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”
Jamessie
So how do those Brits that have been bested at every interview theyve gone to start work? We as a country do not have enough jobs for everyone unfortunately, so should we look after our own people first? or all the sods that come into the country?
Jonathan Brockett
This has been taken somewhat out of context sexism exists but men are mostly aware of this and on the whole attempt to keep quiet but when asked questions by the press the people hear part of the answer often without hearing the question. This happens a lot with UKIP.
Women are very very often sexist but this is rarely picked up, black people are often racist to not just whites but also other black people and Asians but this cannot be discussed due to fears of being labeled racist, their are homophobic straight and gay people and anti heterosexual views. The majority of people have a view of life and it can only be changed by civil balanced discussion, aggressive protest does not work and labelling UKIP as racist, sexist or homophobic due to some sound bites or the views of some of the candidates is ignoring the fact that the party is very diverse but also is not willing to be politically correct.
anjie
ukip is racist
Popcorn Chicken
I took it in and laughed. Anyone who believes the above is totally gullible. If anyone is mysogynisyic it is the moron who wrote it. He clearly believes that women are stupid enough to be swayed by pure fiction.
Jack P
which specific immigrant has payed £1+million to be here? surely if the entrance fee is over £1million there would be no immigration.. It’s got nothing to do about racism, or hatred of immigrants. It’s about the lack of work that is here in the UK, Yeah skilled workers migrated but still Administration is a skill. Brits having hard time finding work, then end up sponging benefits because they have nothing. Never having a job because they don’t have the skills/experience that other people might have.
Never been stuck in a catch 22 have you?