Labour chair Bridget Phillipson has accused Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch of using violence against women and girls for “political point-scoring”, arguing that women’s safety should be treated as a national emergency regardless of perpetrators’ backgrounds.
Speaking in an interview with The Independent ahead of Labour Women’s Conference in Liverpool, Phillipson said Conservative and Reform politicians too often raise women’s safety only in debates about immigration and asylum.
She said:
“We should come down like a ton of bricks on those who are violent against women – whatever their background.”
Phillipson added:
“Yet today, you only ever hear women’s safety mentioned by right-wing politicians when they are discussing immigration. It’s weaponisation.”
Phillipson says issue goes far beyond immigration
The Labour chair said concerns raised by women about safety should always be taken seriously, including in communities affected by asylum accommodation.
But she argued that political leaders also needed to confront violence and abuse occurring across society rather than focusing selectively on cases involving migrants.
Phillipson told The Independent that women’s safety was a “national emergency” and said her aim was for all women to live without fear of intimidation or abuse.
She questioned whether Farage and Badenoch had shown the same interest in rape crisis centres and women’s refuges as they had in high-profile immigration controversies. Reform UK was approached by The Independent for comment, while a source close to Badenoch strongly rejected Phillipson’s criticism and pointed to the Conservative leader’s record on single-sex spaces and grooming-gang survivors.
Government aiming to halve violence against women and girls
The argument comes against the backdrop of the Government’s wider strategy to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.
Its cross-government plan is built around three areas: prevention and early intervention, stronger action against perpetrators, and better support for victims and survivors.
Measures include specialist rape and sexual-offence investigation teams in every police force, domestic abuse protection orders, action on online abuse and work aimed at challenging misogynistic attitudes among young people.
New national misogyny taskforce
Phillipson, who is also Minister for Women and Equalities, this month launched a National Taskforce for Tackling Misogyny.
The taskforce will bring together government, local leaders and experts to examine how misogynistic attitudes can be challenged across workplaces, communities and wider society.
The Government has also announced £14 million for local projects aimed at preventing violence and abuse, including schemes tackling online harm, making public spaces safer and intervening earlier to stop harmful behaviour developing.
Class inequality also part of Phillipson’s argument
In the wider Independent interview, Phillipson said tackling class inequality would be a major part of her work.
She pointed to the treatment of working-class girls in grooming-gang cases, arguing that many victims had reported serious abuse but were not properly listened to or believed.
Phillipson said the failures demonstrated the need for institutions to take all women and girls seriously, irrespective of class or background.
Labour Women’s Conference set to open in Liverpool
Phillipson made the intervention ahead of opening Labour Women’s Conference on Saturday, one day before the main Labour Party Conference begins.
Her remarks set up women’s safety as one of the political dividing lines heading into Liverpool: Labour is arguing for a broad, society-wide approach to violence against women and girls, while Conservatives and Reform have increasingly linked the issue to immigration and asylum.
Phillipson’s central argument is that perpetrators should face tough consequences whatever their background — and that women’s safety should not become a political issue raised only when it can be connected to immigration.
