We’re a group of women in the Labour Party who in the spirit of #MeToo wanted to amplify the voices of victims of sexual harassment in the Labour movement.
In February we published our report into sexual harassment in the Labour Party which gathered 43 anonymised accounts from women who submitted them to us through our website in the previous months.
We thought we would give the Labour Party some time to digest our findings and recommendations and truly hoped that to the extent of harassment women were facing at all levels of the Party would encourage senior leaders to take action as a result.
At the same time, Karon Monaghan QC was commissioned by Labour to look into its complaints process, and the failings by the Party in the handling of Bex Bailey’s case in particular.
Her report was submitted to the Labour Party in May.
We waited and waited, but nothing has been forthcoming. The Labour Party has said that they are considering the findings in our report, but no demonstrable action has been taken.
Our call for an independent reporting system to ensure factionalism and potential bias is removed from the process has not been prioritised, and while specialist support through Rape Crisis has been introduced, we know there are real issues with victims feeling like they can access the complaints system, particularly for those alleging serious sexual assaults such as rape.
Similarly, our recommendation that sexual harassment training is introduced for everyone in the Party from staff, to elected officials, to members has not been forthcoming.
An exasperated Bex Bailey gave a moving and powerful interview on Radio 4’s PM programme yesterday, which uncovered the reality of the Party’s lack of action to date.
Unbelievably, the QC’s report has not been seen by those who contributed to it, and the full report has not been shared with the Labour Party’s Sexual Harassment Working Group, let alone the whole of the National Executive Committee.
Instead, the Labour Party announced they had passed the report on to the newly appointed in-house QC, Gordon Nardell who will carry out yet another investigation into the complaints process.
This is not good enough.
We know that Karon Monaghan’s report made a recommendation that the Party adopt an independent complaints process – yet once again the Party appear to have sat on this for months.
There are still so many women out there who haven’t reported their experiences to the Labour Party because they do not believe in the system enough to trust that it will deliver a fair outcome.
It’s what we began this journey calling for, and we will not stop until we get there.
We are fighting for the woman who told us “I was sexually harassed by a married male MP at a Labour Christmas Party”, the woman who “worked in the Labour Party head office…[where] male Labour Party staff kept a list of ‘Labour Party top totty’” and for the woman who was “sexually harassed by a Labour Party [staff member] for over 3 years.”
The women who shared their stories with us are incredibly brave, but there are so many more stories that we have all heard from women who do not believe that they will be taken seriously, or that the repercussions will be felt by them, not by the perpetrators.
It is for these women that our campaign exists. And we will not stop until we have a truly independent process for reporting complaints of harassment, abuse and assault to the Labour Party.
So where do we go from here?
Not all is lost yet.
We understand that Karon Monaghan’s report will finally be discussed at a meeting of the National Executive of Committee which takes place today and that there will be a discussion about Introducing an independent system.
Backed by LabourToo, Labour Women’s Network and the Labour Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party, these changes will finally give us an independent process for reporting and hopefully it will mean that women feel that they can come forward.
But this is our one chance for another twelve months. We are therefore calling on those members of the NEC to use their vote to make an independent process a reality - for all the friends, relatives, sisters, mothers and daughters that have been affected and will be in future.
Today is the chance for Labour to admit the failings to date, but to take real action to ensure that women are protected and supported in our Party. The Party needs an independent process, and it is now in the hands of NEC members to make this happen.
LabourToo is a campaign group of female Labour members who have experienced or witnessed harassment as part of being a member, activist or elected representative in the Labour Party