Philip Davies doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to women's rights, and he shouldn't pretend that he does

Philip Davies MP has spent his Friday (and it’s not the first) complaining about the Combating Violence Against Women Bill because he believes it’s “discriminatory” and “sexist”. And none of us should be surprised, given his track record on women’s issues – this is the same MP who said that the creation of the Women and Equalities Committee in 2015 was “one of the most depressing things to happen” (clearly he’d never taken a history module on the Second World War). Davies is, somewhat ironically, now a member of this committee – although he wants to change the name to omit the word “women”. Presumably because using the word “women” is sexist too.

He’s managed to beat his own time record today at the third reading of the Bill, moaning for a total of 93 minutes about his lack of support for equality. This is compared to 78 minutes which he spent protesting about it at the second reading. That’s a total of three hours spent talking in an attempt to derail what will hopefully be one of the most important developments for women’s rights in the 21^st century.

The Bill was thankfully voted through by 138 cross-party MPs today, but it would have been nice if the process didn’t have to include a patronising man doing sexist mansplaining in parliament, wouldn’t it?

Davies’ main argument seems to be that he believes the UK is doing “a whole lot better” when it comes to dealing with violence against women than practically every other country in the world. He claims that he is frustrated with “foreign” policies such as this one, apparently telling the UK what to do. In fact he thinks we’re doing so well when it comes to tackling violence against women and girls that we should lecture other countries on how to do it.

So let’s just take a look at the statistics on violence against women in the UK, and what we as a country are doing about changing things. Are they really as impressive as Davies says?

In this country, one in four women experience domestic violence, one in five women experience sexual violence, and two women are killed every week by a current or former male partner. It doesn’t seem to me like we should be bragging about how well we’re doing when it comes to gender-based violence.

Despite the high numbers, only 15 per cent of those who experience sexual violence choose to report to the police – and only 5.7 per cent of those reported rape cases end in a conviction for the perpetrator. That means that less than 1 per cent of sexual assault and rape perpetrators are ever convicted.

The situation is not much better when it comes to dealing with domestic violence. Since 2010, 34 specialist refuges have been closed, meaning that two in three women are now turned away from a refuge. Again, it doesn’t seem to me like other countries should be taking notes.

Davies seems to think he’s an authority on women’s rights, but women’s rights campaigners tend to disagree. Rachel Nye, co-director of the IC Change campaign, which fought for over two years to get this Bill through Parliament, said: “We are truly stunned that anyone would want to deliberately wreck a Bill designed to save the lives of women.”

As a women’s rights campaigner and survivor of sexual violence myself, I couldn’t agree more. Davies needs to stop talking rubbish, and start accepting that his “amendments” are of no use to anyone – but perhaps great harm to many others. Is this really the hill he wants to keep climbing?