Inside the protests that threaten to derail Burnham’s first Labour conference this weekend

Andy Burnham’s first Labour Conference risks being overshadowed before it has even begun (Picture: Getty/ AFP/ Metro)

Protests joined by Labour politicians, trade unionists and members will threaten to derail the party’s conference this weekend, Metro can reveal.

Party faithful are planning to overshadow the Labour women’s conference on Saturday in opposition to the ban on trans women taking part.

Activists from across the country will descend on the Liverpool to protest and have been backed by the host city’s influential trade union body.

Labour barred trans women from being delegates at their Women’s Conference, which is held on the eve of the main conference, in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex last year.

Labour Women’s Conference will take place on Saturday before the main conference begins on Sunday (Picture: In Pictures via Getty Images)

Metro revealed in July that four powerful Labour unions, Unison, Aslef, Usdaw, and the Musicians’ Union, will boycott the annual event over the ban.

This newspaper can now confirm that the Commercial Workers Union (CWU) will join them, with union sources claiming that almost all of the 11 unions affiliated to Labour are planning not to attend.

Angry party members will add to the awkwardness of the boycott by holding a high-profile demonstration outside the conference venue at the Experience Campus on Saturday.

Activists will distribute leaflets – seen by Metro – to party faithful, picturing Andy Burnham and highlighting ‘the injustice’ against two long-serving trans women members blocked from attending.

The protests are being backed and supported Liverpool’s Trade Union Council (LTUC), which co-ordinates union bodies across the city.

LTUC’s Secretary Margaret McAdam told Metro: ‘As allies we also fully oppose Labour’s decision to exclude Trans women from Labour’s Women’s Conference and support the protests against this shocking decision.’

The leaflets picture Andy Burnham and highlight the exclusion of two prominent Labour trans women members

The union body will be ‘widely’ asking their supporters to attend the demo, alongside others they are organising over the weekend.

Bands of Labour members will be getting to Liverpool ahead of the main conference in order to protest during the women’s event on Saturday.

One contingent is from the Labour group in Harlow, Essex.

The lead councillor James Griggs is co-ordinating the group and told Metro: ‘I am appalled and dismayed [by the trans ban].To create this level of division I find extraordinary, unaccountable and just dreadful.’

Griggs said the he usually does not arrive at Labour conference until the Sunday but some local members are ‘deliberately going up a day early to support our trans colleagues.

He added: ‘I hope there is going to be a really good turn out. I am prepared to stand up and be counted on it.’

Cllr James Griggs is leading a contingent of Labour protestors travelling from Harlow. Other councillors are also taking part (Picture: Cllr James Griggs)

Metro has been told that other councillors have also pledged to attend and that at least one Labour MP could also show their face.

An email from Portsmouth Trades Union Council sent to LTUC, seen by this newspaper, states that protestors are travelling ‘from all over, including some from the Portsmouth area,’ to join the demo on Saturday morning.

One of the key figures in the protests, who features on the leaflets being given to members, is Emily Brothers.

Brothers was Labour’s first openly trans parliamentary candidate in 2015 but has now been blocked from attending the conference and from contesting seats reserved for women in upcoming internal party elections.

She told Metro: ‘I have never contemplated protesting outside a Labour party conference.

‘To protest against a party that I am a member of, and have been for so long, is troubling.

Emily Brothers, who is blind, was Labour’s first ever trans parliamentary candidate but now is protesting outside the party’s conference.

‘It is something I have to do, because that party are trying to strip away my identity and they won’t talk to me.’

Brothers said she has written to the party chair Bridget Phillipson and Labour’s own legal team about her exclusion and has been repeatedly told that the Party is complying with the law in barring her.

She now will write to Andy Burnham and deputy leader Lucy Powell about the ban.

Brothers, who first joined the party in 1981, added: ‘That is not the Labour Party I have known over 45 years.

‘I will be asking delegates at the Women’s Conference not to go in and not to pass through our protests.’

Steph Richards, a women’s health campaigner and former Labour women’s officer, is organising the demo on Saturday morning.

She was once selected as a candidate for the party at a local election on an all-women shortlist but has also been barred from the Women’s Conference because she is trans.

Steph Richards has also been excluded because she is trans

Richards said someone had even offered to pay for a coachload of protestors to travel from Hampshire to Liverpool to take part.

She told Metro: ‘The protests are building momentum. We know councillors are going to be protesting. Labour is in a really difficult position.’

A Labour Party spokesperson said: ‘Labour is committed to advancing women in politics and to providing opportunities for members to network, debate and contribute. 

‘Labour’s Women’s Conference reflects our wider commitment to addressing the underrepresentation of women in the Party and compliance with the law.’

The Community, FBU, GMB, NUM, TSSA and Unite unions all did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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