New Delhi: The Conservatives in the United Kingdom Monday announced that if the party is reelected to power 4 July, it would define sex as biological in Britain’s Equality Act to end any ambiguities. This is likely an attempt to shore up support among its core voter base.
“Biological sex matters. We’re protecting women and girls,” said Rishi Sunak, the UK’s incumbent prime minister, on social media platform X.
The promised amendment to the Equality Act would see one’s sex be defined as the biological sex assigned at birth rather than the one they identify with or have later legally changed to on their birth certificates.
Lagging in the polls, the Conservatives, in recent days, have attempted to raise support, with pledges for pensioners, mandatory national service for 18-year-olds, and against immigration and are now engaging in culture wars as it is staring at a historical defeat in next month’s general election.
Labour’s shadow defence secretary John Healy told the BBC that the Conservatives’ new promise was an “election distraction” to deflect from “the really core issues that matter to people”.
According to Healy, the Equality Act, passed by the previous Labour government in 2010 has adequate protections for biological women in single-sex spaces but conceded that clearer guidance is required to the law — a guidance that Labour would provide.
The Conservatives, who have been in power for fourteen years, have made no such changes to the Equality Act despite winning an almost 40-seat majority in the 2019 general elections. Sunak, the PM since 2022, 22 May announced a snap election 4 July, defying expectations of an election later in the year.
According to Politico, the Conservatives are trailing Labour by over 20 percentage points, highlighting the mountain Sunak has to climb if he hopes to return to 10 Downing Street next month.
Also read: OpenAI, Meta take down several accounts from Israel, China targeting Indian elections, Sikh groups
The Conservatives scramble
In an attempt to bridge the polling gap with Labour, Sunak has announced a variety of pledges to rouse the Tory voters. One of his main promises is to ensure that many pensioners will not have to pay income tax on pensions received as the state pension will always be below the tax-free threshold, according to media reports.
The Conservatives have called this pledge the “triple-lock plus” and aimed at one of the most reliable voters for the party — older voters.
Similarly, Sunak has announced that if reelected, the Conservatives will ensure a mandatory year of national service for 18-year-olds, a promise that, according to polls, has more support amongst older voters than younger ones.
For instance, a YouGov poll from September 2023, indicates that a mandatory one-year military service has just 10 percent support among those between the ages of 18-24, while those 65 years and older are split, with 46 percent supporting such a plan.
Sunak has also promised to crack down hard on boats ferrying illegal immigrants to the UK through his Rwanda plan, which allows the government to detain asylum seekers and send them back.
The plan, which has cost the UK government 310 million GBP to date, has not seen a single relocation flight take off from the UK. A parliamentary report published last week said the UK Home Office has not indicated any plan to detain the 50,000 people deemed to be in the country illegally to relocate them to Rwanda.
Moreover, Sunak has said that no flight will take off till the Conservatives come back to power after the elections, whereas Labour has promised to scrap the scheme.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also read: Who is Claudia Sheinbaum, climate scientist set to be Mexico’s 1st woman & Jewish President