Public event draws large audience for MP’s talk on new book

MP for Leeds West Rachel Reeves launched her new book ‘Women of Westminster’ recently and agreed to give a talk about the book at the University

SPEAKING at the University of Huddersfield, a prominent MP has sounded a warning that the levels of vitriol now heaped on politicians could deter young people, especially women, from entering politics.  She called on social media companies to crack down on the abuse.

Rachel Reeves, who is Labour MP for Leeds West and a former Shadow Cabinet member, has written Women of Westminster, published to mark the centenary of the first female MP entering the House.  She was invited to the University of Huddersfield – which she regularly visits to meet politics students – in order to speak about the book and its lessons for today. The public event drew a large audience.

Ms Reeves described many of the barriers that had confronted women politicians over the decades. 

“In the early years it was incredibly difficult for women to put themselves forward.  They had to make huge sacrifices and it was difficult to combine a family life with being an MP,” she said.

Some of these barriers, such as the hours and working conditions had largely been overcome, she continued.  One of the newest developments is that MPs on maternity leave can vote by proxy.

So the biggest barrier facing women today is the abuse they face, said Ms Reeves.

“Out of 650 MPs, 208 are women.  But despite the fact that we are less than a third of the MPs in Parliament, women take much more than a third of the abuse that is dished out to members, whether that be on social media or out in the real world,” she said, and cited the most serious cases, such as the murder of Jo Cox and the death threats made to Luciana Berger and Rosie Cooper.

“And if you are a black woman in the case of Diane Abbott or Jewish in the case of Luciana, that abuse is much more targeted, much more gendered and racist in its intent,” said Ms Reeves, who added that the purpose of the abuse – facilitated by social media – was to try and silence people, particularly women.  It was carried out by people who do not think that women should have a place in public life.

“Social media companies should do much more to crack down on the abuse, often by anonymous people,” said Ms Reeves, who is worried that a future generation of young people, especially young women, will feel that politics is not for them.

“They won’t want to have to put up the abuse they will get just for doing their job.  So I think that if we are to encourage a new generation to put themselves forward we need to improve how politics is conducted and stand shoulder to shoulder with people facing abuse.”

Later, in response to a question, Ms Reeves described Prime Minister Theresa May’s speech outside Downing Street in which she heaped blame MPs for the Brexit stalemate, as “quite disgraceful and incredibly dangerous”.

“When you come out of Parliament in the evening, especially after a close vote on a contentious issue, like Brexit, you have a lot of people from either side with billboards shouting at you.  It is not acceptable when you are doing our job that you are susceptible to that level of abuse.  The advice now is that MPs travel together in groups when they leave the House.”

Women of Westminster

The starting point of Rachel Reeves’s Women of Westminster is the election in 1919 of Lady Astor, the first female to take a seat in the Commons.  The book then describes the careers of female MPs and the barriers they overcame over the subsequent century.  During her talk at the University of Huddersfield, the author told how women placed many issues on the political agenda that would otherwise not have surfaced.  They included equal pay, improved child care and equal rights of guardianship of children after divorce.

Ms Reeves claimed that women had changed the culture of politics and the culture of Parliament.

“Many of the women in Parliament, especially in the early years, were marginalised by their own parties and often ostracised by their male colleagues.  Having to work in the Lady Members’ Room, where they were largely confined, they often found solidarity and friendship not from their own party’s MPs but from the other women in Parliament.  That encouraged collaboration and cross-party working.”

For example, during WWII, women in Britain made a much greater contribution to the war effort than in any other combatant country, thanks to the cross-party Woman Power Committee, said Ms Reeves.

She was welcome by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, Professor Bob Cryan, who thanked the MP for the work she had done with politics students and paid tribute to the fact that two of the MP’s office staff were Huddersfield graduates.

Dr Andy Mycock, who is Reader in Politics at the University, conducted the Q&A session that followed the talk by Rachel Reeves, who was then thanked – and tipped as a future Prime Minister – by Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman.