This article is more than 7 months old

This article is more than 7 months old

A controversial pledge card calling on the Labour party to expel “transphobic” members has split the party’s leadership contenders.

Lisa Nandy has joined Rebecca Long-Bailey in signing the 12-point pledge card by the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights (LCTR) that also describes some organisations including Woman’s Place UK as “trans-exclusionist hate groups”.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Nandy said: “It’s a very tough pledge but it’s important that we are tough.”

But Emily Thornberry has spoken out against the pledge card, and Keir Starmer, the frontrunner in the race, has not signed it and on Thursday chose instead to endorse a less contentious 10-point pledge by LGBT Labour.

Previously Nandy had tweeted her support for the LCTR while stopping short of endorsing its pledge card. But on Wednesday evening during a Labour leadership debate on Newsnight she joined Rebecca Long-Bailey in announcing she had signed the 12-point pledge.

She said: “People who willingly go out to hurt and offend other people have no place in the Labour party … we need to use care and compassion in the language we use to describe other people.”

Thornberry said she had refused to sign it. “I have not signed it because I was was worried about it because it talks about hate,” the shadow foreign secretary told Newsnight.

Starmer, the fourth contender in the race, did not say whether he backed the pledge but said trans rights should be seen as human rights.

Woman’s Place UK – which believes that women need reserved places, separate spaces and distinct services – has said it is “extremely concerned by the scurrilous mischaracterisation” of its campaign.

It has yet to respond to Nandy’s specific comments, but put out its own five-point pledge card:

Womans_Place_UK (@Womans_Place_UK) 4/5 Nothing about us without us

5/5 Sex matters #ExpelMe pic.twitter.com/14yGyaIvID

Womans_Place_UK (@Womans_Place_UK) Calling Woman’s Place transphobic is nonsense - Labour must rethink https://t.co/c7MGiaefaE #ExpelMe from @outnewsglobal

The LCTR charter calls on signatories to “organise and fight against transphobic organisations such as Woman’s Place UK, LGB Alliance and other trans-exclusionist hate groups”.

It was launched this week with a warning that the party had “failed to act as transphobia has gained ground” within Labour, despite the party’s manifesto supporting trans equality and gender recognition.

Nandy said “safe spaces” for women should include trans women.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If you start from the position – as I do – that trans women are women, then the way you resolve that issue is not to pit women against other women, it is to have policies in your hostels that make sure that you don’t admit people who are trying to do harm to people who are already there.”

Nandy also said that under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour had become disconnected from the issues that mattered to its voters.

She said: “We just barely talked about crime over the last few years and particularly during the general election, and it was extraordinary because in every part of this country this is the thing that is keeping people awake at night, that is destroying lives and destroying communities.”

And she accused the home secretary, Priti Patel , of “chasing headlines” by advocating ever-tougher sentences without reforming prisons and said the issue of the criminal justice system should be natural territory for Labour.

“The fact that we weren’t talking about it I think shows how deeply disconnected the top of the party has become from our grassroots,” she said.

“Labour has to become that party again that understands the issues that really matter to people and speak about them loud and clear.”