[Catkins]

I'd like to set down a few thoughts on the Women's Equality Party, and I'd appreciate input as to whether I'm barking up the wrong tree.

I noticed the WEP were standing against that little toad Philip Davies in Shipley, but also noted that Labour were in second place and the only party with a realistic chance of kicking him out if the vote didn't split. This was commented on by the Guardian as wellhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... es-shipley

The "non partisan" WEP have now put up 4 further candidates - all running against Labour incumbents.

The most egregious is against Catherine West, in Hornsey & Wood Green, and shadow Foreign Office Minister. As a disclaimer, I know her from my Labour activist days, but you could not get a more feminist MP, nor hard-working constituency representative. She voted against Article 50 (WEP is supposedly in favour of remain), for EU citizen rights, and is great on human rights, women's issues, and LGBT rights, as well as the treatment of refugees. She'd also like Ken Livingstone expelled rather than suspended.

I also admire the fact she's brave enough to put out an election leaflet which not only has a picture of Jezza on it, she's pictured holding a "refugees welcome here" sign!

Catherine overturned a huge Lib Dem majority in 2015, defeating Lynne Featherstone. The 'non partisan' WEP candidate against her, Nimco Ali, is a personal friend of Featherstone, and also endorsed her at the 2015 election. The endorsement leaflet can be viewed here https://politicalscrapbook.net/2015/04/ ... rs-of-eve/. Ali also endorsed Zac Goldsmith for the Mayoral election, and was offered the Conservative candidacy of Bristol East for this election, but turned it down. When West's pro-women stance has been pointed out to Ali (Ali is an anti-FGM campaigner, but West raised FGM in her maiden speech), she's said that the Lib Dem candidate is a woman so voting for her won't let a man in if she splits the vote. She just has to run against Labour as it's an anti-equality party. and of course West stood against an "amazing feminist" in 2015 https://twitter.com/NimkoAli/status/858240740165550080

So, the WEP battle in Hornsey seems to be at least in part motivated by personal animosity. Nationally, WEP seem to be making life difficult for Labour by vote splitting. That could be a coincidence, or not.

Thoughts?

[bluebellnutter]

Classic left-wing "People's Front of Judea" stuff at best.

BTW, if they're for equality, why do they need the "Women's" caveat?

[mr angry manchester]

Millie Tant from Viz springs to mind.

[Abernathy]

It's the brain-spawn of the evil Toksvig.

At the risk of appearing a bit Sid the Sexist, I don't really see the point. The curious behaviour in respect of the WEP standing candidates does nothing to reassure me.

[Arrowhead]

Looking through the election results, I see Catherine West managed to increase her majority by the little matter of an extra 19,000 votes on the night, leaving her with a new majority of more than 30,000. I think it's fair to say the WEP standing a candidate in this seat made zero impact to the eventual outcome, thankfully.

Two seats where the WEP did potentially exert some influence were Stirling (CON majority over SNP of 148, WEP 337 votes) and of course Shipley where the WEP attracted over a thousand votes in what turned out to be an uncomfortably tight contest versus Labour for the odious Philip Davies.

Incidentally, Labour have somehow managed to attract an extra 22,000 voters in Hornsey and Wood Green since the 2010 election

[youngian]

At the risk of appearing a bit Sid the Sexist, I don't really see the point.

Sophie Walker I would
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Speaking of backfiring electoral efforts UKIP standing down in Peterborough in favour of Brexit loon Stewart Jackson lost him his seat as they didn't calculate Kippers moving to Labour.