Privy council against church welcoming ladies, possibly (8)
I believe the answer is:
conclave
'privy council' is the definition.
'conclave' can be an answer for 'council' (thesaurus). I'm unsure of the 'privy' bit.
'against church welcoming ladies possibly' is the wordplay.
'against' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'church' becomes 'CE' (Church of England).
'welcoming' means one lot of letters goes inside another (in sense of 'inviting in').
'ladies' becomes 'lav' (the ladies' lavatory).
'possibly' becomes 'con' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'ce' placed around 'lav' is 'clave'.
'clave' put after 'con' is 'CONCLAVE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for conclave that I've seen before include "Papal election meeting" , "Confidential or secret meeting" , "Group meeting (to choose a pope?)" , "Secret assembly" , "Private meeting (to elect a pope?)" .)