Sadly, Bex Bailey's experience wasn't a one-off incident in the Labour Party

If any of these men – MPs or staffers – truly believed in Labour values, they wouldn’t treat the party’s female members this way

Joining the Labour Party feels like being taken in by a second family. You celebrate the highs and endure the lows of elections together; you gossip; you bicker over things few others find remotely interesting; and you see the same old faces at meetings and events. It’s a place where you find like-minded people, often a bit dweeby, but always committed to the same values of fairness and justice. It sounds schmaltzy, but it’s true.

There are occasions when it feels inflicted by group-think – criticising a policy, or even a well-liked MP, at the wrong moment can earn you a disapproving glare. And to a point that’s understandable, when members feel like the papers and the opposition party are out to get them and they’re embroiled in a constant battle to prove their worth. Ranks have a habit of closing; the expectation is that the party comes first.

I’m not surprised Bex Bailey was told not to report the fact that she was raped, aged 19, at a party event by a Labour employee in 2011. For some, the most shocking thing about the story is that a senior Labour figure told her that reporting the incident could “damage” her career. But when loyalty is a characteristic to be admired, and criticism can be treated harshly, anything that brings the party into serious disrepute is considered treachery. Playing politics comes before people.

I attended university with Bex, and I watched with awe as she helped run the Labour Society. While I dipped in and out, she was engaged and committed. She is smart and caring and I saw her as someone who’d run for MP. She was the type of person I knew I would one day be telling people I once knew. I’m proud to say that I know her now; I’m inspired by her courage to come forward and be counted with the women who refused to be silenced.

What makes this story all the more sinister is that she was someone who loved and loves the Labour Party. She was someone who had built and saw a life within its walls – and a senior member of staff saw and exploited that. They told Bex that there would be no future for her, in this group that she had for so long called home, if she caused it trouble.

They didn’t see her as part of the family. Someone they should look after and protect. Someone they should have supported to make her assault known and bring her attacker to justice. Instead, in her words, they didn’t even make her a cup of tea.

A party isn’t anything more than its members. Without them it’s just a rule book. If Labour isn’t there to look after people like Bex, who is it there to serve?

This wasn’t just a one-off incident: that much is clear. A friend told me recently that she’d been groped by a male MP as he greeted her at Labour conference this year. She didn’t want to come forward about it, as she admired him as an MP. “It’s frustrating that as a female delegate I wasn’t allowed to transcend my body like a male one would have – I wasn’t a delegate meeting an MP, I was a woman meeting a man,” she told me.

If any of these men – MPs or staffers – truly believed in Labour values, they wouldn’t treat the party’s female members this way. Labour is “the party of equality” and has a long history of progressing women’s rights. It brought in the Equal Pay Act, the Sex Discrimination Act, the Equality Act, Minimum Wage and Sure Start.

It’s deceitful to espouse left-wing values, and the commitment to feminism that comes with it, and not to live up to them. “Feminist” is not a label men should be able to give themselves because they voted for equal pay. To be a feminist is to treat women with dignity in every interaction.

I have the utmost respect for Bex Bailey in coming forward, as always she is fighting to make the party a better and fairer place for women.

As a member of the Labour Party, it feels disappointing to hear that we need an independent body free from political bias to deal with complaints. Labour should, by definition, be an organisation that is able to deal with such situations impartially – but until this happens, Bex is right to come forward and ask for its establishment. I hope she’s the last person this has to happen to, but I know that she won’t be the last to come forward.