Sir Keir Starmer speaking to the Labour Party Conference in 2021

From LifeSiteNews

By Jonathon Van Maren

The backlash to gender ideology in the U.K. has been so effective that even leader Keir Starmer has now conceded that biology is, in fact, a real thing.

If the polls are right – and I suspect they are – the U.K. Tory party is set for a historic shellacking that could reduce them to a mere handful of seats. After a shambolic, rollicking ride through twelve years and five utterly forgettable prime ministers, the British public appears to be out for blood. Nigel Farage’s new Reform U.K. party is surging, and the Labour Party’s Keir Starmer seems poised for a landslide victory. 

It may seem like a small thing, but it is worth noting that despite the radical progressivism of the Labour Party, the backlash to gender ideology in the U.K. has been so effective that even Starmer has now conceded that biology is, in fact, a real thing. This recent headline from The Independent highlights both how insane our culture has become and the silver (sliver?) lining of sanity that may be returning to the debate: 

Blair right that a woman has a vagina and a man has a penis, Starmer says 

The subtitle is equally magnificent: “The Labour leader has hardened his position on biological sex.” I do wonder how the editors and headline writers got through all that without dissolving helplessly into giggles, or if any veteran journalist stared bug-eyed at the sorts of things once-venerable publications are reduced to covering. But either way, it is unfortunately significant that the man who is likely going to be the U.K.’s next prime minister does, in fact, acknowledge that women have vaginas and men have penises. 

Previously, the Independent noted with solemnity, “Sir Keir” has “previously said that ’99.9% of women’ do not have a penis.” Since then, he has come to the epiphany that no women do, an affirmation that has deeply offended a clutch of delusional men in dresses who are quite certain that they are women, penises notwithstanding. Of course, neither the former Labour PM nor the next one oppose sex change surgeries – they’ve just been forced to admit the obvious. 

Former prime minister Tony Blair made his comments in recent interview with Holyrood magazine, noting: I don’t know how politics got itself into this muddle. What is a woman? Well, it’s not a very hard thing for me to answer really. I’m definitely of the school that says, biologically, a woman is with a vagina and a man is with a penis. We can say that quite clearly.”  

Blair went on: “The point is this: if people want to reassign their gender and say, ‘OK I may be born biologically a male but I want to reassign as female’, that’s absolutely fine and people should be entitled to do that. And there is no doubt at all there are people who genuinely feel that they are in the wrong body. I know this, I’ve dealt with it over the years. I was actually, I think, the first MP [who] ever had a full set of meetings with transgender people. So, I completely get it.” 

Obviously, Blair is being somewhat disingenuous here. As an extraordinarily talented and very slippery politician, he knows quite well “how politics got into this muddle”: because the LGBT movement effectively captured the entire left-wing of the political spectrum as well as much of the right and demanded that their premises be implemented in law and that society be restructured to suit them.  

But that aside, Starmer was clearly relieved to have Sir Tony weigh in. “Yes, Tony is right about that, he put it very well,” he told reporters. “I saw it reported, I’m not quite sure when he said it, but I agree with him on that.” Previously, Starmer had stated that Labour MP Rosie Duffield – a woman – was “not right” for saying that “only women have a cervix,” but apparently when Tony Blair says it, “he put it very well.”  

Of course, it was Tony Blair’s government that passed the Gender Recognition Act back in 2004, legally granting trans-identifying people the right to change their “legal gender.” Blair embraced the premises; he rejects the conclusion. So, for the moment, does Starmer. It may not seem like much, but in the U.K. in 2024, it’s not nothing.  

Jonathon Van Maren is a public speaker, writer, and pro-life activist. His commentary has been translated into more than eight languages and published widely online as well as print newspapers such as the Jewish Independent, the National Post, the Hamilton Spectator and others. He has received an award for combating anti-Semitism in print from the Jewish organization B’nai Brith. His commentary has been featured on CTV Primetime, Global News, EWTN, and the CBC as well as dozens of radio stations and news outlets in Canada and the United States.

He speaks on a wide variety of cultural topics across North America at universities, high schools, churches, and other functions. Some of these topics include abortion, pornography, the Sexual Revolution, and euthanasia. Jonathon holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in history from Simon Fraser University, and is the communications director for the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Jonathon’s first book, The Culture War, was released in 2016.