Women Politicians In The United Kingdom

""[D]on't feed the trolls" misses the point: if someone is obsessing about you to the point they are seeking out those around you, ignoring them won't disrupt their behaviour before it causes more damage."

"Now that the parliamentary security team requests the details of your daily travel plans – when you'll be visiting your local supermarket, or the pub – it's hard not to feel that something has gone very wrong. Indeed, my local council records me as a safeguarding risk to my own children because of the threats I face as an MP."

"They don’t threaten criticise, yell or exert their physical strength in increasingly frightening ways. Not at the start. Not when they think you're sweet, funny and gorgeous. Not when they turn up to your third date with chocolates, then jewellery."

"You learn that "I’ll always look after you" and "You’re mine for life" can sound menacing, are used as a warning over and over again."

"LGBT+ Labour now seem to hate my guts and I feared they’d have a massive go at me at conference [...] The people who threaten me I don’t think are actually likely to harm me. They just say it often and very loudly."

"For the first time in my life, having been an ambassador for a gender-balanced 50:50 parliament, I would hesitate to encourage other women to come into politics [...] I would have to really think about what I was asking them to do, and putting people into this position when they are going to be on the front line of some pretty shitty abuse."

"[W]e should all welcome the protection from sex-based harassment in a public bill. It echoes the way that hate crime legislation penalises those who target certain groups based on their identity, by using an existing offence used to prosecute harassment – from the Public Order Act 1986 – and applying a harsher sentence to those whose motivation is shown to be about the sex or perceived sex of their victim. It is the first time the statute book will recognise how misogyny drives crimes against women. Yet, as ever, nothing is straightforward. Public order offences allow the accused to claim a defence that they thought their behaviour was "reasonable", even if no one else would. This contrasts with other legislation that also covers harassment in English law, and only allows a defendant to claim their behaviour is reasonable if others would agree; that they "ought to know" if their conduct was unacceptable. Without changing this element of the forthcoming public harassment bill to be consistent with how harassment operates elsewhere, this new law – while well-intentioned – risks giving perpetrators the opportunity to claim "she just can’t take a compliment" as an actual defence to a criminal offence."

"There are some women who get involved and want to be seen to be very woke ... but mostly it is men, and the same men that have trolled me ever since I got elected. So it looks like, feels like and smells like misogyny, and this is just the latest cause they have latched on to ... The fact that I am blonde — they call me a bimbo. The fact that I don’t like antisemitism. There is always something, but it is always the same people who attack me."

"Why do we think motherhood should be about sacrifice in some way – that every mother should be a martyr? I don’t want to be a martyr – I just want to be a good mum and a good MP."

"Do I think some women were born with penises? Yes [...] But they are now women and I respect that."

"[W]e know from police trials that classifying misogyny as a hate crime can encourage women to come forward, about domestic abuse, rape, forced marriages – there are lots of examples of how it can make a difference. All the evidence shows that this can make a difference. For comparison, there is a requirement to say if skin colour is a reason for why someone has been targeted. There are so many crimes that women have internalised. We have asked women to find ways of coping rather than asking the police to intervene and stop it."

"JK Rowling doesn't support self-identification whereas I do. Of course biological sex is real – it’s just not the end of the conversation. I am somebody who would say that a trans woman is an adult human female. I would say that you and I were adult human females. ... [O]ne of the things that happens to trans women is that they are oppressed because the patriarchy goes, "Oh well you’re a woman, right that's it, let's pick you apart". So it's right for me to stand with my trans sisters and say: "Let's fight these battles together"."

"Hogwarts gone wrong."

"What the police have said, literally, is: "If we recorded it, we will have to do something about it." And you think, yes, that’s absolutely the point."

"[Tominey: "Describing as 'bonkers' the need for two doctors to decide whether someone is a woman or not [gender dysphoria], as the law currently requires, [Creasy] adds":] That brings up all sorts of questions about what is a woman in terms of gender – what does it mean to live as a woman? I wear flat shoes, I’ve got terrible bunions, is someone going to tell me that living as a woman means you have to wear high heels for two years? Do I want to live in a world where we’re policing everyone who goes into a toilet? No. Do I recognise that there are very real concerns about refuges and safe spaces? Yes."

