Brexit is a feminist issue.
Right now, EU law is what means that British women receive equal pay for work of equal value. It is EU law that means part-time workers, 75 per cent of whom are women, receive the same pay and pensions as full-time workers. And it’s EU law that means that it isn’t cheaper for companies to discriminate against women and pay a fine than it is to simply treat them fairly. Leading Brexiteers are all on record calling these rights red tape, and calling for them to be scrapped.
Low paid women, who are already struggling in an increasingly deregulated work environment riddled with loopholes for unscrupulous employers, will be the least able to weather this erosion of their rights. And yet all the evidence suggests that it is they who will be worst affected. No one is talking about this.
Read the rest of the speech I gave at the launch of Women for a People’s Vote at the i paper.
