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?
Want to read more post like this? Then *sign-up to Look Left* and make sure you have the facts to rebut right-wing spin
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
512 Responses to “15 reasons women shouldn’t vote for UKIP”
Gavin Bartlett
James Bloodworth probably not worth much
Davey Driver
You say the migrants who do not work?
So either they are here pinching the jobs or they are claiming the benefits which one is it?
Lets look at the freedom of movement regulations
1) A migrant from any EU country has the right to reside in another EU member country for up to 90 days then they must register with the government department for that country
2) A Migrant must have sufficient funds to support themselves
3) A Migrant must obtain an EHIC card from their government before departing or they must have suitable medical insurance in place
4) A migrant cannot claim benefits from the Host Country
5) A Migrant is entitled to be treat the same as any citizen in the host country
So for the past 5 years your beloved Tories and UKIP have harped on about the migrants yet the correct EU policy for freedom of movement has never been adopted, instead they would like to keep blaming the migrants instead of addressing the problem.
Why do Polish workers get to send their child benefit back to their kids in Poland? Well it’s actually because many upper class directors also get to claim for their kids who are also in another country and as requirement number 5 says migrants are entitled to the same treatment as any citizen from the host country.
What is the problem in the UK? It’s working tax credits, instead of forcing employers to pay a decent wage the government is subsidising low wages with tax credits, which of course even the migrants as tax payers are entitled to, again under number 5
UKIP Harp on about the cost to the NHS yet fails to point out that ANY Migrant using the NHS simply has to give their EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) and the NHS can then reclaim the cost from the migrants country health fund, but they don’t because they say it’s too time consuming, so why is that the fault of the migrant and not the NHS? Surely if France, Germany, Bulgaria etc can find the staff and time to submit the claims for payment so can the NHS
Talli
These comments are totally ludicrous… have we all stepped in a time machine and travelled back 100 years? What did all our ancestors fight for if were just going to back down and become the “weaker sex”… will never vote for such stupidity in our country… DISGUSTING!!!!
Adam Day
I’d rather look at the facts, not the fiction people…
http://www.ukip.org/believing_in_britain_believing_in_britain_s_women
Enjoy!
Victoria
Even after reading all that? You are so backwards.