind, trust everyone and ignore the subsequent injustices. Thankfully, others are looking at the evidence, the realities of life and trying to find a way to formulate policies to maintain public safety, with fairness and sensitivity, rather than taking your name-calling approach.
Some things which have been true for thousands of years are still true and cannot be updated by every whim of passing generations. We’ll all have to believe that the earth is flat next. We can only go on facts and truth ultimately is the truth whether any one believes it or not.
Yes let’s all ignore that the anti-woke Tories did even worse..
Yeah ok boomer.
Gentrification is caused by London property prices and disgusting property prices in general, caused by that generation buying to let. What is she on about?
Student flats get the students out of family homes so are not a bad thing at all.
However, no green policies for 4 years. I’m a happy chappy. That lot really were unprofessional on every level.
Worth noting that Jean Calder has written cranky transphobic screeds on her blog as recently as 8th May.
“[transphobic propaganda film Adult Human Female] reminds us that the majority of people who identify as transwomen remain fully intact males, who are heavier, larger and stronger than the average woman. Many are autogynephiliacs with an ongoing sexual attraction to females. As local women wearily point out, men who challenge ‘gender ideology’ are rarely attacked or threatened. Women are the target.”
Mate, what’s an autogynephiliac? No practicing medical professional uses this term. It was invented by controversial sexologist Ray Blanchard in the 1980s and is used purely to smear trans women as perverts.
Boorish culture-war trite made for useful idiots cheerleading for a radical right-wring agenda