Women’s Fightback #32 launch

Labour’s election victory this summer was not built off mass enthusiasm. Only 33.7% of the voting public backed the party, and on a low turnout. Labour got half a million fewer votes than it did when it was defeated in 2019 and three million fewer than in 2017. Nonetheless, a Commons majority of 174 – Labour’s biggest since 1997 – means that Keir Starmer will have almost unchecked power to pass legislation.

If ‘girl bosses’ really did solve our problems, this would be the most feminist government ever. For the first time, women and men are roughly equally represented in the Cabinet. 46% of Labour MPs are women. And in Rachel Reeves, Britain has its first woman Chancellor.

Sadly, the new government is already proving an unreliable ally of progressives – let alone socialists or socialist feminists. Keir Starmer has ruthlessly attacked the left, and gone to great lengths to cut himself off from accountability to party members and the wider labour movement. On migration, trans rights, austerity and many other touchstone issues, Starmer shows little sign of breaking with the policy of the outgoing Tory administration.

But the election of a Labour government presents opportunities that we cannot afford to miss. We now have a government which claims to represent the workers’ movement. Most major unions are affiliated to the governing party, and can – if they are moved to by their members – have an impact on its policies.

So what should we demand, and how can we win?

Read our lead editorial in the new issue of Women’s Fightback.

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Women’s Fightback is a socialist feminist magazine produced by @workersliberty. We stand for trans-inclusive, sex positive, class struggle feminism.

Live in London? Celebrate the launch of the new issue with us!