feminist blogs

Several ex-Labour ministers/MPs etc are unsuccessfully trying to distance themselves from Labour’s legacy. Most notably, is Ed Balls and Lord Myners. These are obviously very personally motivated moves, especially Balls’s comments around immigration.

Ed Balls’s has positioned himself to the right of the right – this is a disastrous move and he would ideological demoralise a Labour party if he was to come the leader. He is just fueling an already factually misconceived dominant view around immigration that’s chief aim is to scare the public. If Germany and France are a little bit weary of Cameron’s euro-skepticism, they better hope that Ed Balls doesn’t become leader, as he desires to reconstruct one of the pillars that EU is based upon – which called for “the free movement of people, capital, goods and services”.

Many have commented on how this is an attempt to gain the support of the Unions to help Balls become the party leader. It is clearly a personal ego motivated move to distance himself from Brown who he appeared to be very loyal towards.

Another ex-minister attempting to rebuild their own ego is Lord Myners. He is basically criticising Labour’s economic record, even though he was the minister for the City. Considering his comments on his hopes for wide scale public spending cuts and a large-scale reduction in ‘public waste’ – it is a very good job he didn’t have his way in previous governmental policy. The Tories should give him a job for providing them with a nice rhetorical soundbite from an ex-Labour minister, and basically supporting what they want to do – ingrain and further the inequality in society.

In his attempts to distance himself from the previous Labour government, he bizarrely claimed that the government does not create jobs:

“The government can’t create jobs. The government can create the environment which is conducive to the creation of jobs, but it cannot create jobs and we mislead ourselves if we believe it can.”

Like Balls, he seems to be even more right than the right of the Tories. His argument is a no starter. By creating the enviroment the government is creating jobs – it is such a pathetic attempt to distance himself from Labour it is almost laughable.

Apparently, he thinks there is nothing progressive about what labour did economically – so obviously he thinks its regressive to maintain the global economic structure such as the banks so as to make sure that we didn’t have an economic meltdown?

Whilst I don’t agree with everything that Labour did in government, I certainly agree that they were right to invest the way they did in order to protect people from the full effects of the recession. The government’s current actions however, clearly risk a double dip recession that will be very regressive.

Earlier today, I expressed:

“I am staying in the LibDems to hopefully see that I am wrong, and that this coalition does work. Ideologically I am a lot closer to the Libdems than the other parties. But if I continue to suffer from these attacks I will not stay a Libdem for long. Nor will I stay for long if the LibDems seriously compromise our values within the coalition.”

After a day of sustained personal attacks, and my views around this coalition becoming the clearer the more I state my opposition to it, I have decided to leave the Liberal Democrats and join The Green party. Staying in this party has apparently to some lead to me bringing this party into disrepute, and I do not want that to happen. If I cannot voice my opposition to the coalition without being said to threaten the actual party, I am afraid my position as a LibDem member is untenable.

My policy disagreements are vast, but here are a few I am specfically adverse to:

• I did not like our policies on immigration already, but we are now going to support a total cap – illiberal.
• We are accepting their eurosceptic stance on EU, saying that we will not let anymore powers go from Westminster to Brussels. Illiberal and out of touch.
• Most of our policies are watered down or sent to comittees. Take breaking up the banks, house of lords reform, tax reforms are not as comphrensive as we wanted.
• We have removed our commitment to removing Trident, and actually today seeing the confirmation of more nucelar power.
• We can only abstain against many Tory proposals such as marriage tax, higher education policies that may include an uncaping of the tution fees.
• Inheritance tax is not dropped – will most likely reappear.
• It is undemocratic to have a new 55% majority to bring down the govrenment, basically securing the term.
• We are going to cut at a much faster and deeper rate, something Vince Cable had said would threaten a double dip recession.
• This is not a case example of the coalition PR government – it is a FPTP system – there would be more compromise and more consideration of other parties in a proper PR system. Furthermore, we have failed case examples of FPTP coalitions – take 1974 for example – which has not destroyed the case for electoral reform (my opposition has said to be a threat to PR).

I do leave the Liberal Democrats still fully supporting what they stand for. Unfortunately, I think we have compromised too many of our central beliefs in a bid for power. I know many of you agree with the coalition, and it has become apparent that it is best I leave instead of trying to argue my case within.

I wish the Liberal Democrats all the best in the future, there is no nasty feelings between me and LibDems. It is instead, like a lot of people, a great sense of disappointment. I hope people understand why I did this.

I have enjoyed my time in the Liberal Democrats. I wish the party good luck.

Thanks,

Jane

To see part 1, press here.

It is pleasing to see the EU taking women’s representation more seriously, especially when considering:

“in the 2009 European elections women made up 35% of candidates, 34% in the top 3rd of party lists (Greece and Denmark being the exception), 34% of MEPs elected, but got 19% of media coverage, falling to single figures in some countries” (figures provided by University of Exeter).

I think it is important to consider different countries’ attitudes towards women and politics when looking at what evidence the EU have cited in support of their view that women’s under representation results in women becoming less interested in politics and thus in turn reinforces their under representation. Due to this, they naturally support the need for quota systems, which I have argued before are based on paternalistic and passive notions of providing women ’special’ care. Instead, there is a need for structural and cultural changes so that women’s rights and opportunities improve and consequently their participation in politics.

For example, you can have as many quota systems as you like, however, without structural changes such as improving childcare policies then you are only going to get the same types of women applying. Improvements to women’s representation requires a consideration of different countries’ social, economic and political conditions. Redistribution is key to improving women’s rights, as well as men’s. More redistributive polices would help reduce the high levels of poverty women often suffer from, and through this provide them greater financial stability to pursue a career in politcs.

The need to consider the varying position of women within different European countries to help provide a more specific strategy to improve women’s representation within the EU is highlighted when considering the position of women within Italian politics. An article only last year, reports that the Council of Europe found:

“The most worrying figure was the level of female representation in local municipal councils, where women made up just 2.2% of councillors compared to a European average of 24.5%. The only country with a worse record in this sector was Azerbaijan.

Italy fared better at a regional government level, where female representation climbed to 17.2%, although still below Europe’s average of 21.4% and less than half of Spain’s 39.7%.”

Therefore different countries have more problems around women’s representation in politics, and instead of just saying, as the EU seem to be suggesting, this under representation is due to women’s lack of visibility in politics, there needs to be a closer systematic consideration of why women are differently represented in different countries. For example, the article referred to how:

“Italy has also has a dismal record in terms of female employment, ranking second to bottom of all European Union countries, according to a report by EU statistics bureau Eurostat.”

This highlights how there are wider systematic issues within the country and these will help us account for the varying levels of under representation of women within European politics and politics more generally. It is simple for EU to attribute the lack of representation in Europe as a problem of visibility, but with more careful analysis it is clear the problem requires a more in-depth solution.

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