The Conservative MPs have selected their final two contenders from whom its party members will elect our next Prime Minister. Whoever wins WE know one thing: women have already lost.
Britain’s next Prime Minister will be chosen by just 160,000 people - a tiny proportion of the electorate. Those people are 71 percent male, 97 percent white, 86 percent middle class and have an average age of 57.
The people who will vote to choose our next Prime Minister do not represent our country. Nor do either of the candidates on offer.
Boris Johnson was such a liability as Foreign Secretary that his own team kept him under wraps. The Tories don’t believe he is the best man to deliver Brexit, they don’t believe he is the best person to save our country. They are supporting him to save the Conservative party. Self-interest is at the heart of this race and the men left in it have it in spades.
Sign our petition to let the government know that whoever wins this boy’s club contest, the new Prime Minister does not speak for us.
Just as he did with UKIP, the leader of the Brexit Party has shaken the Conservatives with his simple anti-EU, anti-immigrant rhetoric. Instead of responding with honesty about their failures the Tories are hedging their bets on their own “man of the people”, Boris Johnson. Those racist, sexist “slip-ups” are no accident: they are calculated to woo back voters from Farage.
The runner up might look safer in comparison. But neither of these men understand or care about women’s rights or equality.
Jeremy Hunt’s belief that the abortion term limit should be reduced to 12 weeks demonstrates his lack of respect for women and our bodily autonomy. His voting record shows up a belief that men in parliament, who outnumber women two to one, have the right to control women’s reproductive decisions. Boris Johnson has a history of objectifying women, from pinning up a topless calendar while working for the Telegraph in 1996, to referring to women volleyball players as “glistening like wet otters” as Mayor of London at the 2012 Olympics. These men do not see us as equals and they do not represent us.