The most shameful thing about Stella Creasy’s tweet was her glee.
The video post was to mark a day of celebration in the Muslim calendar, and pictured behind her were young women in hijabs and niqabs beaming at the camera.
With unashamed delight, the Labour MP for Walthamstow declared to the world: ‘These women are the future optometrists, lawyers, accountants, surgeons and leaders of our community and country. They also celebrate the Prophets Birthday at the Milad il Nabi March. Everyone is welcome so come next year and meet them to find out what this event is as they are fantastic!’
But Creasy had left out something important. The Muslim celebration she had lauded as being welcoming to all was not, it transpired, quite so inclusive after all.
Britain’s future surgeons and lawyers had not actually been part of the main body of the march, which was a male-only event. Instead, they had been required to stage their own separate parade, away from the men.
When challenged over this by journalist Jenni Russell: ‘Are these women segregated away from the march you posted?’ Creasy replied: ‘Jenni, they were.’
Segregation along gender lines is a topic of great interest to the former shadow minister for Crime Prevention. In 2022, when a controversy broke out over attempts by the exclusive Garrick Club to retain its male-only status, Creasy led the charge.
Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, beamed in a video post beside young women in hijabs at a Muslim celebration, which was segregated along gender lines
‘If this rule is not changed, membership of the Garrick club should be considered incompatible with membership of the 21st Century,’ she raged. ‘Whether it’s politicians, lawyers, journalists or businessmen hiding behind its panelled walls, they cannot hide how out of touch with the modern world it is to have a club which excludes women as a way of shoring up the importance of men as it does neither sex any favours.’
She also took up the fight for biological men who self-identify as trans to be granted access to safe spaces previously reserved for biological women. ‘Do I want to live in a world where we’re policing everyone who goes into a toilet? No’, she proudly stated, before claiming: ‘Do I think some women were born with penises? Yes.’
So it is somewhat surprising that an MP, who was once described as ‘a latter day Harriet Harman’, feels women and trans-women should have equal rights to be just about everywhere, except on the streets of her own constituency. Actually, maybe it’s not that surprising.
Creasy’s hypocrisy and self-righteousness are attended by a transparent cynicism. According to the last census, 25 per cent of the Walthamstow seat is Muslim. That equates to over 20,000 eligible voters, easily enough to erase her otherwise comfortable 17,000 majority.
So she has made a simple, if entirely self-serving, calculation. Her fight against the patriarchy will be waged without fear or favour. Until it risks bringing her into conflict with those of the Muslim faith. At which point the patriarchy can marginalise and subjugate women to its heart’s content.
Though to be fair to the MP nicknamed ‘Saint Ella’ by some of her colleagues because of her perceived haughtiness, Creasy is not alone in parading her grating political opportunism.
Last year, Jess Phillips, specifically appointed to the role of Safeguarding Minister because of her pioneering work in tackling violence against women, faced calls for her resignation from several victims of the predominantly Muslim rape gangs after she blocked a national inquiry into the scandal.
Again, Phillips’s decision to offload her previously inviolate principles was directly linked to the demographics of her constituency. At the 2024 election she had survived an especially toxic campaign at the hands of the fanatically pro-Islamist Workers Party. And again, the difference between her previous rhetoric, and her political timidity when faced with the potential ire of Muslim voters, was stark.
Labour’s statement about Israel’s ‘illegal settlements’ is surely an attempt to relieve pressure on their MPs facing a pincer movement from Zack Polanski’s pro-Palestinian Green Party
But then that is basically Labour’s MO now. Yesterday the Government announced it was introducing sanctions on what it termed ‘illegal settlements’ in the disputed Israel/Palestine West Bank.
According to Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband this was to attempt to kick-start a renewed search for a two-state solution to the Middle East’s most intractable conflict. But as everyone watching his statement was aware, it was primarily an attempt to relieve pressure on Labour MPs facing a pincer movement from radical Islamist splinter parties, and Zack Polanski’s pro-Palestinian Greens.
Yet by doing so Andy Burnham and his colleagues are in danger of finding themselves riding around on the back of an especially dangerous tiger. One that will become ever more voracious as the next election approaches.
When our new Prime Minister was elected, he pledged that every new policy he announced would have to pass the ‘Makerfield test’. Basically, if it wasn’t a priority for his predominantly working class constituents in the North West, it wouldn’t be a priority for him.
Well, I spent a lot of time in Makerfield during that by-election. And I didn’t come across a single person who placed the Israel- Palestine conflict at the top of their list of pressing issues. Or who expressed their desire to attend religious marches segregated along lines of gender.
The kind of tortured moral relativity currently being paraded by Stella Creasy and her colleagues also runs into direct conflict with the brand of politics we were supposed to be getting from our new Prime Minister.
A couple of weeks ago one of Andy Burnham’s allies was at pains to stress to me how, on issues like immigration, he was attuned to the hopes and fears of working, not Metropolitan, Britain. ‘He’s from Wigan, not central Manchester,’ I was told. Creasy’s posturing demonstrates that message has yet to filter down the M6.
The PM pledged every new policy must pass the ‘Makerfield test’. But, says Dan Hodges, I did not see a single person in Makerfield who put the Israel- Palestine conflict at the top of their list
The sinister scenes in Dover, where masked men clashed with police, brought condemnation across the political spectrum. Why does this not apply to issues like gender segregation too?
But perhaps the most staggering thing about her intervention was the timing. At precisely the moment she was joyously tweeting about the women shunted aside by the men in their community parading through London’s streets, a firestorm had erupted over a different display of toxic masculinity.
The sinister scenes in Dover and Portsmouth, where masked men clashed with police, vandalised property and caused widespread disruption, had brought condemnation from across the political spectrum.
‘We have a responsibility in the times that we’re living in,’ the Prime Minister told his assembled MPs. ‘It’s a solemn responsibility to prevent the politics of poison seeping into our streets.’
Fine. But that has to be extended to all strains of that poison. This is Britain in 2026, not the deep US South of the 1930s. Segregation on our streets based on gender or race should be intolerable in all its forms. It should be especially intolerable to Members of Parliament elected on a pledge to serve all their constituents, regardless of colour or creed.
And it should be least tolerable of all to those Labour MPs who have made it their life’s work to lecture everyone in earshot about the need to challenge the abuses of the patriarchy.
‘Everyone is welcome so come next year and meet them to find out what this event is as they are fantastic!’ Stella Creasy tweeted excitedly. When the women of your constituency aren’t treated like second class citizens, with your gushing approval Stella, we will.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login