of the executive committee asked various Labour elected representatives if they would be interested in speaking at the rally. On 24 May, the rally organisation team asked Councillor Laurie Burton and Laurie agreed to speak. At the time, the team checked through Laurie’s recent twitter timeline and saw no concerning material.
It is, of course, always a good move to check through someone's twitter timeline first. You know….just in case.
So what is the wretched Councillor Laurie Burton guilty of?
On 10 June, Laurie posted a tweet describing the procedural decision in favour of high-profile transphobe Maya Forstater at an employment tribunal as a “victory for women’s rights” and a “victory for free speech”, invoking two dangerous transphobic tropes. Earlier this evening, we announced that Laurie had agreed to speak at our rally, and we linked to his twitter account, not having checked through it again since the team spoke to him on 24 May. The transphobic tweet was then drawn to our attention.
We are incredibly ashamed that, having made a public statement in the past that Labour has a transphobia problem, we failed to be cautious and check again before endorsing a councillor we were not familiar with. Our naivety has led to us contributing to that problem, we had a responsibility to know better, and we are sincerely sorry.
As Labour Nexus has said in the past, trans rights are not up for debate. Trans rights are human rights. If that statement is contentious for you, listen to trans voices and educate yourself, or leave.
Laurie Burton has been reported to the Labour Party, and we sincerely hope that the leadership will defy our low expectations and punish him.
"High profile transphobe Maya Forstater"?? The woman who's just won a court case to the effect that gender critical beliefs are "worthy of respect"?
If that isn't absurd enough, the grovelling apology puts the icing on the whole pathetic performance.
Uniting the party, one shooting in the foot at a time.
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