Women’s Equality Party: Leader Sophie Walker tells David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn to 'put us out of business'

Jane Merrick sees new movement urge Tories and Labour to embrace its agenda

Party leader Sophie Walker speaks at the Women's Equality Party policy launch in London

The leader of the Women’s Equality Party has called on David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn to “put us out of business” by introducing their policies into the Conservative and Labour manifestoes, including universal childcare, a 50/50 Parliament in terms of gender by 2025 and gender-equality lessons in the national curriculum from the age of four.

Launching her party’s policy agenda, Sophie Walker said a £245bn-a-year gender pay gap was forcing many women out of work because they could not afford childcare.

Ms Walker, whose party was set up by broadcaster and comedian Sandi Toksvig and the journalist Catherine Mayer six months ago, accused the media and British institutions of “looking the other way” rather than addressing gender equality, despite the introduction of the Equal Pay Act 45 years ago.


 New political party Women’s Equality launched its policy agenda in London, with co-founders Catherine Mayer (lying down) and Sandi Toksvig (front row, centre) along with party leader Sophie Walker (back row, fourth from left)
 (Getty Images)

The WE will field candidates at next year’s local elections and at the 2020 general election but Ms Walker said it wanted mainstream political parties to start acting now on gender equality by taking on board their agenda.

Under the party’s policy of equal representation for women in politics, business and industry, Ms Walker said Parliament should be put into “special measures” for the next two elections and called on political parties to field women in two-thirds of seats. However, the Conservatives are opposed to all-women shortlists and Labour does not have shortlists in every seat, meaning this target would be unlikely to be fully introduced by either party.

The WE is calling for gender equality in the classroom, with female role models such as Marie Curie on the national curriculum from early years. It also wants there to be more male primary-school teachers, to challenge assumptions about caring roles. Work experience would be compulsory at secondary-school level and awards for employers would encourage teenage girls into science, technology, engineering and maths careers.

Ms Walker expressed fears about her six-year-old daughter being subjected to “sexist, oppressive attitudes that will accompany her right through her life at school”, and said: “Already the boys in my little girl’s class think she’s second-class.”

State-funded childcare would be available for all from the end of paid parental leave when a child is nine months old, paid for by introducing a single rate of tax relief on pension savings, which the WE says would raise around £6.5bn.

The WE would restore legal aid for all domestic-violence cases and also criminalise men who pay for sex, rather than prostitutes themselves facing criminal penalties.

Ms Walker welcomed recent comments made by both the Prime Minister and the Labour leader on equality, including Mr Cameron’s reference to his daughters in his party conference speech, in which he said, “You can’t have true opportunity without real equality”. But she said: “These are good comments. But they’re just comments. They’ve been talking about delivering equality for far too long. It seems to me that they are more interested in claiming the right to deliver equality than actually delivering it. The only action is to shoot down any other party’s talk about how they might deliver equality, reducing our right to participate to a cynical messaging contest.”

She added: “David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn, political leaders and activists from every party: if you really want women to fulfil their potential, then take on these policies. We challenge you to put us out of business by implementing our policies first, and fast.”

Since its launch, the WE has attracted 45,000 members and supporters and has 65 branches across the UK.

Women’s equality: Party leaders

Sandi Toksvig

The writer and comedian quit Radio 4 comedy show The News Quiz to help set up the WE in March, having previously been a Liberal Democrat supporter. She said “enough is enough and we need to make some changes” to UK politics.

Catherine Mayer

Ms Mayer floated the idea for a standalone party at the Women of the World festival in March. The author and journalist co-founded the party with Ms Toksvig.

Sophie Walker

The former Reuters journalist was elected leader unanimously by the WE’s steering committee. She reported on business and politics from France, the US, Iraq and Afghanistan over two decades but when the party launched she said: “I felt excited by politics for the first time in a long time.”

Katie Grant