Transgender comic Eddie Izzard’s political ambitions suffer a major blow

Jan 15 2018
Written by Nick Duffy

CARDIFF, WALES – MAY 10: Comedian Eddie Izzard looks on while campaigning for the Labour party in Mermaid Quay, Cardiff Bay on May 10, 2017 in Cardiff, Wales. A general election is to be held on June 8, 2017. (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)

Eddie Izzard has failed to be elected to the Labour Party’s governing body, in a fresh blow to his political ambitions.

The comedian and political activist has vowed to become one of the first trans people elected to Parliament.

But this week he failed to win election to the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee, after failing to win favour with the party’s hard left Momentum faction.

With three seats on the body up for grabs, Izzard, who had been backed by moderates in the race, finished fourth, with 39,508 votes.

Momentum’s three favoured candidates – Jon Lansman, Rachel Garnham, and Yasmine Dar – picked up 65,163, 62,982 and 68,388 votes respectively.

Eddie Izzard sits on a bench (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)

Izzard said in a statement: “Thank you to Party members who have voted for me in large numbers. I’m grateful for all the support I’ve received from across the Labour Party.

“Despite not being elected, I’ll continue to do all I can to campaign for an open and welcoming Labour Party and to campaign with fellow Labour activists across the country to help Labour win the next election and put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street.”

He added: “This election has been an opportunity to talk about some of the important issues facing our Party and country, and I’m proud to have run a positive, energetic campaign with ideas on how to open up politics and give excluded groups in society more of a voice in our Party and country.”

(Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)

Izzard had said previously: “Being an actor and performing stand-up is what I do for a living, but being an activist has been part of me for a long time.

“I have always fought for the campaigns that I believe in, even when they are unpopular or I’ve been advised against it.

“I came out in 1985, joined the Labour Party in 1995 and I have now campaigned for LGBT rights, for the Labour Party, for Europe and have run marathons for charities for many years.

“I have campaigned against racists and fascists all over our country and around the world and I want all of our members to feel welcome in the Labour Party.”

(Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)

Releasing a video to party members this morning, the comic, author and activist pledged to make Labour more diverse.

“I have been a Labour Party activist for many years,” he says in the video, “now I’m standing for the Labour Party NEC standing for an open and welcoming Labour Party to get people from many different backgrounds into the Labour Party, and to fight this narrow minded Tory government.

“To get the Labour Party in, winning at the next general election and Jeremy Corbyn as the Prime Minister.

“I have the energy and the drive to represent labour party members on the NEC.

“I believe in doing politics differently and I want people from diverse and different groups to be part of the Labour Party and part of our political system.”

The ambitious comic had previously teased a run as the Labour candidate for Mayor of London – but given the incumbent Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan is hugely popular, it’s highly unlikely there’ll be a vacancy in the post anytime soon.

In an interview in the Guardian, Izzard – who identifies as transgender – suggested he now plans to run for Parliament instead at the next election, currently scheduled for 2021.

He said: “The plan was always to run [for office] in 2020, though Theresa May has changed that with her failed power grab. So now it’s the first general election after 2020.”

The star added that he would give up performing entirely if elected.

The comic said: “I would. It’s like [former MP] Glenda Jackson; she gave up acting for 25 years to concentrate on it, then she turns up back as King Lear.”

In the same interview, Izzard opened up about coming out as trans.

The comic explained that coming out as trans was by far one of the scariest things he could do, and in turn that made other obstacles less threatening.

“I think coming out as transgender allowed me to put myself in other terrifying situations and work them out once I was in them.

“I knew I would get through the bad, terrifying bit – and there was a lot of that when I was a street performer – and eventually get to a more interesting place.”

Izzard sometimes presents as male and sometimes as female.

Despite describing himself as a transvestite in the past, in recent years Izzard has more broadly described himself as transgender.

Eddie Izzard (Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)

Opening up about his gender in 2016 during a marathon challenge, he said: “I use it as a badge of identity – I am a transgender guy who came out 31 years ago.”

The star went on to explain that he often identifies as female and male – but that he felt society should not become so “obsessed” with gender.

“I’ve got boy genetics and girl genetics. We get obsessed by it in humanity. We’ve been obsessed for 5,000 years of civilisation and people are still being murdered – in Uganda they were trying to sentence people to death.

“If you look at a tiger, you go ‘ooh, tiger!’, we don’t go ‘girl tiger’ or ‘boy tiger’. We are obsessed by the genders because we grow up in one gender or another. No other animal is obsessed by our gender – they don’t give a monkeys about our gender.”

Izzard added that sexuality and gender identity should not matter, but rather what you do in life should be what defines a person.

“No matter what sex or sexuality, how you self-identity, or who you fancy, matters not one whit – what do you do in life? What do you make? What do you add to the human existence? That’s what’s matters.