"We now need the data to know the extent of what is happening, and what we are hearing from police who are doing it is that it transforms the way they deal with violence against women, because it makes the link between misogyny and violence."

"How dare you take our longed-for victory, the electorate’s sacred and precious trust, and throw it back in their individual faces and the faces of dedicated and hardworking Labour MPs?"

"The Labour Party was formed to speak for those of us without a voice, and I stood for election partly because I saw decisions about the lives of those like me being made in Westminster by only the most privileged few. Right now, I cannot look my constituents in the eye and tell them that anything has changed,” she said. “I hope to be able to return to the party in the future, when it again resembles the party I love, putting the needs of the many before the greed of the few.”"

"As prime minister, your managerial style and technocratic approach, and lack of basic politics and political instincts, have come crashing down on us as a party after we worked so hard, promised so much, and waited a long 14 years to be mandated by the British public to return to power. Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous. I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear."

"[In March 2023, Duffield] dared to like a tweet by the writer Graham Linehan, who was responding to a tweet by Eddie Izzard claiming that, had he lived in Nazi Germany, "I'd have been murdered for it". Linehan – and rightly, so in my view – retorted with a sarcastic, "Ah, yes, the Nazis, famously bigoted against straight white men with blonde hair." You might well think Izzard was wrong to make that comparison to Nazi Germany in trying to score points in the gender war. But remarkably, in Labour land, it is Duffield who is being investigated."

"The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale [...] I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party."

"Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of these people can grasp — this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister."

"In the interests of full transparency, I should say that Rosie Duffield's a friend of mine. We'd probably have been friends no matter where or how we'd met, but we found each other as part of a group of women fighting to retain women's rights."

"Forcing a vote [on the winter fuel payment] to make many older people iller and colder while you and your favourite colleagues enjoy free family trips to events most people would have to save hard for — why are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment?"

"Is it starting to look like Labour has a women problem? It certainly is for the 7,000-strong group of women members, councillors and activists who make up Labour Women’s Declaration and had a stall at last year’s party conference refused. It is for Lesbian Labour, who were also stopped from exhibiting at last year’s conference. It is for Dr Karen Ingala Smith, the formidable feminist campaigner who compiles a list of women killed in the UK each year which is then read out in parliament by Jess Phillips every International Women’s Day, and who had her membership rejected after she made a few gender-critical joke tweets featuring kittens."

"We're watching not only those white men that run things having the safe seats, giving themselves the safe seats, but then they're the ones that get to judge whether or not we get to be candidates. So that's incredibly uncomfortable for me to watch from a so-called progressive party. It needs cleaning up, it needs tackling. It was the same under Jeremy Corbyn's faction and time, it's exactly the same under Keir Starmer."

"Many of us know that self-identifying as a woman does not make a person a biological woman who shares our lived experience. But for obvious reasons, these views are not voiced outside of closed rooms or private and secret WhatsApp groups. Even there, the most senior MPs often do not post a single word; they know exactly what’s at stake and not many of them want to be me. So for now, they mostly remain silent."

"Today I have made the extremely difficult decision not to attend local hustings events during this general election campaign. Hustings are usually an enjoyable and interesting part of any political campaign, but sadly the actions of a few fixated individuals have now made my attendance impossible. The constant trolling, spite and misrepresentation from certain people - having built up over a number of years and being pursued with a new vigour during this election - is now affecting my sense of security and wellbeing. The result is that I feel unable to be focused on giving a clear presentation of the Labour Party's manifesto commitments."

"Watching this I am concerned that the prime minister thinks homeless means "doesn't have a country pile at the moment"."

"Most backbenchers I'm friends with are women and most of us refer to the men that surround him [Keir Starmer], the young men, as 'the lads' and it's very clear that the lads are in charge. They have now got their Downing Street passes. They are the same lads who were briefing against me in the papers and other prominent female MPs."

"It seems Rosie has received literally no support from [Keir] Starmer over the threats and abuse, some of which has originated from within the Labour Party itself, and has had a severe, measurable impact on her life. But she fights on ... because she feels she has no choice. Like me, she believes the stakes are too high to walk away."

"Being shouted down in the chamber by Labour men who clearly don't want women to speak up for our rights to single-sex spaces. How very progressive."

