Ungrateful? Moi?

By Simon Wright and Katie Hanson

You might be getting bored with the list of Labour achievements on equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Try thinking about it this way:

When the Conservatives were last in government, the law said that men aged 16 or 17 were criminals if they had a boyfriend. Our bosses were free to decide that we should be sacked, refused a job or denied promotion because of our sexuality. There was humiliation for transgender people who had to use ID in their original gender. There were scores of sexual offences laws that applied only to gay sex and were used by police forces desperate to raise their conviction rates to please Tory Home Secretaries. A neglected child was thought better off living in care than in a loving same-sex couple’s home. Local authorities could be prosecuted if they did anything to promote equality in their area. A company or a public body could refuse to provide us with a services if they felt like it and there was nothing we could do. And a couple who had made their life together had no right to have this recognised and could find their relationship obliterated if one became ill or died.

So you would think that LGBT voters would be especially grateful to Labour? Apparently not. Shocking to those of us with longer memories, polls suggest that more LGBT voters are willing to put the Conservatives back in power than want Labour to stay. Therebranding of David Cameron and the Tories has been remarkable. A few patronising comments without any policy commitments has been called a transformation. A few Tories at a Pride march is big news for the gay media, whereas Labour’s long commitment is old hat. A few younger Tory MPs standing very close to the camera are preventing us from seeing the massed ranks of old-fashoned bigots that stand behind them.

These LGBT voters recognise that all the hard work has been done by Labour and assume that the Conservatives would not dare to reverse the gains. But the Tory rebranding is so shallow, they have not even changed their voting pattern in the Commons. The vast majority of Tory MPs have continued to vote against every equality measure, every time. Cameron himself has personally turned out to vote against gay adoption, against anti-hate legisation and against equality in IVF treatments. Only one simple reason stopped them from destroying our equality measures – there are more Labour MPs than Conservative ones.

It is a cliché, but true: people do not vote to express gratitude, they vote to encourage change. Between now and the general election, we have to prove that Labour is the only party that can deliver the change that we still need. Not only to protect our gains but with a clear and ambitious forward programme and the will to make it happen. Our Equality Bill will be a vital tool to turn legal equality into full social equality but only with a government that wants to make it happen. Thanks to the National Policy Forum, our manifesto already has mutliple commitments on delivering equality both in the UK and abroad. We cannot assume that LGBT voters are grateful or remember what the Tories are really like. We have to persuade them with the facts.