I regret voting Labour in 2024
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Bellends outside Labour Party Conference
Last year, Labour pledged to halve violence against women and girls.
Let’s think about what this would mean. It would cover domestic violence, coercive control, prostitution and trafficking, rape, sexual assault, forced marriage, FGM, and other atrocities such as stalking and harassment – including sexual harassment. A tall order? Definitely, but not one that shouldn’t be tackled. After all, none of these crimes and violations are inevitable. There is nothing natural or inevitable about any of it – boys are not born programmed to hurt women. But the sad truth is that Labour is ill-equipped to achieve this goal in any way, shape or form.
It's not just the more obvious cases such as the Labour government’s spectacular failure to tackle the street based ‘grooming gang’ scandal. Not only did it have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a statutory inquiry – it also poured £53 million into ‘perpetrator programmes’ for men accused of sexual assault and domestic violence. How on earth do they imagine that the men who are entrenched in violent and abusive behaviour towards women they supposedly love will do an about turn because they attend group therapy once a week?
Do they really think that sitting in a room with other abusers, being served tea and biscuits by a smiling facilitator in socks and sandals will make any difference whatsoever to their behaviour? What these men need is the long arm of the criminal justice system.
That money could have been spent on education and prevention. Or on reducing the years-long waits for court dates that lead to victims dropping out.
A recent poll by EVAW found that nearly 8 in 10 women (79%) think the government should be doing more to tackle violence against women and girls.
In 2021, Jess Phillips (now Minister for Safeguarding)) said that while the Conservative government of the time claimed to be taking action on the issue, it was “not okay to focus this entirely on the criminal justice system”, before going on to argue that the “tough on crime” approach was pointless because so little is dedicated to prevention or challenging the attitude of perpetrators.
In its 2024 Manifesto, Labour said it would tackle the ‘root causes’ of misogyny that underpin violent crime against women and girls. So far, this has amounted to Keir Starmer calling for the Netflix drama series, Adolescence, to be shown in schools. In terms of attitudes in the playground, nothing has changed. The Labour Party can talk the talk, but seems incapable of walking the walk.
I reluctantly voted for Labour last year. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, out of a naïve belief that Labour would be more effective at tackling inequality between women and men – even though I knew that many Labour representatives claim not to know what a woman is. Keir Starmer told one journalist that “99.9% of women don’t have a penis” and David Lammy said he believed that transwomen taking oestrogen can ‘probably’ grow a cervix.
Lisa Nandy, in 2023, suggested that a trans woman rapist could be sent to a female prison.
Woman’s Place UK is a group that campaigns to prevent men from entering female only spaces, yet Nandy signed a pledge that branded the organisation a “trans-exclusionist hate group”.
Because Labour have traditionally been more likely to uphold the principles of the welfare state, I hoped they would fund refuges and rape crisis centres, and provide desperately- needed resources to women having to flee their homes with young children. How wrong I was. After 14 years of a Conservative government, I thought things could only get better. They haven’t.
Despite promises that rape cases would be treated on a par with those involving dangerous terrorists and fast-tracked through specialist courts, and that misogyny in schools would be addressed, nothing appears to have happened.
Where are the suspensions and dismissals of all police officers accused of domestic violence or sexual offences pending an investigation? What is happening with police vetting?
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This is not a fringe issue. Each year, two million women experience domestic abuse, and three women are murdered each week in the UK. These figures have not changed in decades: Labour should be doing a lot. There was no mention at all of domestic abuse in the Spending Review, even though women’s centres and support services are crying out for urgent funding.
Jess Phillips, once a force for good when it came to tackling violence against women, seems to have lost her gumption. Keir Starmer is a laughing stock, and is doing nothing to challenge the reputation of Labour failing women. The Left has, perhaps ironically, become the worst side for women, with deep-rooted sexism setting the agenda. No wonder women are leaving in droves. I certainly regret voting Labour, and can’t, in all conscience do so again – unless there is a huge culture change.
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