Male Labour MPs ought to again a girl when the celebration chooses a successor to Sir Keir Starmer, Harriet Harman has mentioned.
The veteran politician, who stepped down on the common election after 40 years in parliament, mentioned it’s “embarrassing and sort of shameful” that Labour has by no means had a feminine on the helm.
Chatting with Sky Information’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, she mentioned males with future management ambitions ought to “strive to be deputy” and help a girl for the highest job.
“I think it’s sort of embarrassing and sort of shameful that we think we’re the party of women’s equality, whereas we’ve never had a woman leader,” she mentioned, evaluating that with the Tories who’ve had three feminine bosses.
Ms Harman speculated Labour ladies “are more uncomfortable in our own party because our analysis is the power structures are wrong, they’re patriarchal”.
“That makes you quite a sort of irritant to your colleagues and uncomfortable and subversive,” she mentioned.
“And due to this fact, it’s tougher for them to rally round a girl who’s critiquing the entire system.
“Whereas I think the Conservative women hitherto were more or less, ‘we’re going to beat the men on their own terms’.”
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She went on to say males had a task to play in making certain whoever succeeds Sir Keir is a girl.
“All of them wish to be chief. It’s like they’ve obtained to only now try to be deputy and help a girl chief.
“You know, it takes a very strong man to be leader, but it takes an even stronger man to support a woman for leader.”
The query of who in the end succeeds Sir Keir isn’t more likely to be a difficulty for a while given he’s only a month into his premiership.
The brand new prime minister has his sights on two phrases in authorities – or a “decade of national renewal” as he has referred to as it.
His cupboard has the best variety of feminine leaders in historical past and contains Britain’s first ever feminine chancellor – Rachel Reeves.
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However Labour is the one main celebration to have by no means had a feminine chief, with the Tories, the Lib Dems, the Greens and the SNP all being led by a girl sooner or later.
Ms Harman was the longest continuously-serving feminine MP till she retired on the 2024 election, ending a 42-year profession within the Home of Commons throughout which she was a serious advocate for girls’s rights.
