Women Politicians In The United Kingdom

"In my experience, women tend to be less tribal, they tend to find it easier to establish trust more quickly"

"At a moment when we need a leader with courage and integrity, we get a pompous clown."

"How can the will of the people be undermined by a vote of the people?"

"The government is turning lives upside down by callously playing hard ball over Brexit and it needs to take its responsibilities far more seriously"

"It may infuriate Nicola Sturgeon, but it seems that JK Rowling's political judgment is superior: the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill will be Sturgeon's poll tax. Sturgeon is not in control of this. She allied herself with zealots, ignored public anxieties, denied biology, produced a bill that most can see is deeply flawed, rejected sensible amendments such as barring sex offenders from self-identification, and cannot hide from the people that predatory males, if the bill becomes law, can manipulate it to invade women’s safe spaces. The recent rapist case will not be the only one that will haunt her."

"Nicola Sturgeon’s Scotland: A place where an equalities officer feels free to declare in public how much he wants to beat up non-compliant women."

"For years, Sturgeon’s personal power has masked any fissures in her party, leaving them unaddressed and widening. Her reliance on a tight circle of advisers, and the premium placed on loyalty from elected representatives, leaves her trapped in an echo chamber. With no possibility of an alternative party reaching government, the SNP is deprived of the democratic check of strong opposition. Charities and lobbyists, dependent on the party and the government for funding and contracts, tell Sturgeon what she wants to hear—even if public opinion is not with her. Inside the SNP, none of her ministers has anything approaching her public profile."

"In many parts of the world, politicians can no longer claim that they do not have the social mandate for taking the climate crisis seriously: citizens are clearly calling for a strong government response, with high levels of public concern about climate change and wide-ranging support for policies to cut emissions. In recognition of this, some senior politicians have actively encouraged citizen activism that pushes them to do more, for example Angela Merkel when she was Chancellor asking young Germans to 'pile on the pressure', and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon acknowledging that 'our feet do need to be held to the fire'."

"So if this was just a question of my ability or my resilience to get through the latest period of pressure I wouldn’t be standing here today, but it's not. This decision comes from a deeper and longer-term assessment. I know it may seem sudden, but I have been wrestling with it, albeit with oscillating levels of intensity for some weeks. Essentially, I've been trying to answer two questions: is carrying on right for me? And more importantly, is me carrying on right for the country, for my party and for the independence cause I have devoted my life to?"

"While disappointed by it, I respect ruling of @UKSupremeCourt – it doesn't make law, only interprets it. A law that doesn't allow Scotland to choose our own future without Westminster consent exposes as myth any notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership & makes case for Indy. Scottish democracy will not be denied. Today’s ruling blocks one route to Scotland’s voice being heard on independence – but in a democracy our voice cannot and will not be silenced."

"I'm against any form of Brexit, I want to stop Brexit, but in particular a no-deal Brexit I think will be catastrophic for our economy, society, for a long time to come"

"We've backed a second EU referendum, which gives people the opportunity to stop Brexit in its tracks and reverse the decision that was taken. I would also support a General Election, which would give people the opportunity to do that. And of course I want to give Scotland the opportunity of choosing our own future through independence through which we can try to fashion a future that has Scotland as part of the European Union and broader international community."

"Shutting down parliament in order to force through a no-deal Brexit - which will do untold and lasting damage to the country against the wishes of MPs - is not democracy, it is dictatorship."

"[The SNP will] work with anybody at Westminster to try to stop Brexit, and avert the catastrophe of a no-deal Brexit."

"There was this assumption that I took a hard-nosed decision to prioritise a career over children. Women should not be judged for the reasons they have or don't have children."

"I'm happy to work with anybody, male or female, to try to stop Brexit"

"I have profound concerns about the prospect of his premiership and it would be hypocritical not to be frank about these."

"He looks to me as if he is somebody who has no real sense of principal or conviction or real view of what's right for the future for the country. His only objective throughout his entire adult life, it seems, has been to get into Number 10 and be prime minister. Now the focus is on him."

"The President of the United States telling elected politicians – or any other Americans for that matter – to ‘go back’ to other countries is not OK, and diplomatic politeness should not stop us saying so, loudly and clearly."

"Scotland’s 62% vote to remain in the EU counted for nothing. Far from being an equal partner at Westminster, Scotland’s voice is listened to only if it chimes with that of the UK majority; if it does not, we are outvoted and ignored."

