Thinking of voting for UKIP tomorrow? If you care even a jot about the rights of women, think on.
Thinking of voting for UKIP tomorrow?
If you care even a jot about the rights of women, think on.
Here are 15 reasons why women (and men who believe in equality of the sexes) should sooner drink poison than vote for the Kippers tomorrow.
1. Nigel Farage on women: “Godfrey’s [Bloom, former UKIP MEP] comment that ‘no employer with a brain in the right place would employ a young, single, free woman‘ has been proved so right. With this lunacy, that if you have children you get three months paid leave off work, or six months paid leave off work – he absolutely got it spot on.”
2. UKIP want to scrap paid maternity leave (in line with Lesotho, Swaziland, the US and Papua New Guinea).
3. UKIP want to make it legal for employers to discriminate on the basis of gender (as well as race).
4. This would also entail the scrapping of employment regulations against sexual harassment and safeguards for part time and irregular workers, the majority of which are women.
5. Nigel Farage informed City high flyers that they are “worth less” to employers if they become mothers or that motherhood is a lifestyle choice.
6. Patrick O’Flynn, MEP Candidate, also say that pregnant women in the workplace are a “disaster”.
7. UKIP’s MEPs have consistently failed to represent the interests of women. They have voted against or simply not turned up to key votes in the European Parliament on ensuring equal pay, combating violence against women and ruling out FGM, to name but a few.
8. Since the 2009 European Election UKIP’s only two female MEPs, Nikki Sinclaire and Marta Andreasen, have both left the party. Andreason said Farage “doesn’t try to involve intelligent professional women in positions of responsibility in the party. He thinks women should be in the kitchen or in the bedroom”. Nikki Sinclaire won an Employment Tribunal claim for sex discrimination against the party.
9. Roger Helmer, UKIP MEP and candidate in the Newark by-election, said, “Rape is always wrong, but not always equally culpable.”
10. Godfrey Bloom, a former UKIP MEP, was not reprimanded for hugely sexist statements such as, “[feminists are] shrill, bored, middle-class women of a certain physical genre” and, “Women, in spite of years of training in art and music – and significant leisure time in the 18th and 19th Centuries – have produced few great works”
11. Stuart Wheeler, the party’s treasurer, said that women were “absolutely nowhere” when they compete with men in sports where they are not physically disadvantaged. He said, “I would just like to challenge the idea that it is necessary to have a lot of women or a particular number on a board… Business is very, very competitive and you should take the performance of women in another competitive area, which is sport where [men] have no strength advantage.”
12. In November 2013, UKIP MEP, Stuart Agnew said (in a debate on women in the boardroom) that “Women don’t have the ambition to get to the top, something gets in the way. It’s called a baby… Those females who really want to get to the top do so”.
13. David Chalice , a senior party official in Exeter, has voiced his belief that women should stay at home and that “cash-strapped Moslems” should have multiple wives.
14. Demetri Marchessini, the party’s sixth-largest individual donor in 2013, said there was no such thing as marital rape, arguing: “If you make love on Friday and make love Sunday, you can’t say Saturday is rape.” He also claimed women should be banned from wearing trousers because they “discourage love-making”.
15. Need I go on?
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James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
512 Responses to “15 reasons women shouldn’t vote for UKIP”
LB
You’re dodging the question.
for someone just retiring, if they had been on median wage their entire life we can work out what they would have got.
Starting off they would have been on 800 a year. Currently that is 26.5K a year. We drop the 18.5% NI contributions made in their name in the FTSE. At the end of the year, they could make or lose. They get some dividends.
Next year, their wages go up (mostly) in line with average wages. We drop the NI into the fund, They make or lose, plus some dividends on the fund.
We repeat 40 years. Now even taking account of charges like stamp duty, they have a fund of 837K giving a 28K a year income leaving the fund intact.
The state offers 5.7K and no assets. Hence your reluctance to even look at what you will know is a better deal.
So what can you draw from this.
1. You want to hide the losses from the public. Let the poor be grateful for the little they receive.
2. You don’t want to discuss the amount owed, because people would tweak that it won’t be paid.
3. You want to do this so the funds flow, and at a guess, you make a living off the money. To hell with those who come later and want their money back. The perils of a ponzi
4. You won’t even get as a far as looking at the why this is the solution to the problem, even for the transitional cash flow issue.
5. The effect of all that money going into investment, real investment, and its positive effect on the economy, nope, you would rather spend it.
6. The effect of charges. In direct costs, Gordon’s tax raid would take 100K plus another 25% on capital off the pensioners funds. Stamp duty takes 10K off.
LB
As ever, you don’t understand that there will continue to be taxpayers.
===========
Yes, and you don’t understand two things.
1. The state doesn’t own anything to pay the debts. Or perhaps you are of the arbeit macht frei tendency and think the state owns the public.
2. Since you won’t quantify what’s owed, you are in cloud cuckoo land as to whether or not the tax payers can pay. e.g. Increase the pensions 10 fold. Not a problem in your world is it. There will always be tax payers. Poverty eradicated. Clearly bonkers, as is your position, because you will not quantify what is owed.
remarx
UKIP success is based on backlash from an alienated part of society, i.e. those from the lower echelons. It is a popular uprising fought not with guns and rockets but through the ballot box. This kick in the arse should be taken seriously by rich, out of touch, elitist politicians. It should remind them that their right to govern is granted to them by ALL voting people in this country – not just the monied and privileged.
Look to history. Those at the bottom nearly always bear the brunt of governmental mistakes and the demands of capitalism. Push them too far and eventually they will strike back against an unpopular, uncaring establishment to show that they need to be heard. The recent rise of UKIP support is a classic example.
So politicians, look inwards and downwards, start paying attention and make changes – otherwise UKIP will NOT go away.
Aidan Taylor
Is there any party which has not, does not, or will not have male (or female) representatives expressing so-called ‘sexist’, ‘racist’ or ‘politically incorrect’ views of some kind? The answer is of course, ‘No’, but in the good cause of demonisation, it would help if we could pretend otherwise.
With passing reference to scrapping maternity leave, I love the way the largest country in the Western World – by population – i.e. the US, is sandwiched between Swaziland and Papua New Guinea. Bit like trying to hide an elephant in a matchbox! Ambitious, but doomed to failure.
Samplethief
Most of these points are the truth. People just don’t like hearing it. Sorry.