Labour women will make the difference in the EU Referendum campaign

Women could hold the key to the EU Referendum result. There are a million more women than men eligible to vote and polling shows that almost twice as many women as men are undecided about how they are going to vote on 23 June.

This week has been a week of women-focused campaigning on the EU Referendum. We have had a Labour IN for Women press conference, where Angela Eagle, Kate Green, Seema Malhotra and Harriet Harman made the case for the benefits and protections that EU membership brings, and calling on women to make their voices heard in this debate. They also challenged Leave campaigners to spell out exactly which hard won rights and protections they would seek to remove from women if the UK were to leave the European Union. The week will end with a Labour IN for Women National Campaign Day on 28 May.

Whether it is equal pay for equal work, rights to minimum paid leave, maternity rights, and paternity rights, equal rights for those in part-time work or agency work – predominantly women – health and safety in the workplace, and anti-discrimination laws, the EU has had a positive impact on the lives of British women and their families every day.

As Angela Eagle, Shadow Business Secretary said; “Brexit would put this all at risk, allowing a Tory government to strip away protections for women in a race to the bottom on workers’ rights.”

To stand up for the jobs that depend on our EU membership and the protections at work guaranteed through it, Labour and our union movement are united in campaigning for Britain to Remain in Europe.

‘They’ve failed’ -; Tories Queen’s Speech delivers nothing for hard working people

The government made Life Chances a central theme of the Queen’s Speech and pledged new measures. The evidence shows just how damaging this Tory government has been. Rising child poverty, record reliance on food banks and record low pay growth shows the Tories aren’t delivering for hard working people.

This Government’s failure to build an economy that delivers for Worcester with enough secure well paid jobs, is resulting in a Tory decade of record low pay. The very last thing the Tories should be doing in these circumstances is pressing ahead with cuts to Universal Credit that will mean 2.5 million low and middle paid working families lose £2,100 a year.  

The Queen’s Speech was a wasted opportunity for the Tories to change direction on long running injustices at the DWP – while the Secretary of State may have changed the same callous policies remain.  

There was no action to reverse cuts to support for disabled people or in work support through Universal Credit. Nor was there any action to help WASPI women set to lose out through mishandled pension reforms or scrap the cruel and ineffective Bedroom Tax.

Labour’s transformative economics will lay the foundations of a new society that is radically fairer, more equal, and more democratic, based upon a prosperous economy which is economically and environmentally sustainable and where that prosperity is shared by all. The people of Worcester deserve better than this. Only Labour can deliver for hard working local people.