As The Guardian noted last night:
Reform UK's candidate in the Gorton and Denton byelection has been accused of wanting a “Handmaid's Tale future” after unearthed YouTube footage revealed he called for “young girls and women” to be given a “biological reality” check.
They added:
In a clip posted to his personal YouTube channel in November 2024, Matt Goodwin stated that “many women in Britain are having children much too late in life”.
He said: “We need to also explain to young girls and women the biological reality of this crisis. Many women in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
Let's be clear about this: there is nothing surprising about what Matt Goodwin had to say. This is typical far-right thinking. All that has happened is that it is getting some exposure. Let me, however, summarise what is going on.
Firstly, far-right parties, like Reform, hate women. Even though they have women in their ranks, their attitude is that the role of the woman is within the home, that women must defer to men's opinions, and that maybe, even, they should be denied the right to vote, which is something which we are seeing said by members of the Trump administration. To be clear, these parties think that men have a right to rule, both the country and the home, and that women who challenge this are a threat. There is deep-seated misogyny implicit in everything that these parties do. Let's not beat around the bush.
Second, this idea that young women (and let's be clear, what Matt Goodwin really means is white young women) should be having more children is also deeply racist. The far right has an idea that the white population of the UK is being replaced by people from a wider range of ethnic backgrounds because the birth rate amongst what they say is the ethnic British population is declining rapidly, but it is not declining so markedly amongst first and second-generation migrants. Proportionately, that population is growing as a consequence. This trend, and the hatred of it, is described by what they call the great replacement theory, which is key to the politics of hate and division that Reform depends upon creating.
Third, what all this confirms is that Reform is what I've always suggested it to be. Firstly, it is racist. Secondly, it is misogynistic. Thirdly, it is from the far right: these two things are characteristic of that political alignment. Fourthly, it is seeking to promote a white, male elite who will run the UK as a result. That is its political philosophy, and unless you are part of this white, male and, incidentally, faux-Christian elite, then they have nothing to offer you except their hate.
That, in summary, is everything you need to know about them.
That, too, is why we need a politics for people that delivers a politics of care and an economics of hope.
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And I guess Hannah Spencer being both a plumber and soon to be a plasterer and a very normal not unattractive woman must really irk him?
The level of mysogeny directed at Hannah has been appalling, as is the querying she is a real plumber which I doubt would be happening if she were male.
Racism and mysogeny are both forms of othering that should have no place in modern British society. I hope the voters of Gorton and Denton see Matt Goodwin for what he is.
So do I.
In my experience working in the the mining industry I have found the professional women are almost always better than the men, both in expertise and knowledge.
And of course from a Party and a part of the political spectrum that makes it harder to form your own household and have children………………
Shock Horror a Government who wanted Women to be able to have the family size they wanted be it none or nine would have to start tackling a lot of issues that would make Reform & the Tories backers very unhappy
Matt Goodwin’s misogyny will be familiar to anyone familiar with the lives of Roma, in the poorer countries of Eastern Europe. Abduction, trafficking, pregnancy, and teenage marriage, are a risk for young girls, who are then denied the right to secondary and tertiary education and trapped in poverty. I’ve worked with those who are fighting to change this, in church projects in Bulgaria and have been doing so for decades.
Matt Goodwin is disgusting, but classic Reform UK Ltd candidate. I hope he gets maximum exposure as the nasty person he clearly is.
“Vote Goodwin, get Gilead”?
I see the Epstein files show Steve Bannon was working with Epstein to try to bring down Pope Francis. Bannon claims to be a Catholic.
It is wise to remember just how many Nazis and in the Einstazgruppen at the Nuremberg trials had doctorates – even double doctorates in some cases.
In one sense, it is hard to take him seriously – it must have been been really difficult being at the University of K**t being a randy professor with all those good looking, talented young women around him whom he wants to dominate.
OTOH, there is nothing worse these days than using the language of the truly oppressed to create and support artificially oppressed groups.
He is someone whom if I met him I’d be more likely to give a firm handshake to his nether regions that to his hand – which if he and his fellow right wing tossers are not careful, could be covered in blood one day given the unpredictable forces they have chosen to play with.
He is a very bad man.
As a white woman who had children in the world post 1979, I would say the issues are all about entrenched structural insecurity, most women want a level of security before bringing a child into the world. In fact biology can lower even stop female fertility when insecurity prevails.
Reform Ltd show no interest in solving the problem of this anti-family, entrenched insecurity, as follows
1. Housing insecurity, young people are generation renters.
And Reform Ltd have no effective policies to solve this, in fact as a company of elite property owners and rentiers, their interests are to protect the status quo, keep prices high.
2. Income insecurity – we live in the Post Jobs Era. Reform Ltd’ s interests, like other companies, are to drive regulation and wages down and their profits up. Whilst calling us lazy slackers who don’t pump out enough babies.
4. Financial Insecurity in providing for a child- Emotional Labour including child care is often gendered, and now the odds are such, including the high cost of child care now needed for 2 income families, when one income was previously sufficient, means having lots of children with multiple partners / wives are for the likes of the Mr&Mrs Farages and Mr&Mrs Johnsons of the world.
Having children has become a luxury experience for the rich.
3. Relational Insecurity – the normalisation of misogyny, the commodification of relationships via social media have made relationships toxic, it’s hard to find that someone who will first commit, and then run the gauntlet of having a family in Broken Britain.
Blaming woman is easy, it’s just another divide and rule Reform Ltd tactic.
Resist, we’re better than that!
Much to agree with.
Elon Musk is reported to have had 14 children. This is untrue. He hasn’t had any.
Four women, impregnated by him, have had fourteen children for him.
If he had had to have them himself, he would have stopped at one.
It’s hard to find the words to express my level of disgust with the Reform Company, it’s candidates and their utterances. They are beyond the level of insufferable. My sympathy lies with any poor soul who agrees with all their nonsense. The polls tell us there are millions of such people. I disagree: people do not so much agree with this nonsense, rather they see Reform as a change from the other parties who have been engaged in a different sort of nonsense for the last 30 years or so. Long before any General Election, voters will realise the changes offered by Reform are exactly the things they dislike so much about the other parties. I hope they will then look at the other parties(Greens, SNP, Plaid) and give them a chance.
I’m really hoping Hannah Spencer and the Greens win a resounding victory in Gorton and Denton. It would send such a strong message to the rest of the country at a time when we need some hope. Although Reform will undoubtedly do well, as often decent people are taken in by their lies, it would be disastrous if they got to win. The big question is whether Goodwin will congratulate Hannah and give a speech or disappear.
Fingers crossed
“…..many men in Britain are having children much too late in life. We need to also explain to young boys and men the structural reality of this crisis. Many men in Britain are having children much too late in life and they would prefer to have children much earlier on.”
Changing the odd word shifts the focus away from an issue that is the domain of women only. Now of course the ‘biology’ bit is about actual childbirth, but having a child is not just biology – it is economy, society and psychology. A boy/man can also have a child. I have three. So, if we shift the focus from it being a female responsibility to a social one (assuming the birth rate is actually a problem) then we can more clearly see the misogyny at work here and the threat Goodwin et al feel to anything other than an individual solution to a social/structural problem. For his ilk, god forbid that anybody suggest that perhaps birth rates should be seen as requiring far bigger responses than just “get pregnant little girl..or the brown people will out populate you.”
Correct
And thanks