Women's voices and experiences are missing from vital decision-making in local authorities. Donate to the Women's Equality Party so we can put up feminist candidates in local council seats across England, Wales and Scotland in May.
When you go to the ballot box, imagine being able to vote for a candidate you believe in. One that you know will make a difference in your community, and will fight for feminist change.
Imagine having a feminist councillor in every corner of the UK.
Now is the time to make change happen. On the cusp of a cost of living crisis, we demand more than ‘politics as usual’.
That’s why, this May, WE are fighting for equality by contesting local council seats in Scotland, England and Wales.
Only 36% of councillors in England, 29% in Scotland and 28% in Wales are women. We urgently need your donations to ensure our candidates’ voices are heard.
Whenever WE contest an election, we win.
Every seat we contest gives us a chance to change the narrative and influence policy.
Time and again, other parties have reacted to our campaigns by including more women candidates, placing gender equality on their agenda, and adopting our policies.
In 2021, WE contested the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner by-election and won a huge 10% of the votes when we had never contested the seat before. But more importantly, in just four short weeks we forced every single candidate in that race to make ending violence against women and girls their priority. We set the standard for positive action with our radical policies and we reached three quarters of a million people.
Across Yorkshire, in the areas where we ran a full campaign, our candidate finished in the top three. This tells us that if we have the right resources and support, we have the potential to run powerful campaigns that win seats. You can help us achieve this again in the elections in May.
A Feminist Case Study
Kay Wesley, the party’s first councillor was elected to Congleton Town Council in May 2019.
One of Kay’s many achievements includes establishing a domestic abuse clinic in Congleton. Thanks to this clinic, women in Congleton experiencing abuse can access support and action close to home - something not all survivors of domestic abuse can do. Since the start of this scheme:
- 83 clinics have been attended (including general advice, Police advice and Legal advice).
- 161 referrals for 94 individuals between October 2020 and September 2021 were made.
- 23 victims have been assessed at high risk of death or serious harm referred to Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conferences.
This is just a small taste of Kay's impact in her local community, from ensuring the council is a beacon for childcare best practice, to writing an unanimously adopted Equality and Inclusion Policy for the council.
With a feminist councillor in every corner of the UK, we can replicate this impactful action in communities everywhere.
Your donation will help us run in more elections, deliver crowd-sourced, fully-costed policies and hard-hitting campaigns to change the political landscape and make sure that equality becomes a reality.
The time is now, the solution is equality
In 2015, Sandi and Catherine started the Women’s Equality party because the change we were witnessing was the opposite of the change we wanted.
Back then, people tried to tell them that the Women’s Equality Party was unnecessary because progress for women and girls would keep chugging along nicely. Since then, the truth has shown its face.
The pandemic hit all of us, wreaking the highest tolls on the most vulnerable, and it is far from over. We are now facing a cost of living crisis and the impacts of Putin’s war on Ukraine.
There’s a narrative that takes hold during times of huge global events, that these things are all that matters. Continuing to campaign for equality is self-indulgent, as if such campaigns were distractions.
In fact, every news bulletin proves that the reverse is true.
Sandi and Catherine founded this party to try to open things up to even things up, and not just because equality is better for everyone but that its absence is so very damaging.
None of this is inevitable.
WE are building a world with equality at its heart but we have to strive harder than ever to build the world that generations coming after us actually want to inherit.
And we can’t do that without you.
The legal bit...
As we're a political party we're required to run permissibility checks on donations over £50. These will be completed as you make your donation and therefore we can't accept anonymous donations.
If you give over £50 your details will appear in our election returns, and if you donate over £7,500 your name will appear on the Electoral Commission website.
Published and promoted by Hannah Peaker on behalf of the Women's Equality Party at Kemp House, 152-160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX