Susan Hall is not a feminist London needs inclusive leadership this International Women's Day
8 March 2024, 06:30
- Marsha de Cordova is the Labour MP for Battersea
There’s not many things I agree with Susan Hall on.
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She hailed Liz Truss’s catastrophic mini-budget as a triumph, she supported Donald Trump’s election, and she has amplified and encouraged racist and discriminatory content again and again.
So it’s clear to say our views are different.
But there is, surprisingly, one thing I do agree with her on.
Susan has said before that she doesn’t think of herself as a feminist. And on that, she is right. Susan Hall is not a feminist, and she is not an ally to women.
Today we celebrate International Women’s Day 2024 and its theme of Inspire Inclusion. Susan has consistently failed to inspire others “to understand and value women's inclusion to forge a better world.”
Her record and words speak for themself.
She once called Gemma Collins a “stupid fat blond woman”, who was “ghastly, really ghastly.”
Recently she has tried to distance herself from those comments, suggesting she didn’t mean to cause offence. But at the time, when she was called out for being disrespectful and offensive, Susan doubled down saying that it was “political correctness gone berserk” and that she stood by those comments because she “meant it”.
She continually repeated vile and sexist accusations about my friend and colleague Angela Rayner MP, Labour's Deputy Leader, months after Boris Johnson - not exactly well known for his feminist credentials - called it “sexist [and] misogynistic tripe.”
It is unbelievable that a woman aspiring to hold the highest office in our diverse trailblazing city and be its first female mayor has claimed that things are “totally stacked against men” and that diversity targets are “token quotas”.
The list goes on. And these are just some of the things she’s not yet deleted off the internet.
Whether on equal pay, violence against women and girls, or improving women’s rights in the workplace, Susan Hall has shown that she would be a be a disastrous mayor for women in London.
We can’t let her win in London on May 2nd.
We need a mayor that will stand up for women and champion our inclusion like our current Mayor Sadiq Khan who is an actual ally of women.
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