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UKIP’s head of policy Suzanne Evans is absolutely right to call the tampon tax ‘outrageous and outdated’.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”
Rollo10
No law to look into! EU set VAT rate and it’s currently 15%, each country is allowed to impose it’s own above that, but can’t reduce. Nothing that has had VAT applied can be removed, but must go to a full membership agreement!
Tampons were originally 15% VAT, but because VAT can’t be removed, it was applied for and successfully reduced, to 5%.
We really need to get out, because come 2020, we will be Totally under their control. Cameron has hinted at this, when he said “I wont apply for a third term”! Because in ‘Cities2020, we become REGIONS! Controlled by a ‘selected body’ NOT an ‘elected’ one?
blarg1987
However there is room to bend the rules, which does happen. And if necessary use our influence to change these rules.
Leon Wolfeson
Uh…no. Read up on this, really.
I care that you’re abusing a statistic here.
Leon Wolfeson
What, for knowing some statistics? Pfft.
Jessica Carter
But Laura Coryton did also report that Ed Miliband has made a commitment to end the tax: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11480018/Period-Tampon-tax-Dont-want-to-pay-VAT-on-tampons-Vote-Labour-not-Lib-Dem.html