ALL-WOMEN SHORTLISTS - MEN ARE POLITICALLY DISENFRANCHISED IN 26 SEATS AT THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION

One of the least explored and ignored areas of male discrimination in the past 12 years has been the introduction of all-women shortlists for Parliamentary seats which has lead to the political disenfranchisement of men by the Labour Party.

By operating all-women shortlists in large numbers of seats, they are denying men the opportunity to stand for Parliament and becoming MP's in key seats up and down the UK. It is a clear denial of the political franchise and many men who wish to represent their community in Parliament are stopped from doing so, on the sole basis of their gender.

This blatant form of sexual discrimination is unacceptable in a modern democracy but this can never get in the away of the "higher principle" of political correctness and feminist fundamentalism. Under these ideologies, individual identity is ignored whilst group victim status is placed as a higher virtue and as we know women's rights are top of the pile, whilst men are at the bottom.

The outcome is that 49% of people who happen to be men are denied the political franchise solely because of their gender. If it was a small unknown political party, it would still be an issue, but because it is the biggest party (in terms of MP's) in the UK, this sexual discrimination is completely against all known norms of equality and equal opportunity.

Often, the feminist fundamentalist groups like The Fawcett Society, The Commission of Equality and Human Rights (under its former guise as the Equal Opportunities Commission), The Women and Equalities Unit and others complain that more women need to be MP's.

To achieve this they loudly and proudly declare that they want all women shortlists and want to discriminate against individual men. This site is agnostic on this as MP's should be chosen on the basis of talent alone and their gender is secondary. A grown up democracy that is not overrun by political correctness would accept this but these organisations are not made up of democrats, they are single-issue pressure groups dedicated to the advancement of women over men. They do not believe in equality.

Historically fewer women in the UK are MP's and this is not because of sexual discrimination but because fewer women have wanted to be MP's than men. Instead of dealing with this supply issue and finding ways to encourage women to be MP's, these pressure groups take the easier politically correct discriminatory option and make seats all-women only.

This stops Labour supporting men, especially those involved in their local community like councillors (many of whom are trusted with actually being Council Leaders or council cabinet members), from even putting their names forward. This is solely because of their gender, a clear and unequivocal act of sexual discrimination. It cannot be disputed.

So desperate have Labour's politically correct army to enforce these all women-shortlists, they had to bring in a law The Sexual Discrimination (Election candidates) Act (2002) (link) that effectively gave political parties an opt-out from the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act. This law was introduced because of a legal challenge (via an employment tribunal) under the SDA (1975) brought by some Labour men in the late 90's. So all-women shortlists are now legal but of course all that has occurred is that this form of sexual discrimination has been legalised and used hand over fist to disenfranchise men.

Under the well-known 'Law of Unintended Consequences', there has been some fallout. Peter Law, a long serving Labour man and council leader was denied the opportunity in 2005 to stand for his local seat (Blaneau Gwent) because Labour wanted an all-women short-list. He rebelled and stood as an independent, winning handsomely. He unfortunately died in 2006. This great stand makes him a hero of the men's rights movement but this has largely gone unsung, especially as the media (BBC etc) did not really cover the issue in any great detail. They purposely wanted to hide the heroic stand that he made.

In addition, many in the Labour Party have complained that the party needs more people from a black and ethnic background (BME) to become MP's, yet all women-shortlists, often in BME areas, has meant that BME men have not been allowed to stand either.

Ambitious Labour men cannot complain aloud about it because they will simply be told to shut up, go away and be stripped of any chance of standing for Parliament in the future.

In addition to the political disenfranchisement issue, it has also lead to large swathes of Labour MP's whose sole qualification for being in the House of Commons is because they were a women, not because of their talent, experience or skill. This is because they only became MP's because 49% of the population were not allowed to compete against them for the seat. They are second class MP's who have their seats because of political correctness and sexual discrimination. Some are now Ministers and a link to those elected to Parliament from all-women shortlists are here (list).

