On 18 January, the newly-formed ‘UK Women’s March’ led rallies and marches across Britain and Belfast in opposition supposedly to women’s oppression. A statement it published beforehand, however, included neither political demands nor any clue that the events would launch any campaign. The chosen name of the organisation was certainly not auspicious; the content of its national statement and the conduct of its marches confirmed a politically backward character. The SWP was like a rash all over the build-up to the marches while much of the opportunist left joined in events which had no political content, and which thereby reduced the oppression of women to a question of male violence.
So what of its name? Socialists and anti-imperialists reject the concept of the United Kingdom as colonialist since it embraces not just England, Scotland and Wales (Great Britain) but the occupied Six Counties in the north of Ireland as well. It is used to legitimise both the occupation and the denial of the right of the Irish people to self-determination. This should be a very basic point even for the opportunist left organisations in Britain, but there was not a peep from them about it.
The backwardness revealed by the organisation’s name was amplified by its national statement. It revealed no motive for establishing itself on 12 November other than Trump’s electoral victory which took place a week earlier. It did not put forward any campaigning purpose even though it pointed to the appalling legal position of abortion in Britain which remains in general a criminal offence, with the 1967 Act allowing exemption if the pregnancy has not reached 24 weeks, and two doctors agree to the termination. There was no presentation of the need for women to have access to free abortion on demand – for instance, the way that midwifery services have been driven into the ground by constant NHS cuts, and how for many, raising children is unaffordable with the two-child benefit cap, the overall benefit cap, soaring rents and child care costs.
The statement also chose to highlight the appalling position for women in Afghanistan and Iran – two Muslim countries subject to brutal sanctions from US, British and EU imperialism. But there was nothing about the impact of the genocidal war on Palestinian women in Gaza – an egregious omission. Nor did it mention non-Muslim countries where the treatment of women is equally brutal. The statement ominously echoed Labour leaders 20 years ago when they justified the onslaught on Afghanistan by saying that it was the route to liberating Afghani women – a ‘humanitarian intervention’.
In the end, there appeared to be no purpose to the campaign other than to denounce male violence towards women, call on politicians to pay more attention to this, and for police to take broader action. In line with this, Labour politicians were allowed to speak at many of the rallies – Labour Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell in Liverpool, MPs Nadia Whittome in Nottingham and Bell Ribeiro-Addy in London. Local march organisers expressed a sycophantic attitude to the police. In Glasgow there were effusive thanks for what was described as significant police efforts to locate an assembly point and march route. In Liverpool, when FRFI notified the local organiser that the march should organise to oppose anti-abortionists who might well be in the city centre at the same time, the response was to liaise with Merseyside police as ‘we’d like to keep this march peaceful’.
The conduct of the marches highlighted the naivety of many of the organisers. With no declared purpose, there was little incentive to participate beyond expressing opposition to male violence, and even in the biggest cities they numbered no more than a few hundred, and were generally middle class in composition. The London march coincided with the national PSC march that day – whatever the intentions of the organisers, it effectively became a counter-mobilisation with the SWP playing a leading role. In Liverpool, FRFI supporters heckled Spurrell for the record of the Labour government but were met with substantial opposition from the crowd. Later on, when the march encountered a display organised by the anti-abortionists, the stewards kept people moving past. In Brighton a reactionary group of trans-exclusionary radical ‘feminists’ managed to speak from the platform despite the commitment of the national statement to trans rights.
The uncritical support offered by the opportunist left at these events trivialised the oppression of women. In its report of the London march, Socialist Worker quoted Ribeiro-Addy saying that ‘Oppression is interconnected so our feminism has to be intersectional too. Feminism which doesn’t challenge racism and imperialism is no feminism. Women are not free until all women are free.’ Yet the report did not point out her hypocrisy given her continued membership of an imperialist, racist and pro-Zionist party and her support for a government which refuses to end the two-child benefit cap. The Communist concluded that ‘only by building a Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) can women’s oppression – rooted in capitalism and class society – be overthrown.’ Immediate political questions do not bother the RCP. Real attacks on working class women epitomised by benefit caps, the need to fight for free and safe abortion on demand – have just one answer: build the RCP. Participating in practical activity is beneath these fantasists. The Socialist Worker report included the perennial injunction to take the issue into the trade unions – but the unions do not organise among those sections of the working class where the issue of the overall benefit cap or the two-child benefit cap represent the difference between poverty and destitution for families, and over many decades they have not been bothered by the legal status of abortion. Fighting women’s oppression needs real action, not the bromides of the left.
Ellie O’Hara
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 304 February/March 2025