"The recognition of the sanctity of treaties is surely the most vital of all British interests. But in signing the Covenant we pledged ourselves to do more than defend British interests. We undertook to uphold a common law of honour and good faith among nations. It is true that some signatories have since left the League, but in spite of their defection we have remained, and our obligations, backed by our signed word, remain with us... I believe that war can be prevented now if every nation still within the League is prepared to carry out its obligations. War is inevitable sooner or later if this cold-blooded experiment in international anarchy is successfully carried through before a watching world. It is an example which some will not be slow to follow, and Europe may be their playground instead of Africa."

"After the war I was one of those who thought, who hoped, who believed that Force had had its day, that Armies and Navies and Air Forces would dwindle away and disappear – discarded like broken toys that men had outgrown. But to-day – look at the world. To-day we see a world which has put back the clock, a world which is reeling backwards away from law, away from freedom, back to the triumph of the aggression of Italy – and the agony of its victim. In that struggle the public opinion of the whole civilized world was solidly ranged against the aggressor. What was the use? Public opinion proved powerless against poison gas. And I think the lessons we have learned from these defeats of law is that it is no good passing judgement unless you are ready to enforce it. It is no good giving a great moral lead if it is to be followed by a rapid physical scuttle. Justice cannot rule this world armed with the scales alone – in her other hand she must hold a sword. Unless we, the free democracies of the world, who are still loyal members of the League, are prepared to stand together and to take the same risks for Justice, Peace and Freedom as others are prepared to take for the fruits of aggression – then our cause is lost – and the Gangsters will inherit the earth."

"We meet in a very dark hour. The events of the last 3 weeks have shattered what remained of that new world-order which some of us have hoped & worked & striven to build for 20 years. They have done more. They have broken a great & honourable tradition of English foreign policy to which this country has adhered through changing Governments & changing parties for centuries. The keystone of that policy has been the refusal to truckle to the strong at the expense of the weak. We have consistently thrown the whole weight of our power behind justice for the weak – against the domination of any single power. This policy which the smaller states of Europe have owed their freedom & their existence has been renounced to-day. When the Prime Minister signed the Munich Agreement he renounced for us all claims to moral leadership. We ceased to be the trustee of a standard of justice & decency in international relationships. We made our formal submission to the rule of Force – & that rule with the acquiescence & sanction of our Government is the only rule that runs in Europe to-day. All this is hailed as a triumph by its supporters. I do not believe that any Peace worthy of the name can be built upon an act of flagrant injustice backed by Force."

"Dress suitably in short skirts and strong boots, leave your jewels and gold wands in the bank, and buy a revolver."

"She was like an extinct volcano, her former violent self burnt out ... What she had fought for had not really come into being; maybe nothing on earth could have brought it into being, so romantic and heroic was it."

"The political activities of Henry Asquith's daughter, Lady Violet Bonham-Carter, are of course well-known. Her father—old, supplanted in power, his Party broken up, his authority flouted, even his long-faithful constituency estranged—found in his daughter a champion redoubtable even in the first rank of Party orators. The Liberal masses in the weakness and disarray of the Coalition period saw with enthusiasm a gleaming figure, capable of dealing with the gravest questions and the largest issues with passion, eloquence and mordant wit. In the two or three years when her father's need required it, she displayed force and talent equalled by no woman in British politics. One wildfire sentence from a speech in 1922 will suffice. Lloyd George's Government, accused of disturbing and warlike tendencies, had fallen. Bonar Law appealed for a mandate of ‘Tranquillity.’ "We have to choose," said the young lady to an immense audience, "between one man suffering from St. Vitus's Dance and another from Sleeping Sickness." It must have been the greatest of human joys for Henry Asquith in his dusk to find this wonderful being he had called into the world, armed, vigilant and active at his side. His children are his best memorial, and their lives recount and revive his qualities."

"...condemned to death, Pardoned, drags out lonely years Conspiring among the ignorant."