"Independence is not about the isolationism that characterises Brexit."

"While I do not agree with the decision on the EU reached by people in England and Wales, I do respect it. I hope the new PM will show the same respect for the decision reached by the Scottish people."

"I believe both Scotland and the UK should stay in the EU. Scotland benefits from being part of the EU, and the EU benefits from having Scotland a part of it. No SNP parliamentarian has expressed a desire to campaign for the out campaign - though they are not prevented from doing so. I am determined to make the positive case for continued membership in a reformed EU."

"I have opposed Trident and nuclear weapons for all of my political life - I even joined CND before becoming a member of the SNP."

"If I am elected, there may be an opportunity to change the tone for the better."

"A discriminatory and shameful piece of legislation that was imposed on Scotland by Westminster will today be repealed by the Scottish parliament ahead of other parts of the UK. That says something about the state of Scotland that we can all be proud of."

"We despise everything Tommy Robinson stands for. His values are not our values and they are not Wales' values."

"While it is clear that the UK needs a plan to defeat extremism and fundamentalism in all its forms and identities, I fear that the current UKIP leadership believes the best way to do that is to incubate and cultivate a rival fundamentalism"

"When it comes to a no-deal Brexit, we need to stop talking in terms of the hypothetical and theoretical, and start talking with candour about real and damaging consequences it would bring. It would be catastrophic."

"Leaving the EU is harder than a lot of people thought it was going to be"

"The details of wasted money spent on the Garden Bridge project is the final confirmation of the utter folly of the project. The Garden Bridge Trust have squandered public money in a way no responsible charity should have behaved. No charity needs to spend £160,000 on a website or over £400,000 on a gala dinner."

"I think that now is exactly the wrong time to have a pause. What we have seen this week reinforces the need to make sure we have active communities trying to stop people becoming radicalised. I do recognise what Baroness Warsi said about needing to make more of an effort to sell [Prevent] to communities. We need to do better there to show that this is a safeguarding initiative, it's about protecting young people."

"Even when you spoke to Boris in person, you never knew who you’d be addressing but when he gets home and takes off the mask, which version remains? The caricatured orator or the caring statesman. Does he even know? Or is he, like Janus, actually both versions equally, and happy to choose the mask that suits that day’s audience best?"

"The barriers to a two-state solution are well known. As a strong friend of Israel, I admit freely, but with great regret, that these include the expansion of settlements on the west bank. Settlement building is wrong. It threatens the viability of a future Palestinian state—the case for which is unarguable. It does immense damage to Israel’s standing in the world, and, over time, it will put at risk that which is most precious about Israel’s character: its Jewish and democratic character. However, as Secretary of State Kerry stated clearly, this is not to say “that the settlements are the whole or even the primary cause of this conflict.”There is also the incitement tolerated, and, in many cases, perpetrated by the Palestinian Authority. I am talking about the payment of “salaries” to those convicted of terrorist offences, and the naming of schools, streets and sports tournaments after so-called martyrs, thereby glorifying their violence. Then there is the greatest barrier of all: the rejectionist, anti-Semitic ideology of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, which denies Israel’s very right to exist, and the terrorism that inevitably flows from it."

"There was one incident when I wore plain fishnets to parliament. I received so many overly sexual, misogynistic comments that I took the tights off and threw them in the bin and never wore fishnets again. I spoke to a more senior female MP. She told me to ignore it saying, ‘it’s all banter’. She told equivalent stories women MPs have been through. There were lots of stories of MPs looking up their skirt. The parliamentary environment needs to change."

"The good thing is now post-Me Too movement, we are not putting up with it. Some of the men have not moved forward. They still think it is acceptable to be sexist and misogynistic. When I was a whip, an MP was talking about me having a real whip in the tea room in parliament. It happened more than once. It became very uncomfortable and embarrassing for me. Parliament was designed for men only and there is still that prevailing attitude that this is a man’s place and the women are just window dressing and there is that entitlement to belittle women."

"We must finally see an end to cruel and inhumane conversion therapies, which have been allowed to spread fear and hatred in our society for far too long."

"I promised the youth that they would have a voice through me. We must encourage our youth, listen to them and help them to resolve youth issues. After all, they are our future. Guess what—not all youth are yobs, and not all yobs are youth. Furthermore, youths are victims of antisocial behaviour, more than any other group in our society. I will campaign and lobby extremely hard for my constituents in Brent, South to further their concerns and to put forward the case for social justice in Brent, South, the UK and worldwide."

