The Brexit referendum ignored the voices of women. We need a Final Say to rectify the injustice

Decisions about the costs and consequences of the big political decisions should be taken by those who will bear them. That’s fundamental to our democracy and at the heart of the problem with Brexit debates to date.

Women’s needs were ignored by privileged white men on both sides of the divide. During the referendum, the boys club sat and debated itself as a “them and us” narrative took hold. Our media reflects and entrenches the same imbalance as our political system. Analysis by Loughborough University found that men dominated 85 per cent of press coverage and 75 per cent of television time for a significant period of the referendum campaign.

On the other side, women make up just a third of the European parliament, and while the EU has been the source of important rights and protections for women, it also needs to be called to task for its poor female representation and its myopic focus on women who work, to the detriment of women who don’t. Its focus on trade liberalisation and ever deeper economic integration has failed to account for and mitigate gender segregation and discrimination.

Since the referendum both Conservatives and Labour have failed to present a vision of Brexit that shows any spark of imagination or promise. And so long as women are outnumbered two-to-one in parliament, there is no such thing as a meaningful vote on the deal that the prime minister is now struggling to deliver.

The Women’s Equality (WE) Party has continued its efforts to shape the debate. Working with the Green Party, WE brought an amendment to the Article 50 Bill, to highlight the dangers of so-called Henry VIII powers, where the civil servants under the instruction of government can sign away equalities and employment rights without any democratic oversight from parliament. The amendment, however, was thrown out.

WE have consistently campaigned for a feminist outcome, whatever the final choice on Brexit, because we recognise that this crisis was made possible by years of austerity that targeted women. Women are bearing 86 per cent of the burden of the government’s tax and benefit changes – at a cost of £79bn to them, compared with £13bn for men. This has happened because successive governments have constructed an economy that doesn’t see the unpaid, invisible labour that underpins it, or the women who undertake that labour.

Thanks to Boris, Nigel, Michael, George and David, the Department of Health is forecasting in the next five years a shortage in carers for our children and the elderly, if EU migrants are banned from working here. The government is expecting women to drop out of work to prop up a no-deal or a bad deal. Sorry boys, not on my watch…

This weekend, WE are consulting our members at our conference on a change of strategy. WE will campaign with all our efforts not just to put pressure on the government for a Final Say, but to make that vote one that puts something for women on the ballot paper. The Women’s Equality Party doesn’t want a rehash of the same campaign for the status quo.

WE must work towards a future where our immigration system supports women rather than hurts them; that appreciates the role of women who embark on these journeys as family carers rather than enforcing dependency on the visa rights of husbands who relocate for work. WE would end the points-based systems that rely on some kind of asset, income, wealth or skill threshold, and thus discriminate against women. WE would restore legal aid to ensure access to protection and justice.

WE must work towards a future that sees trade deals as an opportunity to protect human rights as much as shareholders’ rights and where the impact of WTO tariffs on the public purse is mitigated and minimised by investment in public services, with an understanding that this latter is a core driver of GDP growth and social justice simultaneously.

So to those who led the Remain campaign, I say this: give way. Because the way we advance is by letting the least heard voices lead. I am not calling for a second referendum. I am calling for the first one to involve women’s day to day experiences and address their concerns. And as YouGov polling this week suggests, women have swung by a 12 point margin to supporting Remain. A representative rebellion could deliver the result they seek more successfully.

Sophie Walker is leader of the Women’s Equality Party