The list below shows the seats that have used all-women shortlists so far in preparedness for the next General Election in either 2009 or 2010. The message is clear to all men who have a vote in these seats:

Do not vote Labour because they stopped you and your fellow men from having the chance to represent your local community in Parliament solely down to the fact that you are a man.

Labour have selected their candidate from an all-women shortlist in the following Parliamentary constituencies:-

• Brighton Pavillion
• Burton
• Camborne & Redruth
• Cardiff Central
• East Dunbartonshire
• Gravesham
• Hackney South
• Hemel Hempstead
• Hornsey & Wood Green
• Ilford North
• Kenilworth & Southam
• Leeds North West
• Leeds West
• Manchester Withington
• Nottingham South
• Nuneaton
• Reading East
• Rochester & Strood
• Scarborough & Whitby
• Selby & Ainsty
• Sunderland Central
• Walthamstow
• Washington & Sunderland West
• Wellingborough
• West Ham
• The Wrekin

MEN - MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT

Comments

[Passing By]

Perhaps you should extend your list to incumbent MPs who were selected by all-women shortlists prior to previous elections.

[David Graves-Moore]

This piece on the Rights of Men (December 22nd) is absolutely right: it is shameful that Labour has lists from which men are excluded.
Unfortunately the Conservative Party now has its shameful "A List" of candidates which gives preference to women, non-white applicants and homosexuals. There is nothing to choose between the two approaches. Both are intolerable.

[oxymoron]

I think the Conservative Party has abandoned the A-list now after internal opposition.

[David Dryden]

Not quite right Oxymoron, you have believed/fell for the Conservative Party spin.

What has happened is that they used the A-List system for key marginal seats up until January 2007. They dropped it after about 85-90% of key marginals had selected from it, leaving those still desperate enough, to scramble around looking for one of the remaining winnables.

This was dropped not because of grassroots pressure (they don't care about the grassroots) but because hundreds of able men were literally walking away from the party. Many already have.

The problem with the A-List was that firstly it was only made up of people favoured by Central Office (huge numbers of Kensington & Chelsea hacks) and secondly that it was 4 times harder for a man to get on the A-list than a woman. The latter was a deliberate policy and a clear cut example of sexual discrimination.

In addition, the A-List still operates for seats where the sitting MP is a Conservative and is standing down. Ann Widdecombe's seat of Maidstone for example, is only selecting from the A-List.

However, since the A-List has been dropped for marginals, it has only been replaced by another insidious form of sexual discrimination against men.

What now happens is that for every round of interviews in a selection, there has to be the same number of men and women at every stage.

For example, if a seat is initially interviewing 12, 6 have to be men and 6 have to be women, no matter if 80% of applicants were men or 80% of the best applicants were men.

This goes on through the rounds, no matter what the performance of the individuals are. For example, in the final it has to be 2 men and 2 women or 1 and 1.

If women do better than men, say the top 4 are all women, then the gender quota would not apply and 4 women go through. Because the quota only applies against men.

This happened in Dewsbury, where because so few applied, 4 men and 2 women were interviewed in the first round. The top 4 who were interviewed were all men and the bottom 2 were women. However, due to the gender quota issue, only the top man went to the final and the top women also did, but she was 5th overall. The man who came 2nd overall did not go to the final and therefore was deliberatly and comprehensively discriminated against because of his gender.

It is also happening with the coming Euro-selections.

If a Conservative MEP is standing down, he or she has to be replaced by a women. No ifs and no buts.

Also if no-one is standing down, then the quota system discussed above kicks in and then the rest of the places are divvied up by gender. It is a hopeless situation for any man wanting to become a Conservative MEP.

There is only really a small difference between this form of disenfranchisement than the one operated by Labour.

All parties want more women MPs but because their approved lists are normally made up of 75% men:25% women, they can only achieve it by blocking men from being candidates.

They cannot find an answer to the fact that less women than men wnat to be MP's so they sexually discriminate against men to achieve their aims.