"I am proud to be a GMB member and a former officer. I strive to ensure that my contributions continue to aid the historic constructive working relations between the Labour party and the trade union movement. The Warwick agreement, which was referred to in our manifesto, is another historic agreement which only the Labour party could achieve."

"This is modern, progressive politics reflecting our society."

"I am proud to represent the Labour party, which has pledged to end the equal pay gap. My constituency has more women living in it than men—52 per cent.—and equal pay has a direct effect on economic stability and business prosperity, and a direct correlation with child poverty. If we are serious about tackling those issues, the gap must be closed, and soon. I am confident that I will be working hard with my Government to ensure that that will be achieved."

"I am proud to represent the Labour party, which established the minimum wage, which some Opposition parties could not find time to support."

"I believe that Brent, South is a shining example of integration at its best. Brent, South deserves a chance to prosper, a chance to benefit from opportunities and a chance for my constituents to live independently."

"Any suggestion that I supported or condoned the vile crimes of child abusers is completely untrue. When Jack Dromey, as NCCL chairman in 1976, vigorously opposed PIE at the NCCL AGM, he did so with the full support of the Executive Committee and myself as general secretary. As the NCCL archives demonstrate, I consistently distinguished between consenting relationships between homosexual men, on the one hand, and the abuse of children on the other. NCCL in the 1970s, along with many others, was naive and wrong to accept PIE's claim to be a 'campaigning and counselling organisation' that 'does not promote unlawful acts'. As General Secretary then, I take responsibility for the mistakes we made. I got it wrong on PIE and I apologise for having done so. I should have urged the Executive Committee to take stronger measures to protect NCCL's integrity from the activities of PIE members and sympathisers and I deeply regret not having done so. ..."

"Our proposal that the age of consent be reduced is based on the belief that neither the police nor the criminal courts should have the power to intervene in a consenting sexual activity between two young people. It is clearly the case that a number of young people are capable of consenting to sexual activity and already do so."

"I called upon the women of the meeting to join me in this new militancy, and I reminded them anew that the women who were fighting in the Suffragette army had a great mission, the greatest mission the world has ever known—the freeing of one-half the human race, and through that freedom the saving of the other half. I said to them: "Be militant each in your own way. Those of you who can express your militancy by going to the House of Commons and refusing to leave without satisfaction, as we did in the early days—do so. Those of you who can express militancy by facing party mobs at Cabinet Ministers' meetings, when you remind them of their[ falseness to principle—do so. Those of you who can express your militancy by joining us in our anti-Government by-election policy—do so. Those of you who can break windows—break them. Those of you who can still further attack the secret idol of property, so as to make the Government realise that property is as greatly endangered by women's suffrage as it was by the Chartists of old—do so. And my last word is to the Government: I incite this meeting to rebellion. (Book III, Ch. 3)"

"There has been no other woman like Emmeline Pankhurst. She was beautiful; her pale face, with its delicate square jaw and rounded temples, recalled the pansy by its shape and a kind of velvety bloom on the expression. She dressed her taut little body with a cross between the elegance of a Frenchwoman and the neatness of a nun. She was courageous; small and fragile and no longer young, she put herself in the way of horses' hooves, she stood up on platforms under a rain of missiles, she sat in the darkness of underground jails and hunger-struck, and when they let her out because she had starved herself within touching distance of death, she rested only for a day or two and then clambered back on to the platforms, she staggered back under the horses' hooves."

"Emmeline Pankhurst, whose advocacy of such militant tactics as hunger strikes probably hastened passage of the British women's vote, claims in her memoirs to have met Anthony and been greatly influenced by hearing her speak."

"The militant English suffrage leader, Emmeline Pankhurst, came to see me in Connecticut and scolded me soundly for lending my name, energy and work to a "man's party." She had the narrow feminist idea, which I never accepted, of working for women alone. She felt that women should not work for any political party until they got the vote."

"(Do you credit Mrs. Pankhurst with having trained you in the militant tactics you subsequently introduced into the American campaign?) AP: That wasn’t the way the movement was, you know. Nobody was being trained. We were just going in and doing the simplest little things that we were asked to do. You see, the movement was very small in England, and small in this country, and small everywhere, I suppose. So I got to know Mrs. Pankhurst and her daughter, Christabel, quite well. I had, of course, a great veneration and admiration for Mrs. Pankhurst, but I wouldn’t say that I was very much trained by her."