Keir Starmer: A vacuum of principle and moral clarity on biology and gender?

April has not been an easy month for Keir Starmer. After 2022, the British prime minister said that "trans women" (biological men) are also women. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled in mid-April that the legal definition of a "woman" is based exclusively on biological sex and not on gender identity.

Contrary to Starmer's statements, the five justices of the country's highest court ruled that "under the Equality Act 2010, ‘sex’ is understood as binary, being a man or a woman. For the purposes of the Act, a person’s legal sex is their biological sex as recorded on their birth certificate."

Thus, the landmark Supreme Court ruling has unleashed a political and cultural storm in the United Kingdom. After years of moral and ideological drift, Keir Starmer finally admitted that the ruling "gives real clarity" to the debate over whether so-called "trans women" (biological men), can indeed be considered as women.

Nearly a week after the court's ruling, in an interview with ITV News, Starmer admitted that a woman is "an adult female."

"I actually welcome the judgment because I think it gives real clarity. It allows those that have got to draw up guidance to be very clear about what that guidance should say. So I think it's important that we see the judgment for what it is. It's a welcome step forward. It's real clarity in an area where we did need clarity. I'm pleased it has come about," the prime minister said.

Keir Starmer: An 'insubstantial' man

This "clarity" that Starmer is now content with is one that the prime minister has failed to provide for years. Now, in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, the prime minister again believes in science and apparently can now recognize what a woman is.

In 2022, Starmer stated to The Times that "A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that trans women are women, and that is not just my view — that is actually the law."

Similarly, in 2023, the prime minister told The Sunday Times that "for 99.9% of women, it is completely biological ... and of course they haven’t got a penis."

The Spectator said that following the Supreme Court decision, "Starmer has stopped holding a view he never held and adopted a view he always held but was unwilling to admit. It’s not the cowardice that offends, it’s not even the dishonesty, it’s the sheer insubstantiality of the man. There is nothing there. No conviction and no principle, neither passion nor purpose, a vacuum of personality and philosophy."

In 2020, after being elected leader of the Labour Party, Starmer posted a message on Facebook, in which he stated: "Trans rights are human rights, and your fight is our fight too. The Labour Party stands proudly with the trans community."

Starmer's party has taken this fight so seriously that, within its ranks, it has pursued people who disagree with the prime minister's views on gender issues.

Conservatives put Starmer on the ropes

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch took on Starmer last week at the Prime Minister's Questions.

Badenoch who is known for critical stances on gender issues, pressed Starmer on his previous statements about trans rights, accusing him of shifting his position on the definition of a woman.

Starmer stressed the need to "lower the temperature, to move forward and to conduct this debate with the care and compassion it deserves," while supporting single-sex spaces.

Likewise, the Tory leader challenged Starmer to apologize to Rosie Duffield, a former Labour MP with whom the prime minister previously disagreed on gender issues and who suffered harassment and persecution from members of the Labour Party, to the point of forcing her to resign in September.

Finally, Badenoch accused the prime minister of having a lack of moral courage, saying there was a choice between a Conservative Party that defends common sense or a Labour Party that bends the knee to the flavor of the moment.

Rosie Duffield: A crusade for common sense

Last September, Rosie Duffield quit the Labour Party after years of attacks by party activists. Duffield faced harassment, safety issues and was reprimanded by Starmer, as well as other party deputies, for simply stating what the Supreme Court ruled in April.

In her resignation letter, Duffield criticized the revelations since the beginning of Starmer's term were "staggering and increasingly outrageous" and she criticized his "sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice," the BBC reported.

Also, in statements to BBC Radio Kent, Duffield said she would like to receive an apology from Starmer for how she was treated, but said that "he's not going to, that's just not his style."

The now-independent MP for Canterbury also said, "I would like an apology for all of the members of the Labour Party who've been investigated, blocked, barred from being candidates."

During the interview, Duffield explained that "These are people who've lost their jobs in government departments and the NHS, just for stating their views about biological sex, which are actually protected by law."

J.K. Rowling celebrates ruling and speaks out in support of women

In the streets of London, thousands of people have protested against the Supreme Court ruling. Meanwhile, writer J.K. Rowling celebrated the ruling and has spoken out forcefully about the lack of moral clarity existing in the government.

In a message posted on X, the writer wondered, "Do these politicians have any shame?"

"Women have been persecuted, harassed, smeared, roughed up and forced to take employers to court for discrimination. They've suffered severe detriments purely for believing what the Supreme Court has ruled to be reasonable and correct: that women are a definable biological class that has specific rights under the law to which males, however they identify, are not entitled."

Likewise, Rowling asserted that many women "have sacrificed their livelihoods and safety to combat a pernicious ideology that has infiltrated elite institutions, including government."