JK Rowling will ‘struggle to support’ Labour with Starmer’s stance on gender
JK Rowling has said she will “struggle to support” Labour if Sir Keir Starmer keeps his current stance on gender recognition.
The Harry Potter author has authored a 2,000-word essay in The Times in which she outlines her dissatisfaction with the Labour Party‘s current position.
In the piece, she criticises Sir Keir, as well as shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, shadow equalities secretary Anneliese Dodds, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy and shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry.
Election latest: Starmer makes ‘Swift pit stop’
Rowling has been outspoken in her belief that biological women should be able to have separate spaces, and trans women – who were born male – should not be allowed access.
She has been criticised for her position, being widely condemned in recent years for her views on transgender rights, for example claiming that she would rather go to jail than refer to a trans person by their preferred pronouns.
Transgender newsreader India Willoughby recently responded to comments by Rowling as “genuinely disgusted”.
She added: “Grotesque transphobia, which is upsetting. I am every bit as much a woman as JK Rowling.”
Daniel Radcliffe, who became a worldwide star after playing schoolboy wizard Harry in the blockbuster adaptations of the novels, has also criticised her views, and said in an interview last month that the fallout with Rowling “makes me really sad“.
JK Rowling and India Willoughby. Pic: Reuters/PA
JK Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe at the UK premiere of Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban in 2004. Pic: PA
In the article, the author speaks about how she thought she “misheard” Sir Keir in 2021 when he criticised Labour candidate Rosie Duffield for saying only women have a cervix.
Sir Keir was asked about this statement in a recent leaders debate, at which point he said he agreed with Sir Tony Blair that women have vaginas and men have penises.
Rowling says she felt the Labour leader gave “the impression that until Tony Blair sat him down for a chat, he’d never understood how he and his wife had come to produce children”.
She added that she “really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt”.
In her article, Rowling claims to “have been a Labour voter, a member (no longer), donor (not recently) and campaigner (ditto) all my adult life” – and she wants to see the end of the Conservative government.
According to Electoral Commission records, she gave £1m to the party in 2008, and £8,000 in 2015.
Read more:
Troll who threatened to kill Rowling and Duffield avoids jail
Rowling accuses Starmer of ‘misrepresenting equalities law’
Starmer says 99.9% of women ‘haven’t got a penis’
In the article, the author highlighted Ms Dodds for saying what a woman is “depends on what the context is”.
Ms Cooper is criticised for saying she was “not going to get into rabbit holes on this”.
Rowling points to Ms Thornberry for saying: “some women will have penises. Frankly, I’m not looking up their skirts, I don’t care”.
And Mr Lammy draws ire for saying women like Rowling are “dinosaurs hoarding rights”.
David Lammy is among those who Rowling criticised
The Harry Potter author also claims Mr Lammy said that a cervix is “something you can have following various procedures and hormone treatments”.
Rowling wrote: “It’s very hard not to suspect that some of these men don’t know what a cervix is, but consider it too unimportant to Google.”
The NHS definition of the cervix is the opening between the vagina and the womb.
Rowling says the debate for “left-leaning” women like herself “isn’t, and never has been, about trans people enjoying the rights of every other citizen, and being free to present and identify however they wish”.
Instead, she says it is “about the right of women and girls to assert their boundaries”.
She adds: “It’s about freedom of speech and observable truth.
“It’s about waiting, with dwindling hope, for the left to wake up to the fact that its lazy embrace of a quasi-religious ideology is having calamitous consequences.”
The author says she met a mother of a girl with learning difficulties who was “smeared as a bigot and a transphobe for wanting female-only intimate care” for her.
“I cannot vote for any politician who takes issue with that mother’s words,” Rowling adds.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
? Listen above then tap here to follow the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts ?
She concludes: “An independent candidate is standing in my constituency who’s campaigning to clarify the Equality Act.
“Perhaps that’s where my X will have to go on 4 July.
“As long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights their foremothers thought were won for all time, I’ll struggle to support them.
“The women who wouldn’t wheesht didn’t leave Labour. Labour abandoned them.”
Earlier in the day, Sir Keir ruled out lifting the block on the Scottish government’s controversial gender reforms.
Sky News has approached the Labour Party for comment.
Crypto tokens are becoming increasingly efficient at capturing value, thanks in part to new regulations and upgrades, which could send prices surging in 2026, according to Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan.
Hougan said in an X post on Saturday that in the chaos of the current market pullback, big news is getting lost, such as the level of value capture in digital assets trending upward.
“Most of today’s tokens were created in a regulatory era where value capture was risky; as a result, they defaulted to vague governance-style design choices,” he said.
“Under the new regulatory climate, that’s being unwound. I think we’ll start to feel this effect in 2026.”
Uniswap rallied after investor-friendly proposal
Uniswap (UNI), the native token behind the crypto protocol of the same name, surged earlier this month after the Uniswap Foundation and Uniswap Labs introduced a proposal to make the token more attractive as an investment.
Among the ideas being floated were a protocol-level fee mechanism to burn the tokens and building a Protocol Fee Discount Auctions system to increase liquidity provider returns.
