Dr Louise Luxton
Research Associate at the University of Manchester. Her research focuses on gender and representation, party politics and political communication, with a comparative focus.
Twitter – @louiseluxton
Email: louise.luxton@manchester.ac.uk
UK Election 2024
Section 5: Policy and strategy
50. It’s the cost-of-living-crisis, stupid! (Prof Aeron Davis)
51. The last pre-war vote? Defence and foreign policy in the 2024 Election (Dr Russell Foster)
52. The 2024 UK general election and the absence of foreign policy (Dr Victoria Honeyman)
53. Fractious consensus: defence policy at the 2024 General Election (Dr Ben Jones)
54. The psycho-politics of climate denial in the 2024 UK election (Prof Candida Yates, Dr Jenny Alexander)
55. How will the Labour government fare and what should they do better? (Prof Rick Stafford and team)
56. Finding the environment: climate obstructionism and environmental movements on TikTok (Dr Abi Rhodes)
57. Irregular migration: ‘Stop the boats’ vs ‘Smash the Gangs’ (Prof Alex Balch)
58. The sleeping dog of ‘Europe: UK relations with the EU as a non-issue (Prof Simon Usherwood)
59. Labour: a very conservative housing manifesto (Prof Becky Tunstall)
60. Why the Labour Government must abolish the two-child benefit limit policy (Dr Yekaterina Chzhen)
61. Take the next right: mainstream parties’ positions on gender and LGBTQ+ equality issues (Dr Louise Luxton)
Election commentary has been captivated by the success of Reform UK in securing the third-largest share of the popular vote and a record five parliamentary seats. However, perhaps Reform UK’s greatest achievement in this election was their ability to push their policies onto the agenda and into the manifestos of mainstream parties. In this piece I discuss how the Conservative and Labour parties shifted their positions on gender and LGBTQ+ equality issues in response to the electoral threat of Reform UK and consider the consequences of this behaviour.
Reform UK’s success follows a trend more widely observed in the European Parliament elections a month previously, where far right parties made sizeable gains in several countries. These parties have historically gained support by mobilising nativist anti-immigration policies. But over time they have expanded their platforms to other cultural issues, such as opposition to gender and LGBTQ+ equality measures and feminist discourses. These policies appeal to a base of predominantly white, working class, male voters who feel ‘left behind’ by social and cultural developments intended to promote equality for historically marginalised groups, including women and LGBTQ+ people.
Reform UK’s manifesto featured several pledges signalling opposition to identity politics and ‘woke’ ideology. These include a ban on so-called “transgender ideology” in primary and secondary schools, mandating single sex facilities, and a replacement of the 2010 Equalities Act, which they argue positively discriminates on behalf of minorities. These policies fit squarely into the narrative constructed by the far right that gender and LGBTQ+ equality measures – and feminism more broadly – are threatening to traditional societal order.
When a far right party becomes electorally threatening, mainstream parties often respond by accommodating their popular policies in an attempt to dilute their support. For example, over the last decade both the Conservative and Labour parties have adopted more hardline policies on immigration under pressure from the popularity of UKIP, the Brexit Party and now Reform UK.
In this election, both parties adopted a similar accommodative strategy on specific gender and LGBTQ+ equality issues. Most notably, manifestos promoted more conservative stances than previously held on gender self-identification and access for transgender women to single sex spaces. Moreover, parties framed these policies around safeguarding concerns for (cisgender) women and children, a popular strategy of the far right.
For instance, the Conservative Party manifesto included pledges to change the language of the Equalities Act to specify protection on the basis of biological sex rather than gender, mandate single sex spaces, and permanently prevent the prescription of puberty blockers for young people experiencing gender dysphoria. This is a notable development from their 2017 and 2019 manifestos, neither of which mentioned gender self-identification or transgender rights, besides a general commitment to protect LGBT people from violence and harassment.
In comparison, the Labour Party manifesto offered support for transgender people, yet simultaneously framed the issue around cisgender women’s security. Pledges included reforming and simplifying the gender recognition process, a policy that also featured in their 2017 and 2019 manifestos. But new in 2024 was a commitment to protecting single sex spaces for (cisgender) women, under the existing Equalities Act. This more conciliatory position was consequently attacked by the Conservative Party, in a tweet from 3rd June: “We know what a woman is. Keir Starmer doesn’t.” In the final leaders’ debate, both Sunak and Starmer reaffirmed their support for single sex spaces. Thus, gender self-identification became a battleground in the election campaign and both parties – though particularly the Conservatives – adopted more conservative positions and utilised frames and rhetoric that appeal to the Reform UK vote base.
An important question now that the election results are in, is what the consequences of this accommodative strategy will be. YouGov polling from May 2022 shows that attitudes towards transgender rights have eroded over recent years. Respondents show lower support of gender self-identification and significantly lower acceptance of transgender men and women’s access to single sex spaces, as compared to 2018. Moreover, Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte and Fraser McMillan present experimental evidence from Scotland that framing debates on transgender rights around security concerns for (cisgender) women’s safety has a significant negative effect on the public’s support for transgender rights.
Therefore, by accommodating increasingly conservative positions on gender and LGBTQ+ equality issues, mainstream parties risk legitimising discourses that threaten the rights of LGBTQ+ people. Platforming these debates may also influence broader regression in voters’ gender equality attitudes. However, it is worth noting that both the Green Party and Liberal Democrat manifestos offered comparatively more liberalised gender self-identification policies. Both parties also made record seat gains in this election, increasing their potential influence over the policy agenda. At the very least, we may expect to see gender and LGBTQ+ equality issues becoming significant sites of party competition in the future.