"Armed for the battle, kneel we before thee / Bless Thou our banners, God of the Brave"

"I am one of millions who watching the martyrdom of Hungary and listening yesterday to the transmission of her agonized appeals for help (immediately followed by the description of our "successful bombing" of Egyptian "targets") have felt a humiliation, shame, and anger which are beyond expression. At a moment when our moral authority and leadership are most direly needed to meet this brutal assault on freedom we find ourselves bereft of both by our own Government's action. For the first time in our history our country has been reduced to moral impotence. We cannot order Soviet Russia to obey the edict of the United Nations which we ourselves have defied, nor to withdraw her tanks and guns from Hungary while we are bombing and invading Egypt. To-day we are standing in the dock with Russia. Like us she claims to be conducting a "police action." We have coined a phrase which has already become part of the currency of aggression. Never in my life-time has our name stood so low in the eyes of the world. Never have we stood so ingloriously alone. Our proud tradition has been tragically tarnished. We can restore it only by repudiating as a nation that which has been done in our name but without our consent—by changing our Government or its leadership."

"This year, the Tory party has given us five Education Secretaries, four Chancellors, three Prime Ministers, two leadership coups—[Interruption.] And, Mr Speaker, the partridge has had to sell the pear tree to pay the gas bill. [Laughter.] Is it not the case that, after a year of Tory chaos, incompetence and self-indulgence, the best Christmas present the Prime Minister could give to the British people is a general election?"

"It is for the Prime Minister]] to decide whether he expressed himself appropriately in the Commons. It is up to him as to whether he wants to annoy 51% of the population."

"But the quotations of contemporaneous reports of what Cryer actually said in 2003 show that in claiming that it was to do with "Asian culture" rather than religion, she had led the public to believe the problems were nothing to do with Islam. Since Islam comes from Arabia rather than Asia, and since Asia has many religions and cultures other than those of Muslims, the public was led to believe that what was happening in Bradford involved criminal grooming gangs of many different religions. But Cryer was talking to Muslim leaders in order to get the grooming gangs to stop; there was apparently no need for her to talk to Hindu or Sikh leaders to get their youths to stop grooming young white girls. Thus, even at the time, Cryer should have been able to perceive the difference between Muslim culture and Asian culture."

"We are aware of no evidence showing that Ann Cryer spoke out about the activities of the grooming gangs before August 22 2003, when Channel 4 News disclosed the existence of the 18-month investigation into the grooming gangs by Bradford Council and West Yorkshire Police, although surely as the MP she must have known about such a major investigation into their activities. Perhaps she had known about this investigation, but had chosen to remain silent, as the previous year she came under criticism from left-wing Muslims for "damaging race relations", when she stated that "Asian gangs" in her constituency were out of control."

"In 2018, she wrote an op-ed for the Sun addressing the "problem [of] British Pakistani men raping white girls", in reference to the Rotherham grooming-gang scandal. She was subsequently accused of being Islamophobic and was forced to quit the shadow cabinet. Given the treatment of Champion, you can see why many in the public eye opt, in the interests of self-preservation, to describe Pakistani grooming-gang members as "Asian" – if indeed they talk about the issue at all."

"Cryer said that it is because they do not want arranged marriages with “very young girls from their village” in Pakistan that Muslim men "look for very young girls through this organised sex ring that we are seeing in Keighley." She does not explain what part of "Asian culture" would lead the parents to want their sons to marry “very young girls” from Pakistan, nor why this should lead to "organised" rings of men who seek to exploit "very young", non-Muslim girls near Bradford, and get them addicted to drugs and alcohol and then turn them into prostitutes. Ann Cryer left it up to the population of Britain to assume that Hindu and Sikh and Buddhist men were also doing this, as these activities were supposedly part of “Asian culture”, rather than men from one specific religious group..."

"But what mattered most to [[w:Karen Ingala Smith|[Karen] Ingala Smith]] were women’s names, not numbers. So in 2016 she was delighted when the Labour MP Jess Phillips – who’d previously worked for Women's Aid – asked to read them out on International Women's Day. Now this roll call of more than 120 stolen lives, recited to a hushed House of Commons, has become an annual commemoration. "Dead women is a thing we’ve all just accepted as part of our daily lives," Phillips said last year, when among the names was Sarah Everard. The list not only put male violence in the national spotlight but, says Ingala Smith, "Family after family have said how important it is to hear their loved one’s name read out in parliament, and know it is recorded in Hansard for ever.""

"She compares activist-journalist Owen Jones and Novara Media writers to noisy, overexcited children who have had too much sugar – "Who cares what they think, frankly.""

"[The UK is] in desperate need and our politics [is] in even greater need of cleaning up and I thank everyone in this room for making a really good spectacle of proving that for me."