The UKIP leader has shown his contempt for women's bodies numerous times - yet he's trying to woo female voters by promising what other parties won't
UKIP announced yesterday that it wants to scrap the VAT on tampons. Currently, women’s sanitary products are classed as ‘non-essential luxury items’ by the Treasury, meaning they are taxed at five per cent.
UKIP’s head of policy Suzanne Evans is absolutely right to call the tampon tax ‘outrageous and outdated’. When you consider that condoms and the pill are free on the NHS, the fact that we pay for tampons at all seems ludicrous; it’s all part of the same system!
The list of things that George Osborne considers to be more essential than tampons includes:
Ornamental vegetables
Alcoholic jellies
Helicopters
Twiglets
Antiques
In February, David Cameron promised a group of students that he would look into the law:
“Some VAT things you can change. Other VAT things, if they’re linked to other products, it’s quite difficult to do it within the framework of European laws and I can’t remember the answer.
“I think it’s very difficult to do but I’ll have to go away and have a look and come back to you.”
– but has yet to make any further comment. Labour, the Greens and the SNP have so far been silent on the issue.
So it is great that UKIP have drawn attention to the issue; I hope that David Cameron and Ed Miliband will realise that they cannot allow a party as misogynistic as UKIP to outdo them on something so obvious as tampon tax.
Just to recap on UKIP’s usual view on women:
Nigel Farage has described paid maternity leave as ‘lunacy’:
“With this lunacy, that if you have children you get three months paid leave off work, or six months paid leave off work – [Godfrey Bloom] absolutely got it spot on.
“His comments get to the absolute heart of the problem of the EU. Social policy against employment policy…that’s why there are over 20 million unemployed in the EU.”
Mr Farage thinks that women are ‘worth less’ to City employers for ‘biological reasons’, and that breastfeeding mothers should ‘sit in a corner’. Meanwhile UKIP want to make it legal to discriminate on grounds of gender, (as well as race) and numerous MPs have been caught making sexist comments about ‘sluts’, women in the workplace, and the existence of marital rape. For a full list of these see here.
So it will be bad news if UKIP’s announcement on the tampon tax manages to woo more female voters. We will have reached a situation of sheer insanity if Nigel Farage is the only leader standing up to end this unfair tax on women’s hygiene.
Of course, what the pledge really is is a way to sell UKIP’s anti-EU message to a different demographic. UKIP say we cannot end the tampon tax whilst we are still in the EU. Because no European country can exempt something that is taxed under EU law, removing the tax would require a Europe-wide effort.
But European laws can be changed, so long as there is consensus across the continent.
As campaigner Laura Coryton has pointed out, these things happen in small steps, but someone needs to take the first one. If the chancellor signed up to end the tax, the petition could grow to the point that it could be presented to the European Parliament. We need the support of our government if we are to lobby for change in the EU.
This is an issue that affects all European women; sanitary products are taxed at 27 per cent in Hungary, and 20 per cent in France. But besides the actual numbers, there is a principle we must defend: the rights of women to access products that are absolutely necessary for them to function, and necessary for hygiene and dignity.
So please, Westminster – don’t let Nigel Farage be the only one who stands up for it.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
49 Responses to “Please don’t let Nigel Farage be the only one who stands up to the tampon tax”
Guest
Thanks for showing how much you hate it, and Britain.
Populist Alliance
The article states “but European laws can be changed, so long as there is consensus across the continent.” Why should we have to get agreement with umpteen member states just to take this one simple step? Getting out of the EU would mean this and other decisions being taken quickly, without long bureaucratic delays. In any case surely it is the message of opposing the tampon tax that counts, not the messenger….unless we would rather no party planned to scrap it. Given that the Labour/Lib Dem/Tory and Green Parties all support EU membership they have no option but to accept the tampon tax.
Guest
Ooh, ooh, why should we bother following rules to agree.
You want the tampon tax, it’s clear so you can simply blame the EU, as you refuse to actually look at the relevant law – it can probably in fact be done with a redefinition of the class of products tampons fall under.
Getting out the EU can slash trade and make sure millions of women can’t afford them even without VAT, too. Yay for your plans!
PS, Farrage has failed to join the EU Parliament working group on VAT reform, so he’s posturing on this.
George McCarthy
You’re merely fluffing the facts. Economically Active; means they have an Income and contribute to Society, by paying tax and so on, even a Pensioner can be retired but Economically Active, paying tax on Interest. Unemployed; means they don’t work but receive JSA and are ‘Economically Active, by seeking work. Economically In-Active; means they have no income, receive no funding from the state and do not contribute to society! These are the people who have fell through the ‘cracks’, ever thought where the people who get sanctioned are placed, because they’re not counted in any other list? NEETS is a term used to indicate they are in the system But Not in Employment, Education or Training.
We have 51.7m 16+ taxpayers, of these 32.7m are EA, of these 30.8m are Employed and 1.9m are Unemployed, which leaves 19m Economically In-Active.
George McCarthy
“These are terms useful primarily for statistical trends.”
Why is it NEVER used? Cameron mentioned it once in five years, in a speech in 2011, he was rattling on, then said, ….”and the Economically In-Active……….are the lowest for years”! That was it, …when I looked, I found they had jumped 1.5m on his watch?