Almost half of Labour voters are in step with the Conservatives on gender laws, poll reveals - with only one in three backing the party's plan to make it easier change sex legally

Even Labour voters are not won over by the party’s stance on sex and gender, a poll suggests.

Almost half of the party’s 2019 voters said they are in favour of the Conservatives’ plan to protect single-sex services.

Some 48 per cent said they agreed with Rishi Sunak’s plan to amend the Equality Act, making it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender identity.

By contrast only one in three supporters of Sir Keir Starmer’s party (35 per cent) back its plan to make it easier for transgender people to change sex legally.

Four in ten (40 per cent) of the party’s voters oppose the policy to simplify the process of obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

The survey of 2,146 adults in Britain by PeoplePolling comes just a day after a different poll found two-thirds of Labour voters (65 per cent) agreed with the statement ‘a woman cannot have a penis’ while only 13 per cent disagreed.

Last night Maya Forstater, of women’s rights charity Sex Matters which commissioned the latest poll, said: ‘This election campaign has proved that women’s sex-based rights can no longer be dismissed as a fringe issue. If parties putting themselves forward for government want to represent the mainstream, they should take serious note of the overwhelming support for sex-based rights across the political spectrum.’

It follows a torrid week for Labour on the contentious issue.

First JK Rowling accused the party of ‘abandoning’ women then Sir Keir was forced to deny his plan to simplify the GRC system amounted to introducing gender self-ID by the back door.

He disagreed with his education spokesman Bridget Phillipson when she suggested children could be taught about gender ideology under Labour.

In last week’s head-to-head TV debate, Sir Keir said it was ‘very important that we protect women’s spaces’ but insisted ‘this is already set out’ in the Equality Act. It prompted Ms Rowling to claim he believes ‘men can also be women’.

Sir Keir was then accused by a radio caller of speaking ‘absolute twaddle’ and ‘not listening’ to women who do not want to share spaces with men.

And in a TV interview he would not say if he thought a transgender woman should use the ladies’ or gentlemen’s toilets, saying only: ‘I do want to ensure that whatever the facility, it is a safe and secure place for women.’

He also had to distance himself from long-serving Labour MP Dawn Butler after she said she agreed with David Tennant that equalities minister Kemi Badenoch should ‘shut up’.