One of the takeaway figures from the recent general election is the greatest ever number of female MPs elected, 264 out of a total of 650. There is also the greatest proportion of women in the cabinet (11 out of 24), including the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary. This election increases the percentage of women MPs to 41%, whereas women make up 51% of the population. In the December 2019 general election, 220 female MPs were elected (34% of the total).
This has been a long and slow process with the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons being Countess Constance Markievitz in 1918. However, as a member of Sinn Fėin, she did not take her seat. Sinn Fėin now has seven seats, and still does not take seats in the House of Commons. The current Sinn Fėin leader is Mary Lou McDonald.
The only other current female leader of a major UK Party is Carla Denyer, who co-leads the Green Party of England and Wales. She has just been elected to represent the Bristol Central constituency.
4,515 candidates stood for election to parliament in 2024, over a thousand more than in 2019. Almost 100 different political parties fielded candidates; with nine parties putting forward more than fifty candidates. Of these, 1,385 candidates were female (just under 31%), so it could be seen that women candidates were more successful, or, more probably, women were more likely to stand for the major political parties, where they had a greater chance of being elected.
It’s not accidental
However, the outcome of the increased number of women MPs isn’t accidental. It’s the result of campaigning, movements, organisations, caucuses and policy changes within the various political parties. Ironically it is the Labour Party, which is best known for the positive policy of all women shortlists, which has never elected a female leader, albeit Margaret Beckett stood in after the sudden death of John Smith in 1994, and Harriet Harman became acting leader in 2015, following the party’s defeat at the 2015 general election.
The political parties in the UK all have different ways of selecting candidates – interviews, open selection processes, preferential lists, leaders nominations, centralist executive decisions, local members deciding through an open meeting or local branches, and many other mechanisms. Some parties have deliberately adopted mechanisms to ensure gender equality such as A-lists and all-women shortlists. There are some organisations such as the Jo Cox Foundation, Women2Win, Labour Women’s Network, the Campaign for Gender Balance, and some trade unions that offer support, training, advice, and encouragement for prospective candidates.
Nevertheless, despite all the mechanisms, and the increase in seeing women leaders across the world, there is not gender parity in candidates. In the May 2024 elections, data from the Fawcett Society and the Democracy Club showed that just 34% of local government candidates, 26% of police and crime commissioner candidates and 27% of mayoral candidates were women.
Abuse and harassment
One of the worst characteristics of politics is the abuse and harassment of many candidates. Hate speech, targeted comments online, abusive and anonymous leaflets, disinformation and even malicious complaints made to public bodies have now become almost commonplace in UK elections. British female politicians have become victims of fake pornography, with some of their faces used in nude images that were created using Artificial Intelligence. These types of abuse appear to be targeted at women politicians, although the levels of abuse, harassment and crime against all politicians has risen markedly in the UK. Research carried out by the Electoral Commission into candidates’ experiences at May’s local elections found that in England, 43% reported experiencing some kind of abuse or intimidation, with 10% describing it as a serious problem.
The 2024 general election
So in 2024, more than a hundred years after some women got the right to vote, there have finally been enough women female MPs in history (693) to fill all the 650 seats in the House of Commons. The results of the general election 2024, when broken down by party are 46% of Labour MPs are women, 45% of Liberal Democrat MPs, 24% of Conservative MPs and 11% of SNP MPs and 75% of Green MPs (but this breaks down to three out of four). For the 27 seats in the North East of England, twelve are now held by female MPs.
However it is not just important for women to be in parliament, but the changes that they make when they get there. Women’s organisations have highlighted that women are more interested in health and social care, childcare, tackling violence against women and girls, addressing poverty action on the gender pay gap, and education.
As Caroline Criado Perez notes in Invisible Women, many years of data demonstrate that the proportion of women in a parliament makes a different to legislation, discussions and funding. History shows that women are more likely to drive investment in education, care, family policy and “Infrastructure related to women’s needs”.
This is clearly a different UK Parliament with more than half of all MPs new in post. There is more diversity in relation to gender, age, race, ethnicity, disabilities and sexuality than before. It is a better reflection of the UK population than previously, but still a way to go. However, there is a backlash, and we can never take the progress made for granted.
Invisible Women: exposing data bias in a world designed for men Caroline Criado Perez 2019
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