Hougan said this is one of the most obvious examples of a token trying to capture value, and predicts that if the proposal passes, it could send UNI into the top ten by market cap in the future.
“The big knock on UNI has always been that it is a governance token. Uniswap is great, but activity on Uniswap didn’t benefit UNI tokenholders,” he said.
“Except now, UNI is considering flipping the fee switch. If the vote goes through, ~16% of trading fees will be used to burn UNI. I suspect this will push UNI toward being a top 10 token by market cap over time.”
Fusaka upgrade could see Ether lead rebound
Hougan also pointed to Ethereum’s Fusako upgrade as a catalyst that could “significantly increase token value capture.”
The Fusako upgrade mainnet launch is expected in December and will roll out upgrades to Ethereum’s execution layer and improvements to staking economics, among other upgrades.
“I suspect the market will start to orient around the positive impacts of Fusaka soon, particularly if it’s delivered Dec. 3 as expected. It’s an under-appreciated catalyst and one reason ETH could lead the crypto rebound,” Hougan said.
Related: Bitwise exec says a bet on Solana gives ‘two ways to win’
XRP staking rewards also a boon
Hougan said Ripples XRP (XRP) token is also on the road to increasing its value capture with a possible staking addition.
“You see a growing focus on value capture in XRP as well. The community is starting to consider ideas like staking, which would change the economics for tokenholders,” he said.
“The connecting thread: The level of value capture in digital assets is up only from here. I think people look at token value capture as static. It’s not.”
Magazine: Bitcoin vs stablecoins showdown looms as GENIUS Act nears
Sir Keir Starmer has said he “absolutely” wants Angela Rayner back in his cabinet after she resigned for failing to pay the correct amount of stamp duty.
Speaking from the G20 Summit in South Africa, the prime minister told broadcasters his former deputy is “the best example ever” of social mobility and he is still in touch with her.
Asked if she could make a comeback this side of a general election, Sir Keir said: “I’ve always said I want Angela back. Even back in September at the time I said she is going to be a big voice in the Labour movement.
“Do I want Angela back at some stage? Yes absolutely.
“I think she is the best example ever in the United Kingdom of social mobility – going from a pretty challenging childhood to being deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom. She is the story of social mobility above all other stories.”
Asked if he missed having her around, Sir Keir said: “I’m friends with Angie and I like Angie a lot and we talk a lot. We still do.
“It’s always good to have Angela.”
Ms Rayner’s meteoric rise to the top of Labour came after she left school aged 16, pregnant and with no qualifications.
She was elected deputy Labour leader by the membership in 2020, and was made deputy prime minister then housing secretary by Sir Keir.
She resigned from all of those positions in September, after it emerged she had not paid the higher rate of stamp duty on a second home she bought in Hove, East Sussex, saving her about £40k.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Rayner admits she didn’t pay enough tax
It followed a tearful interview with Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby about the “complex living arrangement” regarding her first home, which was sold to a trust following her divorce to provide stability for her teenage son, who has lifelong disabilities and is the sole beneficiary of the trust.
An investigation by the prime minister ethic’s watchdog found she breached the ministerial code by failing to get correct tax advice, but that she acted “with integrity”.
Ms Rayner is still a backbench MP and recently did not rule out a return to the front bench herself – telling the Daily Mirror during a visit to a care centre in her constituency that she had “not gone away”.
Other cabinet ministers have also supported her return.
During the Labour Party Conference a few weeks after she resigned, Health Secretary Wes Streeting paid tribute to her work on the Employment Rights Bill and said Labour “wants her back and needs her back”.
Politics
Rachel Reeves vows to ‘grip the cost of living’ – despite expectation of tax rises in budget
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has promised to “grip the cost of living” in the budget next week.
Writing in The Mirror newspaper, she acknowledged that high prices “hit ordinary families most” and that the economy “feels stuck” for too many.
But at the same time, she is expected to raise taxes when she sets out economic policies on 26 November as she seeks to bridge a multibillion-pound gap in her spending plans.
“Delivering on our promise to make people better off is not possible if we don’t get a grip on inflation,” Ms Reeves wrote in The Sunday Times.
“It is a fundamental precursor to economic growth. It is essential to make families better off and for businesses to thrive.
“There is an urgent need to ease the pressure on households now. It will require direct action by this government to get inflation under control.”
She said reforms would change the welfare system from “trapping millions of people on benefits” to one “designed to help people succeed”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Will PM keep his word on taxes?
It comes as the government announced that rail fares will be frozen for the first time in 30 years.
The fare freeze applies to England and services run by English train operators.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Budget jargon explained
And it will save commuters on more expensive routes more than £300 a year.
Read more:
PM refuses to rule out manifesto-breaking tax rises
Will government lower energy bills in the budget?
Among the rumoured measures in the budget is an extension of the freeze on income tax thresholds, which would see more people dragged into paying tax for the first time or shifted into a higher rate as their wages go up.
However, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said Ms Reeves should “have the balls” to admit that such a move would breach Labour’s manifesto promise not to raise taxes on working people.
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment3 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024