So. Farewell then the Women’s Equality party. Founded to much fanfare by Sandi Toksvig and Catherine Mayer in 2015, the self-proclaimed ‘intersectional feminist organisation’ has decided to push for its own abolition at a special conference next month. It comes after a decade of stunning electoral success that saw them win a single seat in Hampshire in this year’s local elections. At this general, they then fielded four candidates across the country who won a combined total of 1,275 votes. How will Westminster cope with their absence?
In a lengthy self-justificatory piece for the Observer today, the co-founders cite financial challenges and a changed political and media context as reasons for why the party is no longer the most effective way to campaign for women’s rights. ‘It even used to be possible to work with those Conservatives who regarded gender inequality and climate change as urgent issues rather than fodder for culture wars,’ they sigh. ‘Now we operate in a political landscape where the Tories’ attempts to contain the electoral threat from the hard right has instead seen them fully captured by it.’ Which is, er, why the Conservatives are poised to now elect a black woman as their leader?
The final decision will be taken by the party’s 5,600 paying members at a special conference on 17 November. Few today seem to be mourning its closure. ‘Total and utter betrayers of women’s rights’, declared the feminist author Julie Bindel. ‘Adopted the “sex work is work” line and, of course, gender ideology. Cowardly double-crossers. Posh wazzocks.’ In their op-ed both Toksvig and Mayer claim that their party always designed its manifestos hoping key elements would be stolen, yet now the major parties are less open to taking policy advice from the Women’s Equality party.
Its current leader Mandu Reid blames this on the ‘normalisation of far-right narratives.’ But maybe, just maybe, they just didn’t have many good policies? And, perhaps, they should not still be dismissing in 2024 concerns about single-sex spaces as a ‘fight between trans inclusive and gender critical feminism that is weakening the women’s movement to the delight of regressive populists.’
Maybe then they would have more than one councillor to boast on their Wikipedia page…
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